Chess and mental health - Why the stigma?

Like most of you, I've seen my share of TV shows and movies with chess players and/or tournaments. The majority of these showcase chess players as eccentric, socially isolated, oddballs, with psychological "issues" My first experience of this as a kid was an watching an early James Bond film - From Russia with Love, the tournament winner was an unsmiling guy with overly large eyes who was secretly a member of the criminal organization "Spectre" Many more examples followed through the years, right up to last month when Beth Harmon of The Queen's Gambit burst on the Netflix scene, complete with her own psychological "baggage" While it's true that Fischer, Morphy and a few others had some real mental health problems, the vast majority of chess players are not this way. So - why the stigma? Does Hollywood and the publishing world think portraying chess players this way adds to their mystique? Does it make things more entertaining? Do these folks know they are perpetuating a falsehood?

You mentioned the Bond film: the American perception of Russians when that film was made, was that they were cold, unfeeling, non-humorous types. Russians were also known to have many of the world's best chess players, so that help shape the image of chess players.

Bobby Fischer was incredibly famous for a chess player, and his personality (one of an anti-social oddball) may have influenced the perception of a chess player more than any other single person.

Look at this interview with Kasparov:

YouTube

As the interview goes on, Gary sounds more and more like a stereotypical geek; especially during one point where he laughs awkwardly and snorts. And he was at one time the greatest chess player alive.

Chess also attracts brainy, dorky types. That's just the truth. It's just not a game hot cheerleaders and jocks go for.

All in all, it's just bad luck, I guess. The chess superstars gave been oddballs. Magnus (not so much when he was younger) has a pretty good sense of humor and seems like a fun guy. Players like Judit Polgar, a lovely woman, breaks the stereotype of the nerdy chess player.

So who knows. Maybe one day the a few chess stars will come along with star personalities that will change the perception of chess players.

@mchill said
Like most of you, I've seen my share of TV shows and movies with chess players and/or tournaments. The majority of these showcase chess players as eccentric, socially isolated, oddballs, with psychological "issues" My first experience of this as a kid was an watching an early James Bond film - From Russia with Love, the tournament winner was an unsmiling guy with overly large ...[text shortened]... tique? Does it make things more entertaining? Do these folks know they are perpetuating a falsehood?

You have to be a weirdo to obsess over a pointless game like chess to the point of playing at the top levels (Kasparov maybe being an exception)

@athousandyoung said
You have to be a weirdo to obsess over a pointless game like chess to the point of playing at the top levels (Kasparov maybe being an exception)

Morphy is credited with saying "to be good at chess is a sign of a wasted life".

@mchill said
Do these folks know they are perpetuating a falsehood?

You’re asking the wrong people.

chess players are far more noted for their eccentric players than football, that's for damn sure

Elephant in the room...

Does anyone think that this Forum is populated by high normal people?

LOL.

In all fairness, it is just as often a good thing to be abnormal as it is a bad thing.

@vivify said
You mentioned the Bond film: the American perception of Russians when that film was made, was that they were cold, unfeeling, non-humorous types. Russians were also known to have many of the world's best chess players, so that help shape the image of chess players.

Bobby Fischer was incredibly famous for a chess player, and his personality (one of an anti-social oddball) ...[text shortened]... hess stars will come along with star personalities that will change the perception of chess players.

Really. Do 'nerds' have to be ugly to fit their stereotype?

@suzianne said
Really. Do 'nerds' have to be ugly to fit their stereotype?

Not at all. You don't have to be ugly or unattractive to be a nerd; it's that a lot of nerds fit this stereotype, which is why "nerd" is typically pejorative.

@philokalia said
Elephant in the room...

Does anyone think that this Forum is populated by high normal people?

LOL.

In all fairness, it is just as often a good thing to be abnormal as it is a bad thing.

Totally agree.

The people on this board would fit right into a chess movie, filmed in an asylum by Johnny Depp on acid.

Stigma, what stigma? BWAAA HAAA HAAAA HAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !

But, seriously, starting with Alekhine, to make it to the top, one had and has to be more than devoted to the game; one has to be obsessed with it, and this, almost by definition, means a certain 'peculiarity' of character will be present. Em. Lasker was probably the last champion who actually had a normal career apart from chess, and Capa was, well, Capa -- boy genius, the Cuban govt gave him a fake job just to keep him out of penury because he couldn't have supported himself from chess alone then. Alekhine was the man who made chess into a profession from which one could, ostensibly, make a living. Alekhine received a doctorate in law, but I don't think he ever practised law. Dr. Lasker, on the other hand, did serious work in mathematics and a paper he published, "Metrical Relations of Plane Spaces of n Manifoldness," is still referred to in academia.

When I think back on my time in high school, the chess club was populated entirely by boys, not one girl, and, yes, we were definitely nerdy. Most of us were interested in chemistry, physics, or IT, not football, and not one of us was likely to get within a football-field-length of a cheerleader. Mind you, this was in the 1970s when Fischer was a rising star and chess was at least in the public consciousness, but it still wasn't sexy. Maybe it will take somebody like Natalia Pogonina to make it sexy.

@moonbus - Capa -- boy genius, the Cuban govt gave him a fake job just to keep him out of penury because he couldn't have supported himself from chess alone then.

News to me!

I always thought Capa was the child of a moderately wealthy Cuban army general.
I also thought he was quite a playboy, who loved his women, cigars, and alcohol. Did not study chess, won his championships on pure genius.