Inside/Outside: Representations of Invisible Illness in The Who's Quadrophenia

Abstract

In The Who’s second rock opera Quadrophenia, a fictitious teenager suffers from a mental illness that gives him four distinct personalities. Its main songwriter, Pete Townshend, uses the disorder and the four personalities as a means to represent the four members of The Who through the teenage protagonist, a young mod named Jimmy. Townshend reveals Jimmy’s disposition at the conclusion of a lament written from Jimmy’s perspective in Quadrophenia’s liner notes, in a harrowing confession: “Schizophrenic? I’m bleeding quadrophenic.” In this monograph, I will examine Quadrophenia for its representations of mental illness through textual, musical, and historical perspectives and how these perspectives provide evidence toward a storyline based around the cultural concept of madness. Mental illness is an invisible illness, for the inflicted does not present noticeable symptoms to others, making it difficult to perceive and accurately diagnose. That is why within popular culture, schizophrenia is oftentimes used interchangeably with multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder), as is the case with Jimmy in Quadrophenia. Although these disorders are not at all similar, both are considered under the broader umbrella of madness, a term which historically was of medical and legal significance but gained political and ideological meanings in our modern society. Quadrophenia was meant as a tribute and celebration of The Who’s beginnings within the mid-60s London mod subculture. The invisible illness aspect of the storyline is worth investigating for its avoidance of treating mental illness within the medical model, in which it is considered to be a deficit of normalcy that is in need of a fix or cure. Though Jimmy struggles with his illness, it is mostly viewed as part of his adolescent character and then further used as a way of musically and textually representing The Who and the musicians’ individual characters. The Who were the epitome of music and madness; their music often spoke in terms of deviance and disobedience, while their live performances were physical and objectionably loud, sometimes concluding with the destruction of instruments. Treating mental illness, as well as physical and developmental impairments, as difference rather than deficit, is a key principle of current disability studies and its cultural model of disability. This is in opposition to the biological model in the medical field. Society has constructed madness as a binary to sanity, and thus a contrast to normalcy. As this binary is still in practice today, society as a whole continues to stigmatize mental illness and forces it to remain invisible. The Who and their embodiment of mental illness in Quadrophenia are meant not merely to arouse sympathy for Jimmy, but also to empower mental illness as a basis of character strength. The following monograph begins with an introduction to music and disability studies regarding mental illness. The next chapter offers a glimpse into the literature on The Who and Quadrophenia, including a survey of a 2013 conference dedicated exclusively to Quadrophenia. Finally, a chapter analyzes representations of mental illness in Quadrophenia within the music, society, and The Who themselves before a brief concluding chapter.