Hollywood plays narcolepsy for laughs. A new report reveals the harm it can cause

Candi Wilmot and her 9-year-old daughter Adeline were at the theater watching “Snow White,” the 2025 live-action remake of the beloved 1937 Disney animated classic, when the film suddenly became personal.

“It should have been a fun mother-daughter experience, but it wasn’t at all,” said Wilmot, who has type 1 narcolepsy, defined by excessive daytime sleepiness, vivid hallucinations, sleep paralysis and sudden bouts of muscle weakness or paralysis known as cataplexy.

“The dwarf Sleepy was introduced as ‘narcoleptic cataplexic,’ which I’d never heard of,’ she said. “He would start snoring in the middle of a conversation or even nod off during fight scenes. Or he’d suddenly freeze and topple over in some supposedly funny pratfall.”

“None of that happens in narcolepsy. It wasn’t amusing, and it certainly wasn’t realistic,” she said. “I was offended by the character, realizing my child could be seeing this behavior and questioning my medical condition.”

A new analysis provided exclusively to CNN found films and television shows frequently use narcolepsy — an incurable neurological sleep disorder — as a source of humor, turning a serious condition that affects 1 in 2,000 Americans, and millions worldwide, into slapstick comedy.

For Wilmot, the worst moment occurred when Sleepy stumbled to the edge of a huge chasm in the mine, turned and began to fall backward to his death. Another dwarf caught him just in time.

“After the movie, my daughter asked me, ‘Mom, if you stop taking your meds, would you be like that?’” Wilmot said. “She worried other kids in the theater would see this and think people with narcolepsy put themselves or others in danger.”

“Snow White” is among 56 Hollywood productions released between 1983 and 2025 that feature narcolepsy, often only for a laugh, according to an analysis released Tuesday titled “A Representation Wake-up Call: Narcolepsy in Fictional Narrative Entertainment.” The release coincides with World Narcolepsy Day.

The analysis was conducted by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism — which studies how the entertainment industry affects social, political and cultural life — and Project Sleep , a patient advocacy nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of sleep disorders.

Although fewer than half of the productions analyzed were comedies, 80% used narcolepsy as a running gag. Among the 41 characters portrayed as having narcolepsy, 68% were depicted as incapable or unreliable.

An episode in season two of the original “Scrubs” series is one example cited in the report. The main character, JD, walks up to Turk, Carla and Elliott and says, “You guys wanna go laugh at the narcoleptic guy?”

As they walk to the patient’s room, JD explains the man’s sleep attacks are triggered by sexual titillation. What follows is a series of unethical attempts by the women to arouse the man and watch him comically collapse into sleep.

“No one wants to be the butt of a joke,” said board certified sleep medicine psychologist Dr. Shelby Harris, a clinical associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, who treats people with narcolepsy.

“It was really quite incredible to see just how insensitive the entertainment industry can be,” said Harris, who provided guidance on the project. “If I were a patient with narcolepsy and watched these shows, I’d feel shamed and belittled.”

Hollywood’s impact is so pervasive, experts say, that inaccurate depictions of narcolepsy can even affect whether patients seek treatment.

“When I think of narcolepsy, I think of “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” the girl is at the table just falling asleep — and I’m like, ‘alright I don’t have that,’” said former NFL player Josh Andrews, who was quoted in the report. Andrews was diagnosed with narcolepsy at age 26 while playing for the Philadelphia Eagles.

In the 1999 film, Bigalow’s date, Carol, orders soup for the first time. “This is such a treat, I’ve always wanted to try soup but there’s the fear of drowning,” she says before abruptly beginning to snore. Her head snaps forward into the bowl — only to be stopped by her ponytail tied to a railing behind her. Bigalow keeps on eating.

On a date at a bowling alley, Carol tells Bigalow that narcolepsy “isn’t the worst thing you could ever have. I’m just not allowed to fly a plane or drive a car or work in a gun range.” She then passes out on a middle lane while scoring a strike.

Some 82% of characters with narcolepsy in the analysis had exaggerated sleep attacks, said report coauthor Julie Flygare, author of “Wide Awake and Dreaming,” a memoir of her experience with type 1 narcolepsy.

“It’s a trick of the eye where you watch someone fall out of camera view backwards, and there’s a big thud and then you hear them snoring,” said Flygare, President and CEO of Project Sleep.

“That doesn’t happen. We don’t fall like a plank to the floor, or suddenly stop talking and snore, or topple over into our food,” Flygare said. “The exhaustion of narcolepsy is less obvious to outsiders, generally occurring over several minutes with time to sit or lie down. With cataplexy, our knees might buckle and we might crumble to the ground, but we are fully conscious.”

Some people with narcolepsy struggle professionally — at times because of exhaustion, but also because of stigma in the workplace.

“People with narcolepsy can be labeled by bosses, coworkers, teachers and even their loved ones as careless, incompetent, antisocial or inferior to others,” said Erica Rosenthal, director of research at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center and coauthor of the report.

In the first episode of the Netflix series “The Recruit” from 2022, Janus Ferber, an overworked, incredibly stressed-out lawyer for the CIA, falls asleep during a staff meeting. His boss throws a pen at his head and says, “ Hey, knock it off. Nobody’s buying the narcolepsy crap, I don’t care what your doctor’s note says.” The show was canceled after the release of the second season.

Narcolepsy Resources

Project Sleep’s Helpline

Sleep Disorders Symptom Checklist

Accredited Sleep Center Finder

Making fun of people’s differences or medical conditions may have been the norm in the early days of the entertainment industry, but today Hollywood prefers to reward more inclusive, socially conscious and medically accurate storytelling.

A predominantly deaf cast propelled the 2021 film “CODA” to an Oscar for best picture, while Troy Kotsur became first male deaf actor to win a best supporting actor award. “Love on the Spectrum” has captured 10 Emmy Awards for its authentic representation of the dating lives of young autistic adults. The HBO Max medical drama, “The Pitt,” won a 2025 Norman Lear Award for its accurate depiction of emergency medicine. (HBO Max is part of Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN.)

Yet even the best intentions can go awry. In the 2026 season two finale of “The Pitt,” narcolepsy was used as a humorous plot point. People in the ER’s reception area are told that a man who died after waiting all day to be seen had “hyper-narcolepsy.” “He sure looks dead,” the man sitting next to him replied.

“Our Hollywood Health and Society team works with ‘The Pitt’ on just about every episode and the show has multiple medical advisors on set while they are shooting,” Rosenthal said. “But sleep medicine is a specialty, and the show is focused on accuracy in emergency medicine.

“These long-standing stereotypes can fall through the cracks without anyone necessarily realizing it. We find that most writers are receptive — they’re not looking to marginalize people. It just doesn’t occur to them sometimes.”

CNN requested comment from representatives for “Snow White,” “Scrubs,” “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” “The Recruit” and “The Pitt” but did not hear back before publication .

There are positive representations of narcolepsy in Hollywood, but they are rare, according to the report. “The Mysterious Benedict Society” gets kudos for its mostly accurate depiction of identical twin brothers who have type 1 narcolepsy.

“The plot of the 2023 film, ‘Wake,’ thoughtfully included the hallucinations that can occur in narcolepsy. And the 1983 show ‘Hill Street Blues’ offered a fairly accurate representation of cataplexy,” Flygare said.

However, the real standout, according to the report, is a decades-long sitcom, “The Simpsons,” which satirizes American culture through the eyes of the animated family.

Executive producer and showrunner Al Jean responded to a tweet Flygare sent after learning that “The Simpsons” planned to feature narcolepsy in its 2015 season 27 premiere, titled “Every Man’s Dream.”

“Julie tweeted me saying, ‘I hope that this is a good portrayal, not the typical TV portrait of narcolepsy’, and so I wrote back and said, ‘What do you think we should say?’” Jean told CNN. “I really appreciated it, because it’s easy to miss things when you’re doing 20 to 24 episodes a year.

“It was important that we portrayed narcolepsy correctly. In fact, we try to be more accurate than medical shows like ‘The Pitt,’” Jean added. “People have often said we’re more accurate than shows that purport to be real.”

The episode shows Homer undergoing a hospital workup, including a spinal tap, a procedure that is often needed to verify a narcolepsy diagnosis — the only production in the report to include a real diagnostic workup.

“Al is really too modest when it comes to his role in this,” Flygare said. “I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve contacted to offer our guidance on representing narcolepsy. Al’s one of the only people to respond and then actually take our suggestions.”

There’s no lack of humor in the scene. Homer’s son Bart rushes over to the wall to “pull the plug” on his dad, and the doctor tells Homer, “I will mess you up,” when Homer suggests not paying the hospital bill.

At home, Homer immediately plants himself in his favorite spot — the living room sofa — and holds up a sign that says “narcolepsy” when asked to do any chore, including changing the baby’s diaper.

courtesy Heather Lill

Life with narcolepsy: ‘It’s not a joke, it’s a very serious illness’

“We focused the humor on how Homer tried to use the diagnosis to get out of work — that’s Homer and the narcolepsy just helped us let Homer be Homer,” Jean said. “That way we were able to use narcolepsy in a funny scene without insulting those with the condition.”

It’s a model for much needed change in the entertainment industry, experts say. Candi Wilmot agrees.

“When medical conditions are portrayed inaccurately, those of us living with them have to deal with the misunderstandings afterward,” Wilmot said. “I want audiences to understand that having narcolepsy doesn’t make someone lazy and unable to stay awake. It’s a neurological disorder that affects different aspects of our lives every day.”

坎迪·威尔莫特和她 9 岁的女儿阿德琳在电影院观看《白雪公主》，这部 2025 年真人版电影翻拍自深受喜爱的 1937 年迪士尼动画经典之作，当这部电影突然变得与她们个人息息相关时，它就变得与她们自身息息相关了。

“这本该是一次有趣的母女经历，但事实并非如此，”威尔莫特说道。她患有 1 型嗜睡症，其特征是白天过度嗜睡、生动的幻觉、睡眠瘫痪以及突然发作的肌肉无力或瘫痪（称为猝倒症）。

“剧中矮人瞌睡虫被介绍为‘猝倒症患者’，我以前从未听说过这种病，”她说。“他会在谈话中突然打鼾，甚至在打斗场面中打瞌睡。或者他会突然僵住，然后以某种滑稽的方式摔倒在地。”

“嗜睡症患者根本不会出现这些情况。这既不好笑，也完全不现实，”她说。“我意识到我的孩子可能会看到这种行为，并因此质疑我的病情，这让我感到非常冒犯。”

CNN独家获得的一项新分析发现，电影和电视节目经常以嗜睡症（一种无法治愈的神经睡眠障碍）作为幽默的来源，将这种影响2000分之一美国人和全球数百万人的严重疾病变成了闹剧。

对威尔莫特来说，最糟糕的时刻是瞌睡虫踉跄地走到矿井里一个巨大的深渊边缘，转身开始向后坠落，眼看就要摔死。幸好另一个矮人及时接住了他。

“看完电影后，我女儿问我：‘妈妈，如果你停止服用药物，你会变成电影里那样吗？’”威尔莫特说。“她担心影院里的其他孩子看到这一幕，会认为患有嗜睡症的人会让自己或他人处于危险之中。”

根据周二发布的一份题为《形象呈现的警钟：虚构叙事娱乐中的嗜睡症》的分析报告，在1983年至2025年间上映的56部好莱坞作品中，《白雪公主》等影片都出现了嗜睡症的元素，而且往往只是为了博君一笑。该报告的发布恰逢世界嗜睡症日。

该分析由南加州大学安纳伯格传播与新闻学院的诺曼·利尔中心（研究娱乐业如何影响社会、政治和文化生活）和致力于提高人们对睡眠障碍认识的患者权益倡导非营利组织“睡眠项目”共同完成。

尽管分析的作品中喜剧类作品不足一半，但其中80%都以嗜睡症作为贯穿全剧的笑点。在41个被描绘成患有嗜睡症的角色中，68%被塑造成无能或不可靠的形象。

报告中引用了原版《实习医生风云》第二季的一集作为例子。主角JD走到Turk、Carla和Elliott面前说：“你们想去嘲笑那个嗜睡症患者吗？”

在前往病房的路上，JD解释说，这名男子的睡眠发作是由性刺激引发的。接下来，几位女士采取了一系列不道德的手段来挑逗这名男子，并看着他滑稽地昏睡过去。

“没有人愿意成为笑柄，”获得委员会认证的睡眠医学心理学家谢尔比·哈里斯博士说道。她是布朗克斯阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院的临床副教授，专门治疗嗜睡症患者。

“看到娱乐行业如此冷漠无情，真是令人难以置信，”哈里斯说道，他曾为该项目提供指导。“如果我是一个患有嗜睡症的病人，看到这些节目，我会感到羞耻和被贬低。”

专家表示，好莱坞的影响如此广泛，以至于对嗜睡症的不准确描述甚至会影响患者是否寻求治疗。

“一想到嗜睡症，我就想到电影《男妓先生》（Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo），里面的女孩在餐桌旁睡着了——我就想，‘好吧，我可没这毛病，’”前NFL球员乔什·安德鲁斯在报道中说道。安德鲁斯在26岁时被诊断出患有嗜睡症，当时他效力于费城老鹰队。

在1999年的电影中，比格罗的约会对象卡罗尔第一次点了汤。“这真是太棒了，我一直想尝尝汤，但又怕呛到，”她说着，突然打起了鼾。她的头猛地向前栽进碗里——却被系在身后栏杆上的马尾辫挡住了。比格罗继续吃着汤。

在保龄球馆约会时，卡罗尔告诉比格洛，嗜睡症“并不是最糟糕的病。我只是不能开飞机、开车或在射击场工作而已。”说完，她就在中间的球道上打出全中时昏倒了。

报告合著者朱莉·弗莱加雷（Julie Flygare）表示，分析中约有 82% 的嗜睡症患者存在睡眠发作夸大的情况。弗莱加雷是《清醒梦境》（Wide Awake and Dreaming）一书的作者，该书讲述了她与 1 型嗜睡症抗争的经历。

“这是一种视觉错觉，你会看到有人向后跌出摄像头视野，然后听到一声巨响，接着你就会听到他们的鼾声，”睡眠项目总裁兼首席执行官弗莱加雷说道。

“这种情况不会发生。我们不会像木板一样倒在地上，也不会突然停止说话打鼾，更不会跌倒在食物里，”弗莱加雷说。“嗜睡症的疲惫感对外人来说不太明显，通常会持续几分钟，期间有时间坐下或躺下。而猝倒症患者，膝盖可能会发软，身体可能会瘫倒在地，但我们意识完全清醒。”

一些患有嗜睡症的人在职业生涯中会遇到困难——有时是因为精疲力竭，有时是因为工作场所的歧视。

“患有嗜睡症的人可能会被老板、同事、老师甚至他们的亲人贴上粗心、无能、反社会或不如别人的标签，”南加州大学安纳伯格诺曼·利尔中心的研究主任兼该报告的合著者埃里卡·罗森塔尔说。

在2022年Netflix剧集《谍海计中计》（The Recruit）的第一集中，中央情报局律师詹努斯·费伯（Janus Ferber）工作过度，压力巨大，在一次员工会议上睡着了。他的上司朝他头上扔了一支笔，说道：“嘿，别睡了。没人会相信你患有嗜睡症，我才不管你的医生怎么说。”该剧在第二季播出后被取消。

嗜睡症资源

睡眠项目热线

睡眠障碍症状清单

认证睡眠中心查找器

在娱乐业的早期，嘲笑人们的差异或疾病可能是常态，但如今好莱坞更倾向于奖励更具包容性、社会意识和医学准确性的故事讲述。

2021年上映的电影《尾声》（CODA）凭借其以聋人演员为主的阵容，荣获奥斯卡最佳影片奖，而特洛伊·科特苏尔（Troy Kotsur）也成为首位获得奥斯卡最佳男配角奖的聋人男演员。《爱在光谱上》（Love on the Spectrum）因其对年轻自闭症人士约会生活的真实刻画，斩获10项艾美奖。HBO Max出品的医疗剧《匹兹堡》（The Pitt）因其对急诊医学的精准描绘，荣获2025年诺曼·李尔奖。（HBO Max隶属于华纳兄弟探索频道，后者旗下拥有CNN。）

然而，即使是最好的初衷也可能弄巧成拙。在2026年播出的《匹兹堡》第二季最后一集中，嗜睡症被用作了一个幽默的情节。急诊室接待区的人们被告知，一名男子在等待了一整天后去世，他患有“过度嗜睡症”。“他看起来确实死了，”坐在他旁边的人回答道。

罗森塔尔说：“我们的好莱坞健康与社会团队几乎参与了《匹兹堡》每一集的制作，而且该剧在拍摄期间有多位医学顾问在场。但睡眠医学是一门专业，而该剧则更注重急诊医学的准确性。”

“这些根深蒂固的刻板印象可能会在不知不觉中被人们忽略。我们发现大多数作家都能接受这些刻板印象——他们并非有意边缘化任何人。只是有时候他们根本意识不到这一点。”

CNN曾向《白雪公主》、《实习医生风云》、《男妓先生》、《谍海计中计》和《匹兹堡》的代表请求置评，但在出版前尚未收到回复。

报告指出，好莱坞电影中虽然也有对嗜睡症的正面刻画，但非常罕见。《神秘的本尼迪克特协会》因其对患有1型嗜睡症的同卵双胞胎兄弟较为准确的描绘而备受赞誉。

“2023年的电影《醒来》的剧情巧妙地融入了嗜睡症患者可能出现的幻觉。而1983年的电视剧《希尔街蓝调》则对猝倒症进行了相当准确的刻画，”弗莱加尔说道。

然而，报告指出，真正引人注目的是一部持续了几十年的情景喜剧《辛普森一家》，它通过动画家庭的视角讽刺了美国文化。

执行制片人兼节目统筹阿尔·让在得知《辛普森一家》计划在 2015 年第 27 季首播集“每个男人的梦想”中以嗜睡症为主题后，对 Flygare 发送的一条推文做出了回应。

“朱莉在推特上对我说，‘我希望这是一个好的刻画，而不是电视上对嗜睡症的典型描述’，所以我回复说，‘你觉得我们应该怎么说？’”吉恩告诉CNN。“我真的很感激，因为一年要拍20到24集，很容易忽略一些细节。”

“准确地描绘嗜睡症非常重要。事实上，我们力求比《匹兹堡》之类的医疗剧更准确，”吉恩补充道。“人们经常说我们比那些声称写实的剧集更准确。”

这一集展现了荷马接受医院检查的过程，包括腰椎穿刺，这是确诊嗜睡症通常需要进行的检查——也是该报告中唯一包含真正诊断过程的剧集。

“艾尔在谈到他在这方面的作用时真的太谦虚了，”弗莱加尔说。“我联系过无数个节目，想就如何展现嗜睡症提供一些建议。艾尔是极少数会回应我们并真正采纳我们建议的人之一。”

这一幕充满了幽默。荷马的儿子巴特冲到墙边，想“拔掉”他爸爸的呼吸机插头，而当荷马提议不付医院账单时，医生对荷马说：“我会让你吃不了兜着走。”

回到家后，荷马立刻坐在他最喜欢的地方——客厅的沙发上——当被要求做任何家务时，包括给婴儿换尿布，他都会举起一块写着“嗜睡症”的牌子。

图片由 Heather Lill 提供

嗜睡症患者的生活：“这不是玩笑，而是一种非常严重的疾病”

“我们把笑点集中在荷马如何利用诊断结果逃避工作上——这就是荷马，而嗜睡症只是让我们能够更好地展现荷马的本性，”吉恩说。“这样一来，我们就能在搞笑的场景中使用嗜睡症，而不会冒犯到患者。”

专家表示，这为娱乐行业亟需的变革树立了典范。坎迪·威尔莫特对此表示赞同。

“当疾病被错误描述时，我们这些患者就不得不承受由此带来的误解，”威尔莫特说。“我希望观众明白，患有嗜睡症并不意味着懒惰或无法保持清醒。这是一种神经系统疾病，它每天都会影响我们生活的方方面面。”