Refresher on why Split is harmful, and its sequel Glass will be too.
My views on this movie and its effect are informed by a studied knowledge of my disorder, of the field of psychology as a whole, of the influence of media on social attitude, and by awareness of the context of the movie’s production and release.
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This movie was made without multiples’ consent or input, and against expert advice. Shymalan and McAvoy have ignored at least 2 petitions created by multiples, one 16000+ signatures and one 19000+ (we signed both of them). Shyamalan and McAvoy have pretended there were no multiples willing to speak to them, a claim which is untrue.
The movie says some nice things about people with DID. That’s not enough. It portrays DID incorrectly. It exploits our disorders; again without our consent or input. It uses DID as a mechanism for its supervillain narrative, and tries to justify it with some placidities.
Even the treatment of trauma survivors js stigmatizing. The movie frames trauma survivors (and self-harmers, if I remember correctly) as somehow better, or more pure. This serves to further conceptually remove us from the general population, and to reinforce the dichotomies of good/bad and pure/impure from which many if not all of us struggle to break free.
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mental-health-stigma/“>http://affinitymagazine.us/2016/12/10/how-split-is-contributing-to-mental-health-stigma/
https://www.bustle.com/p/splits-portrayal-of-mental-illness-only-adds-to-its-harmful-stigma-30690
https://themighty.com/2016/12/split-dissociative-identity-disorder/
http://www.dominickevans.com/2017/01/split-offers-the-worst-in-disability-cripping-up-mental-health-stigma/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/12/cinema-dissociative-personality-disorder-split-james-mcavoy
https://www.google.com/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/1/25/14385948/split-movie-m-night-shyamalan-james-mcavoy-horror-psycho-hitchcock?client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us
(I’d like to add the caveat that Shirley Mason’s case is disputed.)
