News Movie: Split

[joeylittle]

Mental illness wreaks havok on the individual (and sometimes their family), but not on society.

Tell that to the graphic-novel industry.

I don't mean to be flip, but there are times when a person could not mistake a 'reality' film from a high-concept fiction film. I truly think this is one of those times. I doubt that they were expecting the backlash - and I'm very in support of the activism that this movie has motivated, because activism increases education.

Sensationalizing any illness is a dubious practice, to me - and I get more easily offended by it when it's mental illness and/or addiction being sensationalized. I think that this film is not as damaging as others that are out there, and now that it's in it's release, it will no longer be exploiting DID as the spine of the plot, because it actually isn't...the 'twist' is.

 

[Nessa7]

I've seen it, and I agree with @joeylittle. If it makes a difference, I didn't pay to see it. I'm a big fan of horror films, and there are quite a few people in my life that know that I have some sort of dissociative disorder, even though we haven't pinned down a specific diagnosis yet. I wanted to be able to answer questions that I was being asked.

Having seen it, I feel a little bad for M. Night, because he isn't a good enough writer to pull off what he wanted to do. The movie had a very clumsy Aesop about how stigmatizing mental illness is bad, but he was just completely unable to write it effectively. It mostly just repeats "stigmatizing mental illness" is bad over and over again.

It does at least leave you feeling very sorry for Kevin, McAvoy's character.

Spoiler

The movie does a terrible job of telling this story, but it isn't a terrible idea. Kevin was supposed to have been doing very well until an incident at his work place. Two high school girls force him to grope them, which triggers a more protective alter to take control. I think we're supposed to fill in the blanks that they did it knowing that he was mentally ill in some way and finding that funny. His therapist doesn't realize how much it affected him. The supervillain stuff kicks in from there. I could see a classier movie doing this part of the plot well, even though Kevin gets completely lost in this movie. That's probably the one thing that I found most offensive while watching it. It pays very little attention to Kevin. It's all about the alters and his therapist.

One thing that I want to add to the article that @joeylittle linked to:

Spoiler

They're hinting throughout the movie that Kevin is some sort of X-Man. It's done extremely obviously. If anything, they go too far and make people with DID sound like mutants.

However, it can still go over someone's head if they haven't seen Unbreakable. I don't get how it could, but it apparently can.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

then again, that framework makes it so clearly Fiction with a capital F. I find it hard to carry any moral outrage about that, myself.

That's what I was orginally talking about. They showed part of that in the trailer (and I haven't seen the movie) but they gave that part away. Changing body chemistry, running super fast (er then any human can run). It's not only fiction but what I call fantasy and no where near rooted in anything that could possibly be real. Which ruins the entire thing for me as I like movies that have at least a possiblity to be real. Most especially psychological thrillers.

ETA: Oh, but it does make a difference (which is also what I was orginally talking about) as no one on this planet would ever think "oh my, is that how DID really is?" That makes all the difference in my opinion.

 

[whiteraven]

That's what I was orginally talking about. They showed part of that in the trailer (and I ha...

You don't think so? I have had people say and ask me the craziest damn shit. Refuse to come near me, break off all contact with me, think I'm "from the devil." The last guy I saw wanted to know if my protector (who is an angry sort and pretty verbally aggressive, esp. toward men) would kill him in his sleep. And he was serious.

Most people are able to separate fiction from reality, but not all of them.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Most people are able to separate fiction from reality, but not all of them.

Ok, sorry, probably should of said that.

Yeah, I had some crazy shit said to me and even family thinking I was going to snap at any min and kill them all just cuz Jodi Aries said she had BPD (and that was a defense...or part of it but basically "I have BPD and thats why I killed him") in her trial. So, DID, I could only imagine.

 

[Friday]

Tell that to the graphic-novel industry.

:sneaky: This is no small part of why I loooooooove the comic genre. If they're not pushing the envelope, bringing the taboo to light, & igniting social discourse? They're not doing their job. Wanna know what's going to be hitting the mainstream & court systems in about 30 years? Look at what comic books & graphic novels are publishing today. They're the prophets of the modern age. That, or the hand that rocks the cradle really is the hand that rules the world ;)

Trust M Knight S to f*ck it up, though. :wtf: Really just cannot f*cking abide that talentless hack. Correction. He has a talent. For both getting hired & ruining movies. Grrrrr.

The comic genre hides being edgy as f*ck behind shazaam & wonder. MKS tries so hard to be edgy he just f*cks it up.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

Movies attach so much importance to being racially correct or not offending homosexuals, how much more so should care be taken when depicting mental illness.

Considering that many sufferers are VICTIMS of violence, not instigators of it.
.... Mental illness wreaks havok on the individual (and sometimes their family), but not on society.

^^^^ A thousand times THIS. ^^^^

And thanks to those posting spoilers re the plot - cuz I have REALLY wrestled with whether or not to see this flick, and frankly just the TRAILER is SERIOUSLY harmful to my husband who is just beginning to get a grasp on his own dealing-with-trauma-related-"mental-illness".

Then again, I'm so sensitive, I don't even like the phrase "mental illness" as an automatic classification of someone with multiple parts. Because .. you break your leg in a violent way, you have horrible scars perhaps, but the leg HEALS. Do you STILL then say of that person because of their scars that they still have a broken leg? or a leg-illness if you prefer? Bleh. Maybe they always have a limp as a consequence, but that doesn't mean they're broken. :( (Thoughts, anyone?)

My husband is a HEALTHY multiple. He "limps" MORE if others see him otherwise, are draw false conclusions about him based only on a TINY piece of info (such as the presumption that he's an "intense" person), and that's its own struggle. But he is better able to manage his "scars" EVERY day....We dealt (for years!) with the "illness" part of figuring out what was going on. We ARE dealing with how this affects his internal communication and cooperation - but just because there are "bumps" in the road doesn't mean he's ILL anymore.

Or put another way, he isn't in "disorder" JUST because he has parts. He's more "ordered" than I am, honestly! :) I'm not DID but there are plenty enough bumps in my road, too .. Maybe more like the flare up of a FEVER doesn't have to mean I'm labeled as always ILL .. I just take a sick DAY. It's not a sick LIFE.

*I'll get off my rant soap-box now*
*insert sheepish expression here*

~WU

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

are draw false conclusions

*are* should be OR

(can't edit, and it's bugging me!)

 

[Poofycat]

Most people are able to separate fiction from reality, but not all of them.

If people know nothing about the reality then it's impossible to know what's fiction.

I agree that turning it into a superhero movie softens my feelings toward it, although I'm not quite sure why. I still have a problem with people not knowing it's a superhero movie until they watch it to the end. And that's not being talked about in the press because it's a spoiler. So all the buzz is still "Crazy guy with split personalities, which is a thing that probably doesn't even exist, is evil and kidnaps pretty girls!".

 

[Nessa7]

Part of the problem is that the filmmakers aren't the ones that make the trailer. I think the conversation would have been very different if they had. There's so much in the film about why it's wrong to stigmatize mental illness that they could have put in the trailer to give people a better idea of what their intentions were.

 

[joeylittle]

So all the buzz is still "Crazy guy with split personalities, which is a thing that probably doesn't even exist, is evil and kidnaps pretty girls!".

No, not really. There have been major articles at this point in major publications. Once a movie is out, you can find a spoiler.

I think there's a positive in that the film creates energy, which can be re-directed into education and awareness. There are people who would not have been motivated to speak about the reality of DID, otherwise.

I also think anyone who deals with anything in life that is magnified/exploited for fiction has the same feelings. Assumptions about race, about gender, about disability, illness, religion...that's what many stories depend on; they depend on making a scenario that is literally larger than life.

Not all stories. But many, many, many.

It's always an opportunity to talk about what's true. And that's a solid way to re-direct one's frustration.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

So all the buzz is still "Crazy guy with split personalities, which is a thing that probably doesn't even exist, is evil and kidnaps pretty girls!".

I also say no not really at this too because just the trailer I posted early in (and still I have not seen this movie) the Dr advised his brain chemistry is changing and they show him running super hero like fast, so in the trailer it was obvious this wasn't based in anything even remotely possible. Thus why I called it fantasy early in.