Woman, Divided: Gender, Family, and Multiple Personalities in Media

Abstract

In the opening scenes of Showtime's United States of Tara (2009-2011), a weary woman faces the camera and drolly narrates her dilemma. Tara (Toni Collette) explains that she is an artist who works on elaborate murals for wealthy clients. She handles her workload and caters to difficult customers, but she can't seem to micromanage her teenage daughter's sexual proclivities. At this confession she breaks down, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she reopens them, she has become a different person: no longer the defeated mother, but the brazen teenager T, who trots off to befriend Tara's daughter. Over the course of the pilot episode, Tara vacillates wildly from one personality to the next, her mental illness playing out not in a therapist's office but in familiar settings like family dinners, ballet recitals, and bowling alleys.United States of Tara, created by edgy screenwriter Diablo Cody (author of Juno) and produced by Steven Spielberg, is just one of the latest popular media portrayals of women with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, commonly known as multiple personality disorder. Several aspects set this series apart from the typical depiction of mental illness. It is significant that the series begins with Tara telling her own story, rather than a psychologist or a male authority narrating the events. Tara appears first as an artist, then as a mother: her mental illness becomes one aspect of her character rather than defining it. And, as the opening monologue and domestic setting suggest, Tara does not struggle in isolation, but talks with her husband and teenage children about her transitions and treatment.Although United States of Tara's creators emphasize that the story is a dark comedy, not a documentary, they claim to have consulted DID patients and experts in developing the series (Diablo Cody). Tara has the potential to foster empathy for mentally ill people and awareness of the long-term effects of childhood abuse, but it may also reinforce popular misconceptions about multiple personalities at time when the diagnosis itself is controversial. Despite its contemporary sensibilities, the series clearly draws from classic media narratives about DID. Tara's initial triad of personalities and domestic setting make the series a contemporary counterpart to the 1957 film The Three Faces of Eve, featuring a meek housewife and mother who harbors three personalities (The Three Faces of Eve). A character in Tara's pilot episode reads the 1973 novel Sybil, the landmark case of a deeply fragmented young woman that spurred greater diagnoses and treatment of DID (Schreiber; Nathan). Tara resembles Sybil: her personalities gradually multiply beyond the initial three, and she identifies childhood sexual abuse and parental neglect as the sources of her trauma.These popular media depictions of DID, spanning multiple decades, tell much about evolving understandings of mental illness and the treatment of a rare disorder. However, these films and TV programs also serve as a commentary on women's changing roles. For example, Eve's rebellious alter ego enables her to escape an unhappy marriage and reflects many women's growing discontent with domesticity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tara's creators claim her multiple personalities symbolize the varied roles that modern mothers are expected to assume, from fierce protector to domestic goddess (Diablo Cody). Although Sybil lacks such direct symbolism, the story of a deeply fragmented young woman was popular at the height of second-wave feminism, when sweeping changes in women's roles caused many viewers to question their own identities (Szalavitz). Furthermore, as both Sybil and Tara assume male alter egos, they undermine the assumed stability of conventional gender roles. Popular media depictions of DID function as symbolic narratives that speak to women's broader concerns about independence, family and femininity.Gender, Skepticism, and DissociationIt is not a coincidence that the most memorable DID cases involve women: Female patients account for 90 percent of reported multiple personality cases, and researchers note that women tend to display far more distinct personalities than males, averaging fifteen separate identities (Showalter 162). …