Are you watching the new television series The United States of Tara? The series is created by Diablo Cody (Juno) and is about a woman who lives with dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder) and her family's experiences with it. After seeing the first four episodes, I wondered what the blogosphere's reaction to the series would be from those who live with DID and those who do not.

Unfortunately, the delicious TV goodness is not accessible to everyone, since it airs on Showtime.  To give you an idea of the premise, the excellent Toni Collette plays Tara, a married mother of two teens who works as a home decorator, gilding nurseries and painting murals on people's living room walls. Tara's alters (alternate personalities) are a 1950s alcoholic housewife, a Vietnam-Vet with a beloved gun named Persephone, and a fifteen-year-old girl who is a bong-hitting Lolita.

What really drew me into the show was a review I read before I saw it. I had heard of the show, but was unimpressed by Juno and so was not jumping up and down to see it. Nancy Franklin, however, who is great fun to read on the subject of television, wrote a review of the show in The New Yorker, and that piqued my interest. What fascinated me was Franklin's description of Collette's transformation from herself to the three alters:

Her ability to transform herself extends even to her physique: when she’s Tara, her head seems delicate, wedge-shaped; when she’s Buck, it’s a blocky oblong.

Franklin is absolutely right. Collette does transform herself into these characters with utter abandon. It's a blast to watch but at the same time it makes you squirm with guilt knowing for some this touches close to reality. I suspect the squirming is part of the point. On one hand the short half-hour format allows for only skimming the surface of this family's life. On the other hand, could you stand to look closely for much longer at a family in turmoil? The show presents a husband who is supportive, if resigned, teen children who are acting up in their own ways, and Collette's character's sister, who wants to wish the whole thing away. Perhaps she represents the denial in the dialogue of the community at large.

Of course, when a show like this breaks out into the mainstream, there is a lot of talk about authenticity and representation. Who does The United States of Tara represent? What were Diablo Cody's aims in creating a show like this? First, it seems, to tell an interesting and unique story, which is something audiences are always hungry for. One thing that made me happy is that Ms. Cody made an attempt at grounding her story in some reality, to make it echo with the real experiences of others. One of her connections to a person with DID was the esteemed and long-time blogger Leah Peah.

Leah Peterson, who lives with DID, is credited as being a consultant for the show, and Ms. Cody has read Ms. Peterson's book on the subject.  Leah also blogs about spending time with Cody, and the premiere party they had.

Of course, there are a few criticisms of the show. Dasha from I Ate My House calls for less stereotypical alters. (I didn't know there were stereotypical ones! I would love to see a list of more common ones.) Dasha writes:

My main complaint about it is that Tara’s extra personalities are so conventional – there’s the reckless teenage girl, the gun-loving masculine caricature, and a mention of a perfect housewife type (who is yet to appear). While Toni Colette pulls them off pretty well, it would have been much more fun to play around with something more subtle; maybe tweak the stereotypes a little, or at least pull out a few of the less obvious ones. (Gee, I don’t know – a scamming evangelical creationist? A New-agey lunatic who's obsessed with crystals? If the plot requires an alter ego with violent tendencies, why not make it an amateur body-builder whose theme song is "Warriors of the World" by Manowar? This one could have comedic opportunities with the actual character being unable to lift as much weight as her alter ago believes himself capable of lifting.) I don’t mind if my TV characters are not “realistic” – exaggerated ones can make great comedy. It’s just better when they are less of the same-old.

(Since this post was written, the audience has seen the perfect housewife type, and she is great. Razor-sharp, icy-cold, and taking nips out of the gin. But this is all an aside.)

Amy's Robot makes a good case for the "unsubtle" nature of the alters:

[F]or the first episode of a show with a complicated premise, I think it makes sense to clearly distinguish the identities and let the audience understand each one immediately, even if that means they get overplayed a little.

Again, I think that's true. I think you have to simplify it a bit, since the audience is basically watching four characters in the space of one actor.

Diablo Cody explains her reasoning behind creating the alters in the sense of thinking about the different roles that a mother fulfills. Dasha's ideas are interesting, but what kind of alters does the character really need? Ms. Cody explains:

I thought, what are the different hats a mother has to wear in her life? Sometimes she needs to be a man and have balls. Sometimes she has to be this docile caretaker, and sometimes she has to be sexual. You don't want to lose touch with that side of yourself either. So I thought, how can I make these ideas literal? I will manifest them as the alters.

The supporting cast who plays Tara's family should not be overlooked. It's interesting watching Tara's family deal with her alters. The kids and her husband treat them as familiar, unsurprising guests who nevertheless occupy the space that their mom could be in. They seem slightly ill-at-ease in their wait for Tara to return. Miles at Cultural Learnings remarks:

[W]e are more focused on the absence of Tara, a real mother and wife in these people’s lives. They’ve gotten used to living without her, during these stretches, at least mentally: her physical body is there (which is the most frustrating part for her husband), but what appears is actually some person that she can’t become, that she can’t contain.

What made me most happy about the show was something that Leah Peah hit upon in one of her posts. I too like the fact that this show is out there at all, giving us a glimpse into a different sort of life than the one most of us have. True, it's fictionalized, but it's still very real. I'll let Leah have the last word:

But what I love about the series is that it’s TALKING about mental illness and DID. It’s making people ask questions and have conversations and maybe, just maybe, creating an environment where people with DID aren’t thought of as freaks. Where they aren’t told to keep it all a secret and perpetuate the cycle of hiding and secrecy and lies. And that is what I’m excited to be a part of - moving forward. Removing the stigma attached to mental illness, or at least lessening the hold a bit. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by someone I barely know and even people close to me to never talk about having a mental illness because it will hurt my chances at (fill in the blank). Just for telling people what I am. Just for owning what I am and how my brain works. The message is - if people really know you, they won’t think you are acceptable or good enough. They will think you are evil or weird and turn away from you. And that feels bad whether you are mentally ill, the ‘wrong’ color or sexual orientation or ethnic background or too fat or too small. No one should be discriminated against for being themselves.

Related Posts:

Too Much TV on the pilot

RTVW Online on United States of Tara

Leah Peah cross posted on Real Mental--interesting commentary

SJ also writes at I, Asshole.