Year: 2017
Director: M. Night Syamalan
Country: US
Language: English
In Shyamalan's latest, three girls are kidnapped by a man (James McAvoy) with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.
Upon watching Split (2017) with my wife, she noted that while the film was "good" it had a very problematic and cliched view of psychological disorders. My response was "Filmmakers aren't doctors, they are entertainers. They don't need to be accurate when it comes to psychological disorders movies." However as time has passed I wonder if my initial response was too shallow and thus incorrect. After-all M.Night Shyamalan's film will reach millions of people all across the world, many of whom have never met a person with dissociative identity disorder.
While making Split, Shyamalan confessed to having had a lifelong fascination with dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as split personality, or multiple personality disorder, and frequently mislabeled as schizophrenia. Unfortunately he is not a psychologist nor does he personally know anybody with the disorder (which is actually a pretty rare illness in real life) so he gets his information on mental illness the same way most of us do; the media.
Unfortunately the media, especially when it comes to DID, is not very fair in the way it handles mental illness. In his 1991 study, Paul Hunt revealed the top ten ways disabled people are portrayed in television and film:
- The disabled person as pitiable or pathetic
- An object of curiosity or violence
- Sinister or evil
- The super cripple
- As atmosphere
- Laughable
- His/her own worst enemy
- As a burden
- As Non-sexual
- Being unable to participate in daily life
People with DID have it especially difficult, because the connection with the mental illness and the "horror" genre was created long before Cinema was even a thing. In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a literally classic that negatively portrayed a "multiplex personality" during a time when being sent to the mental institution was pretty much a death sentence. Seriously, the people of the 1800's had little respect for the mentally disabled as human beings.
Presently Dr Simone Reinders, a neuroscientist studying DID at King’s College London in collaboration with universities in the Netherlands, claims that films like Split can be seriously damaging when it comes to public perception of mental illness. "They make it seem as if patients with DID are extremely violent and prone to doing bad thing." In reality people with that condition, as well as Schizophrenia and a whole host of other typically "dangerous" disorders are no more violent than people without any disorders. However, this understanding may make it harder for people with DID to find help as many people will judge them based on their condition alone.
With Split Shyamalan stumbles in his ham-handed use of mental abnormality as a stand-in for the superpowers of heroes and villains. Juxtaposing real hardships with fictional tropes lends itself to gross oversimplifications. This isn't the first time the Director has made slanderous use of mental illness (In The Village the twist is that the monster all along was a group of mentally challenged people) The man loves to portray the disabled as "others" who shouldn't be understood and are just objects in the way of "normal" people's lives.
Spectrum "disorders" ought to be viewed as a different way of functioning, rather than "inferior" or "wrong" . Most people who are non neurotypical can function just well in our society if they are not constantly stigmatized. Of course non-nerotypicals are not told they can be "anything they want to be" and have to overcome prejudices to get to where any "regular" person can be. All this misconception does make it difficult for one to want to get a diagnosis and to "come out" as differently abled.
Of course, maybe this is all nit-picky. Perhaps a baseline for factual accuracy is a bit much when it comes to the horror genre and perhaps we're giving the media too much credit when it comes to shaping our worldview of disability. Granted Darren Arnofsky's Black Swan (2010) deals with mental illness in a more respectable and subtle matter. Even Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs is more than just his illness
Personally I'm torn on Split (2017). On one hand Shyamalan gives us a very exploitative view of mental illness; taping into misunderstood fears created by the media. His character, though wonderfully acted by James McAvoy, is shaped solely out of a misconception of DID. The other characters, though neurotypical, don't have much of a personality either.
On the other hand, Split is an intelligently crafted film that builds up into a shocking climax. We are told about this "beast" throughout the film and we constantly anticipate its arrival. The score, as well as the atmosphere, is haunting. The 2hr run-time feels fairly short and I do like that this doesn't rely on horror cliches like jump scares or an excess of blood and guts. If viewed without the implications of disability and the media, it's a pretty fun film.
Watch Split (2017) for yourself and determine if it's a great horror or a cliched exploitative mess. Please also communicate with non-neurotypical people to get a good understanding of what they are really like.
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