#can you do a film about these subjects without exploiting and demonizing us further maybe

[jatamansi-arc]

So, the movie Split. Let’s talk about that. And before I dump my spoiler-laden commentary about it beneath the cut, let me say this: about 60% of the problems I have with this movie were about how the clips they used manipulated the previews into a ‘Villain with DID Kidnaps Some Kids!!! CRAZY STUFF HAPPENS YEEHAW!’

Completely ignoring all my critiques for a second, what Split is actually about, is an allegorical tale on how complicated the nature of trauma is on the human psyche. But, with that, I’m gonna cut the rest.

Fair warning, talk of sexual abuse and violence and mental illness below. 

The trick with the trailer, is that what it shows you are exclusively things that happen within the first 20 minutes of the film. This doesn’t absolve it of any of its actual problematic elements, which trust me, there are still a lot of them. Like... I don’t even know where to start levels of ‘a lot of them.’ But I think if it had been more honest about the content of the film, people would have had a much better idea of what to expect going in. It plays on the stigma to get you in. That’s gross as fuck. But at least it’s not like... two hours of torture porn, either?

Like I said, I wanted to watch it without giving any money, because I’m trained as a historian and it’s like... they really push that whole ‘come to your own conclusions with what the source gives you’ thing. Which, while we’re on that subject?

What this film is actually about, is trauma, triggers, and respect (or that lack thereof.) The writing of the DID is ridiculous and grossly problematic, and I won’t sit and sing praises of M. Night for it. You’re not gonna find that here. There were a lot of things that could have been done differently -- much better -- so that we didn’t have to rely on an already stigmatized population to tell the message the story is getting at. Because while this film exists as an allegory, and a metaphor in and of itself, most people are too oblivious to read between the cracks to see any of that. Just ‘PERSON WITH MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES IS TOTS CRAY AND KIDNAPPING WHEEE!’

So, I’m gonna just lay out what the trailer doesn’t as bluntly as possible. 

The actual breakdown of the character of Kevin is this: beginning in late toddlerhood, Kevin begins to be viciously abused and beaten by his mother. This trauma eventually results in a split, to which Dennis is the first, who studies and learns what behaviours will keep Kevin’s mother at bay and develops characteristics in line with several anxiety disorders. As they grow older, Dennis, despite protecting Kevin from his mother’s abuse, begins to show problematic paraphilias. How the rest of his “alters” come about is not said in film, but what is later implied is that, once Kevin learns what are healthy coping mechanisms are from his therapist (before the professional portion of the relationship goes belly up, but I’ll get to that later), that his “healthier minded” alters do not allow Dennis to front for this reason. Nor do they allow Patricia to either, who is another alter, because of her manipulative and aggressive behaviour.

The alters (which I’m not going to put in quotes beyond the above, because it’s 3am, but assume they are there) you see in the trailers? Those are Dennis, Patricia, and Hedwig (who is apparently nine and easily impressionable.) Who they don’t show, but you see in the film, are a few other alters in diary entries that last about 30 seconds to a minute a piece:

Jade: Shown that this alter has diabetes and has to take insulin. Their journal entry is complaining about how hard it is to obtain insulin, because doctors refuse to take their condition seriously at all. Barry: Enjoys fashion and “has control” of the system. Or used to. Seems to be extroverted and is the one that their therapist seems to have most contact with. Is coded as being a gay, overly feminine guy very overtly, which ughhhhhh. Orwell: You see this alter twice and literally, speaking as an autistic person, if Orwell is not meant to be read as autistic, I will eat my own shoe. Obsessed with history and Islam, from what I gathered.

That said? Here’s some other relevant... idk. Relevant something:

#1) The girls Dennis kidnap, outside of Casey, are the very same girls that ended up triggering Kevin into this downward spiral. Doesn’t make what happens to them okay, and it certainly doesn’t explain the behaviour of a grown ass man, but there you go. They ‘prank’ Kevin, triggering him and forcing him to confront his traumas without prior warning. This fractures the system he has in place and allows for Dennis to take control, and sick of being mistreated, him and Patricia set about unleashing ‘The Beast.’

The Beast, by the way, is literally the personification of the anger and resentment Kevin feels at being abandoned by his father, because I imagine it meant many more years of abuse that could have been perhaps been avoided. He exists not in the ‘room with the chairs’ where all the alters seem to metaphorically sit, but in Kevin’s memories of the train station his father left him at. Basically, I don’t think he’s meant to be an “alter” insomuch as just a feral combination of trauma and rage that wasn’t properly treated or healed because the therapist was too busy preening over her own career.  

( Which, well, I was abandoned with my stepfather by my mother and abused sexually/physically/mentally/etc. repeatedly for years by him -- which lead to partial fragmenting of my personality -- and honestly, I think that’s the hardest part of my trauma/PTSD component to reconcile with? So maybe that’s why I’m reading it that way. )

#2) Casey is a survivor of sexual abuse and the talk of being ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ has less to do with what those words mean and more to do with the fact that The Beast is relating that she understands what trauma is capable of doing to someone. Literally, he spares her because ‘oh, you get it.’ Then he walks away, laughing. Alrighty. If you say so. 

The good thing that comes about from this, is that by tearing her clothes in the climax (which you think is kind of pedo-y fanservice at first)  exposes the scars she has from years of dealing with her own abusive guardian. They are noticed by the medical staff in the ambulance, and through her reluctance to go with her uncle, it is implied that they take her somewhere safe for her to recover. Which may be the only positive of this entire fucking movie, and even then it’s like jesus christ. 

#3) The therapist in this is hella flawed. Like she sits and glorifies her patients as showing us what the mind/body connection is capable of and at first you think maybe there is going to be a decent rebuttal to the fuckery of how it’s portrayed in Kevin at some point. Nope. She projects her own problems and desire to be recognized for greatness onto her patients and Dennis in particular misreads this as cues about the Beast. 

( I actually liked the therapist character for all the wrong reasons because I recently had a fucking psychologist who started projecting her feelings about her daughter onto me as a patient and how confusing and frustrating it was for me to navigate as someone who had been recently diagnosed with PTSD and had literally just survived almost being strangled to death a few months prior. )

So, that said? Is it a good movie? The story is weak and problematic as fuck but also not as literal as the trailer implies but also like worse in other ways? The upsides are that the acting is actually good and so is the cinematography. Literally probably the entire reason I sat through the whole thing and didn’t get bored at the 45 minute marker. That and I literally was confused for two hours by how well James pulls off a South Philadelphian accent (I lived in Camden for awhile, so.)

Basically? I’ve seen worse film-wise, and the acting is definitely like 10 Beefy James McAvoy Arms, but the marketing relied on the whole ‘mentally ill people are always violent’ thing to bait you, but then gives you a bunch of other problematic shit to irritate you with until you, too, develop Beefy James McAvoy arms and an urge to smash shitty portrayal of mental illness in 2017. I would see it to draw your own conclusions, because I’m a big one about doing that sort of thing, but I would further suggest not paying for it if that’s possible. 

Side note: Wasn’t Taylor-Joy in The VVitch? I swore I recognized her terrified face from some other movie I’d seen recently. Idk. Speaking of movies that are basically torture porn. D: