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United States of Tara
There’s a new show on Showtime called United States of Tara with a new spin that introduces dissociative identity disorder to audiences. The show, with executive producer Steven Spielberg and writer Diablo Cody (of Juno fame), is centered around the life of Tara (played by Toni Collete) and her different personalities or “alters” as Tara and her family calls them. Tara’s DID (dissociative identity disorder) causes her to take on her different personalities. There is “T,” who behaves like a typical rebellious teenager, Buck, who is kind of like the average stereotypical manly man who loves to go shooting and drink beer, and Alice, who is the perfectionist homemaker. Tara’s identities are often triggered from stress and when an alter takes over, she isn’t aware of what she is doing. I watched the pilot episode a while ago and thought that Toni Collete did an amazing job with her character(s). Unfortunately, many of the alters are played out very stereotypically. Then again, Diablo Cody could have written it that way. The image of “T” is portrayed as a pot smoking, potty mouthed teen who wears a minimal amount of clothing. She relates to Tara’s daughter, Kate, the most. Buck, on the other hand is a real man’s man. He has a tough persona and is a homophobic, which is ironic because Tara has a gay son. And Alice is a very domineering housewife type who likes to be in control. There have been some negative reviews about this show, but I personally think it is quite enjoyable. DID is an actual disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder, and this show can help bring it to a wider attention. United States of Tara can help people get to know a little more about DID and maybe give them a better understanding as well. The show may not be age appropriate for some people because there is some mild nudity and swearing, but I would highly recommend this show for older audiences. Toni Collete deserves an Emmy in the near future.
