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Andrea Hernandez

Professor Granillo

English 103

28 January 2019

Psychos? and Skirts

Movies are beyond just a colored video on a screen; they represent and send messages

out to the viewers without them even realizing it. So often in film, the villains are seen to have a

mental disability or form of psychotic behavior. For instance, in the thriller sci-fi movie Split, the

viewers see a crazy man with Dissociative identity disorder that kidnaps three young ladies for

his insane plans. In the lens of disability theory, one can see that Split contributes to a lot of

unfounded fear and stigmas about mental illnesses that do need to be addressed. Through the lens

of feminism and critical disability studies, Split contributes to the problem; the movie depicts

people living with multiple personality disorder as villains who kidnap and kill people, and it

also perpetuates the idea that women who “look a particular way” deserve to get captured; thus

targeting both communities.

This movie is about a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb kidnapping three young ladies.

Two are popular at their school, and the other is not. Although it may be seen that Kevin is the

one kidnapping these young girls it sooner turns out to be his personalities that take control of his

body. Those personalities that are presented are, “Dennis - which is implied to be the first first

personality to form. Dennis is very serious, fiercely protective of Kevin, suffers from OCD and

has a deeply repressed but virulent libido. He’s the one who abducts the girls.Hedwig – a nine

year-old boy who loves Kanye West, dancing in his room and chatting wants to be taken

seriously by the others. Patricia – the cross-dressing matriarch. Arch, precise and cold. Barry –
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the ‘lead’ personality and the one who spends much of his time in control. Barry is sweet, gentle

and in much more trouble than he knows. Orwell – a tweedy scholar who tries to analyse

problems to death rather than solve them. Jade – a kind, diabetic teenage girl. Beast- Personality

that is beyond human and murderous. As well as many other personalities that are not mentioned

but Kevin lives with, who are: Heinrich, Norma, Goddard, Bernice, Polly, Luke, Rakel, Felicia,

Ansel, Jelin, Kat, BT, Samuel, Mary Reynolds, Ian, and Mr. Pritchard” (Mym Buzz). The movie

goes on to Dennis shutting the girls in a room and while the girls figure out a way to escape the

man, Casey (the unpopular girl) analyzes him and realizes that he has Dissociative identity

disorder. With this information, she tries to trick him but ends up failing. The girls’ attempt to

escape ended up separating them. After a couple of his personalities take a spotlight in his body,

“the beast” was unleashed and took over. Thus, the beast goes on to eating and killing the two

girls whom he called perfect and flawless. On the other hand, when Casey tries to run away and

locks herself in a cage, her shirt ripped revealing her scars, and when the beast saw this, he left

her alone and stated that she was “pure.” Now that the scenery has been described an illustrated,

furthermore the explanation as to why this is important to disability and feminist critical studies.

Many people can dispute these interpretations and claim that this movie is just for

entertainment, but what people do not know is that psychologically this movie is subliminally

illustrating negative things. While watching a movie, people see it superficially but once one

begins to think critically about what the film, one can see that it was trying to demonstrate many

can see the good and bad from it. As stated, many people can argue that the movie had no major

significance but it did and here’s how: For example, after watching this movie it can be observed

that if a man with D.I.D was to sit next to you on the bus or another public area, it can be

confirmed that they would feel endangered. When thinking of the words multiple personality
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disorder, the first thought that enters someone's mind is, unstable. The article “From Split to

Psycho: why cinema fails dissociative identity disorder”, agrees with how the movie miss

represents people with this condition, stating “You can see the appeal: D.I.D is a condition that

lends itself to extremes of behavior, conflict, torment, secrets, and mysteries – everything a juicy

drama requires in one character. Unfortunately, those dramas have tended to be horror movies

and psychological thrillers, which has not helped us understand the condition.” On the other

hand, many can argue that the reason this movie’s main character is a psycho with multiple

personalities killer is that not all schizophrenic people are sane and friendly most of them are

unstable and violent. However, as stated before, the D.I.D community is not extreme and are

stable human beings that at the end of the day are just like anyone else.

Furthermore, a person was interviewed by CNN about the movie, and this was stated,

“Joubert maintains a Youtube channel and manages a D.I.D support group on Facebook with

nearly 4,000 members. Many are people living with DID, but some are family members and

clinicians. ‘People are upset’ about the film, she said. They're feeling discriminated against ...

however, this is nothing new.” This concludes on how people are living with this psychiatric

disability feel after watching the movie, Split making them feel personally targeted. After

explaining why the film sends viewers a subliminal message of how they see people with mental

disabilities and the illustration depict about women, viewers can now have an open mind as to

how this movie demonstrates false identification to people in real life.

Looking at it with the perspective of the disability theory, one can see that it is evident

that Kevin has D.I.D, he gives an example as to how the disabled community is often relegated

to one of the roles of a person with a mental health diagnosis. According to Psychiatry.org,
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“Dissociative identity disorder is associated with overwhelming experiences, traumatic events

and abuse that occurred in childhood. Dissociative identity disorder was previously referred to as

multiple personality disorder — the existence of two or more distinct identities (or “personality

states”). The distinct identities are accompanied by changes in behavior, memory, and thinking.

Others may observe the signs and symptoms or reported by the individual.” In other words, a

mental disorder where the host believes he/she is another person or in this case thing. Although

this is an excellent example of mental disorder, this movie exaggerates a bit, this, is not real and

therefore made up (that a man can have over two thousand personalities and believe they are

supernatural, a hero or a villain) but the mental disorder itself is real. This movie also goes on to

inform and bring awareness to the viewers in a more subtle way. Dissociative identity disorder is

not something many people have been aware of but because of this movie the right amount of

people are aware of this disorder, and it may have even helped.

Aside from the views of others, the way the disability community is illustrated in this

movie causes some problematic occurrences. 
Unlike, how this movie demonstrates people

with D.I.D, most are not violent. In an article called “The DID Disorders: long-term patient and

family studies” written by Siegfried Clemens, states “A massive study...presenting a twenty-year

longitudinal study of over two hundred individual dissociative identity disorder patients. Bleuler

reports the most DID persons do not become severely unstable, and the majority can successfully

regain social function.” When the writer states this, it is informing those reading that dissociative

identity disorder is not a severe danger as displayed in the movie. DID is unlike any other mental

disability and does not pose a threat to anyone. The producers unknowingly presented false

identification to those that live with DID, without realizing it the viewers begin to unfold a fear

towards persons with DID making people with multiple personality disorder, seem like a threat
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to society and displays them as killers and kidnappers. All in all, after talking about how mental

illness is not a danger, next feminism how it correlates with this movie will be explained.

Through the lens of feminism, this can be perceived and interpreted in many ways. One way that

will be explained is how the main character, Kevin, and the personalities that roam in his head,

kidnap three young girls. It is immediately clear that the three young women were chosen

because of their looks. Looking at this scene from the lens of a feminist, women are often seen as

fragile and weak, and told that they must be, curvy, skinny, tall, must have perfect skin, with

perfect hair. In other words, perfect. Tyson states, “clothing for women today is the tight skirt

and high heels, which create a kind of ‘feminine’ walk...women are defined only by her

difference from male norms and values” (Tyson 87). When she states this she is letting her

reader know that that women are seen and expected to dress, walk, act, and even talk in a certain

way and even if those things are achieved they are oppressed and looked at with disgrace as

being less than men. This connects to the movie because Kevin chooses the two girls that to his

and all his personalities definition was perfect from head to toe. Besides, women are punished

for “revealing” too much skin. Therefore, Split shows the viewers that if women are dressed a

particular way it is more common for them to get killed or kidnapped, in other words, it is

portrayed that women deserve to be captured and killed because of their looks, when in fact that

should not be the case at all.

In continuation from the subject of feministic views, In an article “Internalized

Oppression” the writer, states “Behaving outside the role can lead to exclusion, ostracization,

withholding of love, violence, threats of violence, humiliation, loss, and other forms of

punishment.” Hence the word “punishment” as stated before, women are punished and looked

down on if they do something outside from their “role” and those roles being “Thin, Agreeable,
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Caretaker, Shave legs, Like boys, Sensitive, Helpful, and Sexual.” In the movie, the two of the

three young ladies are seen to have nice curvy bodies and are popular in their school. Split,

depicts these norms that all women should be like this but yet are punished for following the

norms society wants by allowing the concept that “the way they dress calls for attention” or

simply that women that dress a certain way deserve to get kidnapped or killed. According to

Simone de Beauvoir, she goes on to explain how “these myths about women allowed and

justified privileges of physical, and especially, sexual abuse. The pain of a woman is no man’s

burden to bear because, naturally, women are “intended” to feel such misery”(Beauvoir), and she

says it clear, even though women are sexually and physically abused, men turn their head the

other way and ignore the situation, ultimately stating that that is their outcome. Women should

not be abused and targeted from clothing or even for just being women. This movie displays how

women are targeted and how women are “easy” to get and dispose of as if they are objects and

not real. More importantly, viewers think that the movie had nothing to do with any message

besides the fact that someone’s imperfection can have a deeper meaning.

All in all, through the feminist lens and analyzing the disability theory it is seen that in

the movie, Split, that the character lives from a mental disorder which encourages and shows

definitions of perfection in girls in the eyes of ‘men’ and how it goes against feminist theories.

Now that this movie has been set to be seen in a broader perspective it can be put out to be seen

as a way to press against women's’ bodies as well as set a lousy representation of men and

women with multiple personality disorder. Alongside, to showing society that women do not

deserve to be kidnapped or killed for how they dress as well as, people with dissociative disorder

are not violent and are not killers and kidnappers.

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Works Cited

Clemens, Siegfried. “The Dissociative Identity Disorders: long term patient and family studies.”

Psychology and Psychiatry. Yale University. 1978.

Dr. Wang, Philip. “What Are Dissociative Disorders?” American Psychiatric Association.

August 2018.

E.J.R, David. “Internalized Oppression: The Psychology of Marginalized Groups.”

2014.

Split. Directed by Shyamalan, M. Night, Universal Pictures. 20 January 2017.

Tyson, Lois. Feminist criticism. Critical theory today: A user-friendly guide, Third Edition,

Routledge, 2014.

Granillo. “Feminist Criticism: An Introduction.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

New York: W.W. Norton &, 2001. Print.