United States of Tara

So I finally, since I’m sick as a dog this week (my whooping cough culture is on the way to the lab at this Very Moment!), tracked down an episode of the United States of Tara show to watch. I don’t have cable or Showtime, but this is maybe one of the few times I’m a bit sad about that. Because I love Toni Colette and if anyone’s going to do a multiple on TV, I’m kind of glad it’s her. And Diablo Cody is smart, and I like that.

So, predisposed for the show and I watched Episode 2.

I liked it. I’m actually kind of excited about it and hoping to order the DVD collection so that one day perhaps I can watch it with Noah. When he’s like, very very old.

So here’s what I liked: Tara, the multiple, is not a serial killer, nor a psychopathic superhero. These are really both good and unusual things in pop culture. I think Colette is doing an amazing job making the people (they use alters, which I recognize as necessary but am not super fond of) come alive in a fairly 3-d way. Their motivations are human, not alien, and although there’s a bit of overexaggeration, well… sometimes multiples do that to distinguish themselves. Tara&al get pretty much a pass from me from that perspective.

I like how the family reacts to the different characters – when Kate, the daughter, goes after Alice with filthy sexy language, it’s priceless. And I like the character of Max the husband, although I keep thinking “Aidan, is this who you ended up with after Carrie? Grow a pair, dude!”

I think the show’s producers and writers are doing a really good job walking the line between making being multiple too light, and making it too heavy. In the episode I saw anyway, there was no horrible trauma; no wailing to the universe about sexual abuse. It was more about the inherent dysfunction of the whole family and situation. I’m fairly impressed by that and I hope it continues (if you want a consultation, email me!)

I find the most fantastic aspect so far is how the town accepts, more or less, Tara and her people. When Alice walked into the school and introduced herself as Alice I just about had a coronary. Maybe I’m too old-school of a multiple but my god. That’s one thing I have trouble picturing happening with a “real” multiple.

Because unless you’re really really really narcissistic, that’s just not appropriate to do at your child’s school. It’s just not, any more than it is okay to offer drugs at a parent-teacher conference. Yes, that’s an opinionated statement. But I’ll stand by it. When you show up at your kid’s school, you’re not there to define yourself. You’re there in your role as a parent and you should damn well show up as your legal identity. You can still kick Stepford wife ass if you like though, and Alice did. I found that realistic too; if there’s one thing our system agrees on, it’s don’t mess with our kid.

And then there are the parts where this show hit my discomfort zone. I hope that it deals, eventually, with some of these issues. But I find Tara and her system force me to react as a multiple. This is a good thing in television, really. So here’s my reaction.

First of all, I don’t know any functional systems that over years of adjustment cannot find a way to communicate a little bit better than Tara’s system does. The total amnesia is good television, but bad, bad multiplicity. I understand that she’s been on meds and she’s readjusting, but I hope that this changes over time. The “family meeting to explain to Tara what happened when the alters were out” struck me as hopelessly codependent.

Tara’s system needs to learn to explain it to itself. The vast majority of functional multiples I know, which is the vast majority of multiples I know, are able to accomplish this. I’ll accept it as a plot device, but as far as getting it right goes – I don’t think this show is getting this totally right, at least not yet.

And secondly, I do think this show portrays some of the pitfalls I hope we don’t fall into as parents. And it makes it very uncomfortable (again, in a good way) to watch.

Here’s what I believe. I do believe in being real and not trying to lock everyone up and hide our differing opinions and points of view. But I also believe that above any need to know their parents’ hearts and souls, kids need to know first before all things that their parents are there for them. And if there is ever a reason to tone it the fuck down a little and not be “I’m Buck and I’m a dude,” it would be to not screw up your son. You know?

So when Alice prances into her 14 year old son’s room to ask him if he made pee pee in the bed, in a way that made it clear she wasn’t his mom, it bothered me. Or when she explained to her teenage daughter that “your mom loves you.” You have to own these things as a system, in my opinion, and if you don’t, you have to be quiet. When the son quietly went and put a towel down in his bed, it made me want to cry, for him.

And that’s not terrible in a tv show, really, because it kind of hit something on the head. But oh man. It is hard to watch. And I suppose because there just aren’t enough multiples out there in television I do worry that people will think “all multiples” are like that.

But, you know. No serial killing. Yet, anyway.