Review of Criminal Minds Two-parter for Pavilion.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The episodes we are reviewing deal with a serial killer (unfortunately, What else) who's multiple. The whole gist of it is there's this supposed team of people who murder others and then put it on the Internet. The BAU team follows the killer system, who kills several more couples, and eventually captures the whiz-kid named Reid. The system portrayed has the birth self, who is portrayed as weak and vacillating, the birth-self's abusive father as the Evil SoulbondTM, and a mediator self called Raphael who sounds just as Fundamentalist as the abusive father-self. The system captures Reid at the end of the first half of the two-parter, and then in the second-half taunts Reid with the choice between one family out three dying, and in a second taunt, one of his teammates dying. The team rescues him and the Evil Psycho MultipleTM dies from his victim's gun. Of course, to add drama, the system gives Reid a temptation to become a drug addict.
Pros of the appearance:
The only one I can think of is the fact that this system at least, despite being evil, co-operated.
Cons:
1. The system was portrayed as an evil psycho serial killer, who slaughtered people brutally.
2. The system portrayed was started by the typical abuse required for a fictional system.
3. The system was portrayed as a bunch of nuts.
4. The father-self was portrayed as a violent fanatic.
5. They HAD to make the Birth self the most heroic self in the system.
Conclusion: As per usual, with male multiples portrayed onscreen, a slur against the males who are multiple.
Review done by Tony Derouen^Crew.

Comments

[20splinters.livejournal.com]

I have to agree fully with hms_beagle We really used to enjoy that show too. An old episode of CSI recently re-aired with a supposed female multiple. In her case, she just got kidnapped while a child and had a second possible personality develop, who was, predictably, the criminal one, but they left it sort of uncertain, like the girl might have been faking the second personality to get out of responsibility for her crimes.

Bah. Why do all the reasons for potentially faking being multiple have to do with criminality or just plain irresponsibility?

JOey

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That's the plot to Mary Higgins Clark's All Around the Town, for what it's worth...

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Although at least in that, the evil personality actually wasn't the killer, it was someone else trying to pin it on her. And, uh, I guess I just spoiled the only semi-suspenseful thing in that whole book. Sorry. :p (I wasted 45 minutes of my life skimming through that book!)

[morgil-lomion.livejournal.com]

After your final statement, I find myself suddenly wondering if there are any examples of male multiples which one could site as being anything other than violent portrayals?

I have not seen any, but my own experience is limited. I've often wished there were some simple way of increasing the number of positive portrayals of multiples in the media in general.

Such a Shame!

[bearclan.livejournal.com]

It's too bad that almost (?) every group that differs from the dominant cultural group must be villainized in the popular media, for one imaginary reason or another. In English media, the Irish have been portrayed as lazy alcoholics, and those of African heritage as sexually irresponsible, and the physically disabled as criminally deranged, just to mention a few. Non-minority groups, such as women and young people, shown in contrast to the groups which hold economic power - older males - are usually shown to be ineffectual and ruled by their emotions. Oddly, in backlash, men in general are now shown to be violent and unintelligent.

Why should it surprise any of us that Multiples are, with very few exceptions, portrayed as criminal, devious, violent, and irresponsible? Even as other minority groups gain rights and are seen, by the sheer volume of available media images, to be less frightening and more like the dominant cultural groups, those of us who remain in media shadow, particularly those who are physically or psychiatrically "different" (and therefore disordered)are presented as frightening and dangerous?

We think that our only hope for relief from this fictional violence perpetrated against us is to get more Multiples and others who are "different" into the media spotlight, where our finer qualities can be seen, and the veneer of danger can be peeled away in the light of knowledge.
Public discussions that highlight the inconsistancies of negative portrayals will certainly help, as will the increasing presence of "out" Multiples in society. (We know that "coming out" is another topic, and a scary one, for another discussion.)
Peace and Blessings;
Brett, Primary of the Bear Clan

Re: Such a Shame!

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Oddly, in backlash, men in general are now shown to be violent and unintelligent.

I've wondered about that too. However, it is strange that men still largely control the media, and yet many seem to be reveling in the "dumb guy" image, the idea that men are lazy, irresponsible, stupid, oversexed louts who are incapable of thinking deeply about anything for more than the length of an average television commercial. "I'm just a guy" has now become an excuse for all sorts of irresponsibility. It seems to make the struggles of women to be accepted as the intellectual equals of men an absurdity-- not because it is absurd to think that a woman could be as good or better than a man, but because it is absurd to think that a woman should ever have had to prove it, if one cannot expect a man to act any better than the typical TV-sitcom father.

...of course, we can and should expect better. I find it strange, however, to think that any men should find this a flattering portrayal. It is difficult enough, in the wider scope of society, to be accepted as a man or woman in the body of the opposite gender. I find it odd that to be accepted as a "real man" by television standards, I would be required to hold myself to lower standards of ethics and behavior than I ordinarily do.

As for portrayals of multiples: Having discussed this with other members of my group, we've concluded that the only way for us to be portrayed as other than violent criminals or helpless victims is to create our own media. All things in media are created with audience appeal as the end goal. The audience may be capable of accepting a much wider range of viewpoints and realities than they are given credit for, but nonetheless, it remains a fact that producers, writers and so forth have ideas about "what will sell," and that inevitably involves some amount of pandering to stereotypes. Even in a documentary, things may be edited and taken vastly out of context in order to guide the audience's view towards a certain end.

-R.N.