Alters screenplay

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

I don't have MPD / DID, but I've had two close friends with DID and have known several others.

I'm currently working on a screenplay which I'm hoping will cast multiplicity in a favorable light, and would love to get some input.

The log line: A college student with multiple personalities must make a choice between the boy she loves and the alters who've kept her safe since childhood.

Although there's no explicit sex or violence, I've tried to be very straightforward, so there may be some triggers.

The screenplay can be downloaded it at www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/5/350846/Alters.pdf

Comments can be directed to dianneordi at excite dot com. Use "Alters" as the subject.

Thank you!
Dianne.

Comments

part 2

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

I think my main criticism is that this story is too bent on making the solution conform to outside expectations of what constitutes health and happiness, without exploring beyond a particular perception of multiplicity or a particular notion of functionality. You are taking a very irregular minority and trying to make it fit the single-mind majority, and it just doesn't gel. If this gets in the media, I know that when I talk to people who have seen it, I will still need to explain the same stereotypes, go over the same old myths and rumours: it will not have changed the public perception of multiplicity for the better. It could even be detrimental: "Oh, I saw this show where this girl ends up integrating, and everyone lives happily after that, and they find the right guy and everything, why don't you do that?" The answer to that one, of course, is that I'm in love with a guy in my group, and we make our own way together. But good luck having any acceptance of that if everyone who thinks they know about multiplicity see Heather(s) and Tyler together, bound in hetronormative, socially acceptable, otherbodied conjugal bliss. Where does that leave me and Tahl and the many others who have in-system relationships? Or groups where the frontrunners have different partners, and everyone thrives? Or multiple systems with both sexes and genders, neither gender, non-humans, or disembodied intelligences? Trauma or non-trauma, they are the ones that remain hidden and disbelieved. Where are their stories?

Re: part 2

[rhymer-713.livejournal.com]

Thank you Ser. You just said what my bit of snark above was meant to indicate but failed. You have said the very thing I wanted to say. Lori has a boyfriend. (We have no host but she is one of the primary fronts) and he is also a multiple. But we have had relationships with one-minds and we have members of both sexes here plus a dragon. But yeah. Just want to say thanks. Didn't mean that snark against the writer but against her play. After all, why can't Heather(s) wind up marrying Tyler and living functionally (as a group instead of the integration/watching over them from above?
Alissa

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

There are countless ways a group can live, some bad, others good, most in between. I argue that we need more exploration of the possibilities, rather than a set of ideals, romantic or otherwise, that multiplicity must be moulded to.

I respect that the author has put a lot of work into this. It does not mean that this piece of work is ethical or representative.

Re: part 2

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Why can't Julie wind up marrying Tyler and living functionally as a group?

Re: part 2

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

She was the one that was in love with Tyler, and he with her, so I agree. And that is one feasible solution. Why does he have to say "No, I'm in love with Heather?" Heather is only one person in that body.

Re: part 2

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

That's actually what I was trying to show.

Re: part 2

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Well, you didn't. If you wanted to show the integration becoming undone, you need to actually have plot events and dialogue where that happens. You can't just put the others on screen and call it implied, because there's this whole wrong theory about how everyone is still there as part of the post-integration person. And anyway, the audience assumption, sadly, is gonna be that integrated = fixed. So if you go straight from integrated Heather to happy ending, it's never going to occur to anyone that they re-split.

Re: part 2

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll work on it.

clearer? (no integration)

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

Does the new end of this scene work / make clear that Zoe, B.J., et al are back?

Re: clearer? (no integration)

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the stuff! Headmates to the rescue!