Editorials
Here’s Why ‘Split’ is the Wrong Target for the Mental Illness Debate
We’ve written a handful of articles about M. Night Shyamalan’s Split here on Bloody Disgusting in the past week, and that’s because, well, it’s our duty to talk about this stuff. We posted two reviews, one written by Trace Thurman and the other by Jimmy Champane, and we also dug into a few problems with the film: I wrote about its final act issues, while Chris Webster had a problem with the protagonist. For the most part, issues aside, we all agreed that Split is a damn fine horror film, and we’re incredibly happy to see it reigning supreme at the box office.
A win for original horror is a win for us all.
But one aspect of Split we haven’t yet dug into is the single most talked-about and controversial aspect of the whole damn thing. From the very moment the first trailer hit the net, many were concerned that Shyamalan was furthering harmful stigmas about mental illness – the film centers on a madman with the very real Dissociative Identity Disorder – and countless think-pieces have hit the net in the wake of release. Personally speaking, I’ve had several debates about this very topic on social media, and now that I’ve had a week to really think hard about the film, I wanted to write my own piece.
Contrary to many, I found Split to be anything but insensitive on this particular front.
Now mind you, I don’t personally suffer from any form of diagnosed mental illness, so if that somewhat negates my opinion on this whole issue, I totally understand. It’s hard to be taken seriously when talking about something that doesn’t directly impact you yourself in any real way, so believe me, I get it. If people who do suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder have taken issue with Split and its depiction of it, I take that very seriously and consider that there must be something to that whole argument. So please know that I’m not disregarding anyone’s opinion, but merely stating my own.
One major issue with the argument against Split, however? I’ve spoken with a handful of active members of the mental health community who feel the film is harmful, stigmatizing and totally insensitive… but they haven’t actually seen it for themselves. They’re basing that opinion on trailers, plot descriptions, and articles they’ve read online; in other words, they never gave the film a chance to prove their hunches wrong. Many decided to boycott based on the trailer alone, which I take issue with for one big reason: Split, contrary to whatever you may have ascertained from the trailer, is a film that actually treats mental illness with a welcome degree of care; furthermore, it depicts those who suffer not as less than, but as more than.
There’s an entire sub-plot in Split, away from the main storyline centered on three young women locked up in a basement by James McAvoy’s mentally unwell Kevin, that’s all about Kevin’s doctor, Karen Fletcher. Played by Betty Buckley, Fletcher is Kevin’s psychiatrist, looking out for and protecting him after everyone else has discarded him. Many have criticized the sub-plot for making the film drag in parts and ultimately taking away from what’s really compelling about the story, but Dr. Fletcher’s storyline is incredibly important when debating the film’s ethics.
Fletcher’s theory on Kevin and others who suffer from his disorder is that they’re more advanced than the rest of us, having unlocked the true power of their brains and, essentially, becoming superhuman as a result of their incredible life traumas. There’s even one scene where Fletcher explains this theory to a classroom via Skype, and the scene seems to exist for the sole purpose of Shyamalan letting us know that he’s actively NOT trying to paint mental illness in a negative light. You could argue that the scene is unnecessary to the actual plot of the film, but it’s there nonetheless, and it’s there for a reason. Those with D.I.D. are not “broken,” Shyamalan is telling us, but rather “more than” the rest of us.
And this idea plays heavily into Split‘s final moments, which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the film. Shyamalan hits home the idea that our various traumas and mental illnesses make us stronger and perhaps even “purer”; and if you’re asking me, he ultimately sends a very empowering message to those who, like Kevin and Casey, may feel broken and cast aside by society. Granted, he doesn’t quite hit that ball out of the park (the film feels like its lacking a final scene necessary to really tie everything together and make it all resonate), but he tries. And his positive message, to me at least, was very clear.
Jimmy Champane felt the same way in his aforementioned review. He wrote:
On the topic of the criticism Split has drawn on its villain using mental illness as a catch-all excuse, I personally think Shyamalan treats the disorder with care. A not-so-subtle undertone of the film focuses on Kevin’s therapist’s struggle to bring Dissociative Identity Disorder as the key to unlocking the potential of the human brain – and it works. Additionally, the way Shyamalan carefully uses Casey’s past as a tool to show why she’s able to keep a cool head and outsmart Kevin’s different personalities shows that he went the extra mile to delicately show his respect for those struggling with mental illness.
Yes, many horror films do depict the mentally ill as crazy, broken madmen, and though Split‘s antagonist is indeed a villain who does some awful things, there’s something way more going on just beneath the surface. Shyamalan clearly had something to say with Split, and though you may take issue with the way he went about saying it, I ask you to at least consider that he was trying, like few filmmakers actually have, to not depict mental illness as something we ought to be afraid of. And I also ask, to those who have judged it without seeing it, that you at least give it a chance.
An important issue to raise, but Split is the wrong target.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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