Exploitation of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) through the Entertainment Industry: The Depiction of DID in the TV Series "Mr. Robot"

Academic Paper from the year 2017 in the subject Communications - Ethics in the Media, grade: 3, University of Innsbruck (American Studies), course: American Literature and Culture: America Through the Small Screen: Television and Its Transformations, language: English, abstract: The present work analyzes the exploitation of dissociative identity disorder (DID) through the entertainment industry, with a special focus on the depiction of DID in the TV series "Mr. Robot". Human mankind is known to be easy to bribe, but the impact these corrupt actions have on people are almost always blinded out. This also happens in the film industry where topics get exploited and distorted to make them as interesting as possible. In the end, little remains of the truth, but the spectator often does not know that and takes what is shown on screen as reality. This has also happened to a disease called "dissociative identity disorder". A high percentage of people are not even aware of this disease, and when they see it in movies or series they either believe it to be fantasy or they stick to the depiction given by the film, without even going further into the topic. As the depiction of the afflicted people is often one of a crazy, uncontrollable or ridiculous split personality, like in Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", dating back to 1886, and in movies like "Psycho", "Fight Club", "Me myself and Irene" and many more, it can have a huge negative impact on people with DID. To undo these movies which have already been created is impossible, but we still have the present to change people's minds and lives. Therefore, it is important to examine everything that appears on television about this topic, and as "Mr. Robot" is a fairly new series and a third season will be aired in future, the question arises if this series too has been exploiting and distorting DID for the sake of entertainment; hence, this is the question this paper is aimed to a Read more