Mental Illness Comes to Primetime Comedy

BY JENNIFER MAYER
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 02, 2009
Searching for a way to laugh at mental illness without becoming a social pariah? Diablo Cody’s new series, United States of Tara (UST), might be your answer.
UST centers on a family dealing with their mother’s multiple personality disorder. Tara, much to her children’s chagrin, morphs into alter egos raging from an out-of-control teenager to a hillbilly to a ’50s housewife.
In many respects, UST resembles Diablo Cody’s other famous creation, Juno. Both plotlines center on women living a life that makes society squeamish. While Juno was criticized for mitigating the seriousness of teen pregnancy with humor, the same could be said of Tara and mental illness.
Tara’s multiple personalities provide the comedic relief of the program, but the series has potential to make a much more meaningful statement about mental illness. In just the first two episodes, we begin to get a glimpse of how Tara’s husband deals with the circumstances as well as the community’s misconceptions about her situation and her sister’s refusal to acknowledge her condition.
Part of Cody’s ability to normalize such taboo subjects stems from her protagonists. Both Ellen Page and Toni Collette are typical ultra-hip girls with a self-deprecating and honest sense of humor, which makes their abnormalities more easily acceptable to viewers. Just as Juno did not fit the typical image one conjures up when hearing the words “pregnant teen,” Tara puts a human face to a largely misunderstood condition. And just as critics praised Page for her performance, it would not be surprising to see Rosemarie DeWitt (who plays Tara’s sister, Aunt Charmaine) as a Golden Globe nominee next year.
While watching UST, though, we must remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose here is entertainment with only secondary statements about society. Cody does, in a sense, mock both pregnancy and mental illness through her comedies. Most sufferers of multiple personality disorder do not behave as Tara does, nor do their alter egos surface in the convenient manner in which Tara’s do.
However her motives play out, Cody has created a captivating premise for a series. The challenge will be whether or not she can adapt her style to fit the television format. While the pilot was endlessly entertaining because of how much it revealed about the main characters, the second episode did little to build on their complexity.
To keep its viewers entertained, UST must dig deep and flesh out all of its characters—and refrain from a singular focus on Tara’s alter egos. For example, Aunt Charmaine is obviously in denial over her sister’s diagnosis, but little has been revealed as to why she finds it so disturbing.
With such acclaimed talent on board (Steven Spielberg is the executive producer), UST has all the makings of an award-winning and highly rated series. Whether it will reach its potential remains to be seen.