Background
I Did, Didn’t I is a student short film published by an account labeled Trispective Productions from 2022. As of the creation of this article there are currently 464 views in total of the film on Youtube. It is about a woman with dissociative identity disorder whose husband went missing, and she had turned herself in.
What it Did Right
Upon opening the film, I was under the assumption that the short film would assign one alter as the “evil alter,” which is extremely common in film representation of dissociative identity disorder due to the themes it presented. However, it defied my expectations in this way: there was no assigned evil alter, and by the end of the film the woman had come to the conclusion that she was not responsible for the disappearance for her husband. While she was arrested at the end of the film, it is implied that she had been innocent, and someone else had been responsible for his disappearance. This is demonstrated through the line “[the potential perpetrator] was yelling about how the ring should have been hers,” implying that it was a murder committed out of jealousy rather than the protagonist herself being responsible for the murder. Thus, the doubling that is seen within the film is not painted in an inherently malicious light, even if the protagonist was arrested.
What It Dramatized
Unfortunately, the film fell for many of the same tropes used in fiction involving media depiction of dissociative identity disorder. While not inherently incorrect given that what was represented is certainly possible within the realms of dissociative identity disorder, the transition between one alter to another was marked through the protagonist’s eyes rolling into her head and by laying her head against the table in very obvious and pronounced motions; this is extremely uncommon in patients with dissociative identity disorder, given that the disorder tends to be more often covert than overt. Dramatic movements, however, are more popularized in media, given that it is far more entertaining to an audience- this comes at the expense of people with the condition, of which are then treated less as a human and more of an exhibit because of their mental illness.
Conclusion
While there was no apparent demonization of dissociative identity disorder in the short film I Did, Didn’t I, I would not recommend watching the film, nor would I have any desire to rewatch it due to its dramatization of dissociative identity disorder.
