Kate Gregson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh_ooc2009-09-28 12:57 am
vanillajello) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2009-09-28 12:57 am
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Spotlight on Fandoms: United States of Tara
What’s it all about?
United States of Tara is an American drama/comedy series created by Diablo Cody (yes, she of Juno and now also of Jennifer’s Body fame) and aired on Showtime. The first season, comprising of 12 episodes, 30 minutes each, aired in the spring of 2009, while the second season is expected to air in early 2010.
The show is about the life of the seemingly ordinary Gregson family - a couple and their two teenage children - living in Overland Park, Kansas. What sets the family apart from others is that the mother, Tara, suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID, formerly known as multiple personality disorder): when she’s stressed or triggered in some other way, she transitions and one of her alters (that is, alternative personalities) comes out.
Tara has been on medication for the condition, but has recently gone off her meds because she wants to try to learn to live with the condition, and because while the medication stopped the alters from surfacing, it also made her unable to feel and act like a normal person.
The show is about Tara and her family coping with the alters being a part of their daily life.
Who are the main characters?
Tara (Toni Collette)
”A lot of people just want to be rescued from themselves. They wish they could be airlifted from their skin and dropped into someone else’s. Me? I just wish I could stay the same for a whole week. But then, ironically, I would be a whole different person.”
– Tara in her video diary
Tara is just a woman trying to get on with her life. She paints elaborate murals for a living and takes care of her family. She also goes to therapy with (the honestly pretty clueless) Dr Ocean, keeps a video diary of her feelings, and has to hold family meetings to find out what the alters have been up, as she has no memory of what the alters do when they’re out.
And of course, you get the alters. The three alters we meet at the beginning of the series are as follows:
T: T is a teenager. She’s 16, loud and bratty, and a complete wild child, and Kate’s favourite.
Buck: Buck is a man. He’s also a biker, a Vietnam vet, and someone you really don’t want to piss off. He serves the role of the protector. And goes around hitting on barmaids.
Alice: Alice is a chirpy ’50s homemaker in pearls and heels. She’s also a control freak, and seems to act as some sort of a mother to the other alters.
Max (John Corbett)
”We're all angry at the crazy. I've been living with this for 17 years. Married to it. You just take it to pampered chef parties.”
- Max to Tara’s sister Charmaine
Max is Tara’s long-suffering, supportive husband. He works as a landscaper and keeps the family going when Tara is ”unavailable”. He also has to deal with the stress of the female alters trying to sex him up while Tara is uninterested in sleeping with him, as Max and Tara have agreed he can’t have sex with the alters.
Although he may seem so at times, even Max is not perfect: during the course of the series, he attempts to find out what caused Tara’s condition by going around asking questions from people from her past behind her back.
Kate (Brie Larson)
”One day, she’ll grow up and be a person, I promise. She’ll grow up, she’ll have kids of her own and be our adult daughter and not this evil fucking Bratz doll.”
- Max to Tara
Kate is the older and the slightly more troubled and bratty of the two Gregson kids. She wants independence from the ”drama and weirdness” of her family, and attempts to achieve this by getting a job at a local restaurant. Unfortunately she also enters into a sexual relationship with her creepy manager. Kate is smart and pretty perceptive of her brother’s situation, but still makes very dumb decisions in her own life. Growing up with a lot of responsibility has made her believe she’s more mature than she actually is.
Marshall (Keir Gilchrist)
”I can't believe how normal you are.”
”I can't believe you're so damaged you believe I'm normal.”
- Charmaine and Marshall
Marshall – called Moosh by his sister – is the 14-year-old, sensitive and supportive gay son. He dresses conservatively, loves jazz, classic movies and theatre, and only gets in trouble at school when he offers literary analyses that are way beyond the normal high school curriculum. In terms of story, Marshall gets the ’teenager with an awkward crush’ plot. No big deal is made out of his homosexuality; it’s simply a fact that is completely known to his family.
If there is one character in this show who’ll break your heart, it’ll probably be Marshall.
Why should you watch?
- Toni Collette. For the most part the transitions between personalities happen on-screen, and they rely heavily on Collette’s ability to switch between characters. Tara closes her eyes; T opens them. You see the change in the little things, and it’s awesome. (And she just got a well-deserved Emmy for her performance.)
- The other cast. The others shouldn’t be ignored just because Toni Collette is amazing, because everyone is awesome.
- The family dynamic. The Gregsons have got to be one of my favourite TV families in a while. I love the way they try to deal with each other and protect each other.
- The writing. The show has drama and it has comedy, and both of them are done well.
- The music. There are eels songs! Lots of them!
- No really, you really should just try it.
- Also, have a few videos (of which there are too few for this show on Youtube):
First, the title sequence, because it is a thing of great beauty.
And second, an interview with Toni Collette (who explains the show much better than I do) with some clips from the show.
Where can you get it?
You can preorder S1 on dvd from Amazon.
This is only a week late, yay.
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