Recently, I went to the movies to see one of the newest thrillers, Split, in which the main character has dissociative identity disorder. DID is a personality disorder in which someone "houses" several personalities inside of their brain. These personalities are thought to manifest because the brain is trying to protect itself against trauma, which if you think about it, is fascinating. In this movie, the main character, Kevin, suffers from the disorder and it is disclosed that he has 23 different personalities and an unknown and much more powerful 24th identity. Since this movie is meant to be a thriller, Kevin's 24th identity is less of a human and more of a superhuman.Hollywood and the media in general, have used mental illness as a way to create a character who inevitably turns out to be a character you don't like but you can't help to feel sympathy for since, after all, their disease is what eventually evolves them into the character that you hate. However, in this movie, you couldn't actually like Kevin. You were mainly exposed to three of his personalities, these three being the ringleaders and in a sense, disciples, of his more ugly and supernatural 24th identity. And there was not one thing to like about them. Instead of showing (in more than a 20 second clip) the real Kevin and how conflicted he was by his disease, the movie only outlined his two most hated personalities and one very child-like one.So what's the problem? It's just a movie after all, right?Wrong.Mental illness is a real thing and real people suffer from it every day. Not every person with dissociative identity disorder is inevitably evil as this movie depicted. Mental illness is something people with struggle with on a daily basis, especially when they have a personality disorder. Imagine not actually knowing who the real you was? Or having so many different personalities inside your body that some were stronger than yourself and they took over? It's a scary and very real thought. This movie missed an amazing opportunity to not only make the character more likable but also make him more real, had they demonstrated the difficult internal conflict and struggle that comes with having a personality disorder.Instead, this movie added to the stigma that goes along with personality disorders and mental health. Instead of spending more time evolving the character, this movie used a personality disorder to ultimately make Kevin into a monster. How is this fair? People with mental health issues deal with the stigma every day that they are less than because of their disease, that they are dangerous to society, and that there is ultimately something wrong with them because of their illness. This movie, only added to that stigma. By making Kevin less of a person struggling with personality disorder, it demonized HIM and gave the audience little to connect to except that overall and his personality disorder got the best of him and sent him on a rampage.Mental illness is not something to be scared of or something that should be used to demonize a character in a movie. Why not make the character a horrible person simply pretending to be other people to justify his wrongs? Why add to the already sad and demeaning stigmas that come along with personality disorders? There are people who live with this every day and struggle daily to overcome their own personal problems as well as the negative stigma surrounding them.