How Cartoons Demonise Dissociative Disorders Through the Propagation of the Stereotype of the Dual Personality

You’ve seen this all before. A character, often male, is a nice guy, maybe a bit too nice or too repressed. They’re nerdy or meek, not overly popular, and often bullied or abused in some way. However, in certain situations, everything changes. Either through a shift in mannerisms or through an actual physical transformation, they change into a violent brute, a self-confident schemer, or a passionate womaniser. Characters like The Incredible Hulk, Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura from Japanese manga series Yu-Gi-Oh! (Kazuki Takahashi, 1996-), and all versions of The Nutty Professor story. Popularised by the fantasy of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and later by pulp entertainment drawing from limited understandings of the then-named Multiple Personality Disorder in the early 20th century, the dramatised conception of people with aggressive alternate personalities appear across a diverse range of animation in both heroic and villainous roles, but few name what it is or give the topic proper weight. In essence, these are animated depictions of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a trauma disorder brought on due to adverse childhood experiences, and as someone with DID myself, I find it quite frustrating how it is constantly depicted on screen. In this article, I will look over various depictions and how such representations lead to broader socio-cultural stigma while at the same time showing hopes of change from within the industry by explaining how DID can be better represented, hopefully leading to increased understanding of what is a stigmatised and sensationalised disorder.

**Fig. 1 - Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk transformation.**

The Baseline

The best place to start is with a character who everybody knows, of who everybody understands the mechanics, but which few might realise have or display clear evidence of DID, that of founding Avenger Robert Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk (Fig. 1). Appearing in television shows and movies both live-action and animation going back to the television adaptation of the comics in 1978, it is hard to find a more recognisable character to explain the fundamentals of the DID experience. Within dissociative disorders, the general framework is that of a “host”, a mostly stable front-facing person and their “alters”, the other states of being which hold onto functions and memories that are too much for the main person to deal with. Clinical settings may likewise refer to Emotional Parts and Apparently Normal Parts which describes knowledge of trauma, but the central element of these understandings of multiple identities is who functions as the day to day “persona” and how the others help the host deal with things that cause distress.

In animated representations of the Hulk, when Banner gets angry or threatened, he “Hulks out” turning into a giant green monster who much unlike the mild mannered Bruce, takes direct, often violent action to solve problems. In both the earliest comics as well as later runs such as Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk (2018), there are other Hulk identities that Bruce Banner can become, but generally you get the same deal, the ferocious green or grey monster who wants only to fight. This nice guy whose body gets taken over by a darker and more violent presence can be seen all across multiple cartoons. While heroic characters are often not directly stated to have DID, there is a large media library of characters who are meek or ordinary young men who take on heroic personas that they are often unaware of the actions of or have a large shift in behaviour between. Yami Yugi and Tuxedo Mask from Yu-Gi-Oh and Sailor Moon (Naoko Takeuchi, 1991-) respectively are stated to be different presences within the protagonist’s body, with Yami Yugi being the spirit of a long dead Pharaoh and Tuxedo Mask being Mamoru Chiba’s past life as an alien prince taking over his body. Likewise there are empowered transformations such as in The Mask comic book (John Arcudi, 1989-1991), animated television series Freakazoid! (Bruce Timm & Paul Dini, 1995-1997), and DC’s Creeper (Steve Ditko & Don Segall, 1968-), whose superhero transformation induces a change in identity. Even characters like Ben 10 when becoming Wildmutt or Brainstorm can be seen through this lens due to the transformations shifting his thoughts and internal reality. If you have ever seen a cartoon where a hero becomes a different person literally or figuratively, you have seen this character type.

While many of these representations of DID identities are portrayed as heroic, on the villainous end, however, you have characters like Batman’s Two-Face (Fig. 2) and Ventriloquist, the videogame Danganronpa (Kazutaka Kodaka, 2010-) and the character of Toko Furukawa, and Mal from animated sitcom Total Drama Revenge of the Island (Jennifer Pertsch & Tom McGillis, 2012). All of these characters are nice - if troubled - people who are fighting and often lose against another presence in their body that is characterised as “evil” or dangerous. Two-Face and the Ventriloquist both take on supervillain roles due to their alters, while Toko’s alter Genocide Jack is not directly a villain but still an unwanted and murderous presence (even if she does not kill anyone in the game and later adaptions). Mal is an alter of contestant Mike who has several other comedic alters, which also serves to treat DID as comedy and entertainment instead of taking it seriously. While often shaped by trauma, these characters are villains because they cannot win out against their darker impulses. Most people with DID are victims of violence and people with DID being violent is a pervasive negative myth that leads to stigma and prejudice against people with DID as seen in live-action works as far ranging as Moon Knight (Jeremy Slater, 2022), Split (M. Night Shyamalan, 2016), and Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960).

**Fig. 3 - Masquerade from *Bakugan Battle Brawlers*.**

Other characters who do not directly have DID are Clayface from 2004’s The Batman (Michael Goguen & Duane Capizzi, 2004-2008), Masquerade from Bakugan Battle Brawlers (Mitsuo Hashimoto, 2007-) (Fig. 3), various black-suited Spider-Men and iterations of Venom, and the Ghost Freak plot line from Ben 10 (Man of Action, 2005-2008), as well as several other characters with villainous or dangerous transformations such as werewolves can also be understood through this lens. These are characters who transform into other beings or have other beings enter into their body who are often evil for the sake of it. Clayface from The Batman is especially striking as he was a formerly heroic police officer Ethan Bennet, who on multiple occasions decided that he just prefers being a villain after psychological trauma from The Joker “makes him crazy” in the episodes “The Clayface of Tragedy” (Season 1) and “Meltdown” (Season 2). These characters can serve as tragic villains, and unless they are redeemed, show how easily a person can be broken, thus leaning into negative and damaging stereotypes about the experience and effects of mental illness. Something worth noting is that much as with the Hulk archetype, these characters primarily work on a clear sense of duality, the good and evil, the strong and weak. Yet in DID, there are rarely ever just two personality states in one body, with about 10 being more common. These screen representations further shrink down the public conception of those with dissociative disorders to the “good one” and the “bad one”, while also creating a belief in people with DID that the “original” person, the host, needs to be the only person. 88% of people who try to achieve final fusion in DID don’t succeed.

Signs of Change

There are, however, certain signs of progress within specific cartoons that either intentionally or otherwise try to present DID more evenhandedly and progressively. Throughout the cartoon OK K.O Let’s be Heroes (Ian Jones-Quartey, 2017-2019), the character of Kaio Kincaid (a.k.a. KO) has a darker side to himself known as Turbo K.O. or TKO, who represents all of KO’s negative emotions and bad impulses (Fig. 4). After being told to tap into his anger by “Shadowy Figure” (the “dark” state of KO’s dad, Professor Venomous), KO gets taken over by TKO who is more violent, rough, and self-assured. At the end of the two-parter named “You’re in Control” (premiering at the end of Season 1), TKO gets sealed away and only comes back sporadically through the series, but each time he appears and comes out again KO tries to “merge” with him (a process similar to final fusion) and finds that it does not quite work.

Eventually in the episode “Let’s Fight to the End” (in Season 3), KO realises that TKO is a part of him and that they have to work together, as he does things that KO just is not used to doing or really able to do. While they do end up fusing into MKO (Merged KO) at this realisation, it is clearly meant to be reflective of not fighting with or ‘othering’ your other parts, and he only was able to merge by listening to both of their needs. KO and TKO still, however, present a dualism not often present in real-world experiences of DID, and the solution offered by the series is still to become one person. Other similar character journeys include Alien X from Ben 10: Alien Force (Man of Action, 2008-2010), and Jane (played by Diane Guerrero) from the live-action superhero series Doom Patrol (Jeremy Carver, 2019-2023). Both of these programmes present characters that are trying to work out how to live with and appease more than one part of yourself, while learning how to be more you. Ben 10: Alien Force also has Ben be taken over by Big Chill which at first seems to harken back to Ghost Freak’s villainous possession from the original series (he was an alien trapped in the omnitrix as a prison who would gain control whenever Ben transformed into him), but it is seen more as Big Chill’s parental instincts taking presence over Ben’s own consciousness instead of anything more nefarious. Likewise, the gem fusions in television series Steven Universe (Rebecca Sugar, 2013-2019), while at face value are an allegory for romantic relationships, are a representation of a positive coexistence in one mind, especially Garnet, Rodonite, and Fluorite. Animation can be seen as a positive space to explore these topics as they introduce the ideas in an abstracted way and are often people’s first experience with these character types as people watch cartoons from a young age. Sensitivity towards these depictions should be treated seriously by creatives as much as sensitivity towards race, gender, and sexuality would be.

I wish I could give more positive options but there is not a lot out there. There are so many stories to be told from different amounts and different kinds of alters, and some such as ‘child alters’ (often known as littles) are almost never explored in fiction. But there could be, and animation creatives looking to write about duality could do a lot to learn from talking to people with DID and other dissociative disorders and their experiences living a shared existence. Additionally, moving away from only portraying plurality as that of two personality states could do a lot for both accuracy and storytelling.

**Article published: June 27, 2025**

Biography

Hazel Jamieson is an Australian transgender woman living with DID with an interest in children’s entertainment due to her previous education in teaching. She is currently unemployed due to chronic illness and disability.