United States Of Tara, Kansas, And Missouri

Diablo Cody’s new-ish comedy about multiple personality disorder, starring Toni Collette, takes place in Overland Park, Kansas. I grew up in a house in Prairie Village, the city adjacent to Overland Park, and I spent a lot of time in Overland Park. Overland Park and Prairie Village are both part of Johnson County. And if you’re from Kansas, then “Johnson County” is the label that you’d apply to me most readily.

So far (we’re near the end of the first season), The United States Of Tara has depicted Johnson County with startling accuracy. Offhand references to landmarks and neighboring areas are all accurate. The characters’ living situations match their socioeconomic status in a distinctly midwestern way. One character, who is the 20-something manager of a stand-in for TGI Friday’s, shares a modest but comfortable house with a friend, in a nice part of town. Tara’s family of four has a nice two-story house and a “shed,” actually a comfy unconnected building in the back yard where Tara’s alternate persona T creates and stores her artwork. (What exactly Tara’s husband does is, I think, still a mystery. But that, too, is midwestern. Your occupation doesn’t define you as much there as it does in a big city… at least in New York.)

Johnson County is, in many ways, the perfect place to set a story about someone with a confused sense of identity: Read the rest of this entry »