The series The Act is probably the most terrifying thing I’ve watched since Leaving Neverland. It’s a grim textbook on the exploitation of a child’s disability taken to absurd extremes. The Act is based on real events (and that’s horrifying, yes), recounting the story of single mother Dee Dee and her "severely ill" daughter Gypsy. If, like me, you wept years ago while reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, then The Act will leave you wanting to crawl into a corner and reject modern medicine, which so meticulously sustained nonexistent illnesses in an otherwise healthy young woman, never questioning the actions of her mother—who suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
So why, you might ask, am I writing about it if it’s so revolting? Because this entire story is reality. That’s one.
Two: because the series is one long, terrifying metaphor for what many parents do to their own children. By not giving them responsibility, treating them as "still too stupid and helpless," continuing to cater to their basic needs when they’re already 20, 30, or 40 years old. Sleeping in the same bed with a 15-year-old daughter and doing laundry for a 40-year-old son. Forgetting that children are not a universal cure for loneliness or social failure. And inflicting irreversible harm through this violence.
Of course, you should also watch it because the actors deliver outstanding performances, and the writers have truly done an excellent job.
