Autistic Daily

Adam

We’ve mentioned how television is picking up on the trend to display autistic characters on primetime.

Now, BBC News magazine has touched on the fact that autism is often portrayed in the most optimistic of ways.

Brilliance and savant skills make for good ratings from the audience, but these roles rarely give the reality of how difficulty the disorder can be for those affected.

And stereotypes fail to show those on the spectrum can have diverse abilities, not just in math or other quantitative areas.

“By far, the majority of people with autism do not have any kind of savant ability,” said Dr Stuart Murray professor of contemporary literature and film at the University of Leeds and author of the book Representing Autism.

Dr. Murray says the films tend to focus on two types of story lines:

* the disability provides some kind of incredible skill or quality that “makes up” for the negative, or
* the person finds a way to “rise above” adversity

“It’s a very sexy way of looking at autism,” says Jonathan Kaufman, president of Disability Works in the US and technical consultant for Adam, a movie in which an Asperger’s man falls in love.

Sexy sells, even if it’s for a disability. But are your everyday autistic individuals in society paying a price because they can’t live up the Hollywood standards in real life?

Read the entire article at news.bbc.co.uk.

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