I'm seeing a lot of posts and tweets about the new upcoming series on Fox called Touch . I haven't seen many critical reviews of what I see is a horrible representation of autism. People complain about Rainman being referenced to autism, but like this? I don't get it. Autism is not a shell. Autistic people are not paranormal changelings, indigo people, bridges to higher otherworldly knowledge, witches, magical, or any other mythical being. We are human. Nonverbal autistics are not mute angels sent here as prophets with otherworldy messages. If you don't know what damage this sort of TV program can do, please do a google search for autism and witches, or autism and paranormal, or autism and clairvoyant, or autism and psychic. Expect these results to be more common after this show airs. When I meet someone in the supermarket I do not want Touch to be what they think of when they see my nonverbal son. I thought we left that awful stereotyping back on the 90's with movies like Mercury Rising. I'm really concerned with the odd ideas this show is gonna put into people's minds about autism. I do understand that this is a fictional program that is depicting a fictional scenario, but is those without any idea as to what autism is going to fully grasp that? That's my concern.
Edited to add this link as an example of what I'm talking about: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9115795/Couple-murdered-teenage-brother-they-accused-of-witchcraft.html
Sunday, January 8, 2012
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I just tweeted this morning that autism and autistics are misrepresented in the media. I think it is a big problem that blocks understanding, acceptance and accommodation. Funny how people so easily believe fictional accounts that aren't very accurate, but autistics are the ones who supposedly take things too literally and are naive.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that sort of what the kid in that new Tom Hanks movie is doing too? Receiving messages from beyond the grave or something?
ReplyDeleteWait, we're supposed to have magical powers? OMG, who knew? And where are mine??
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I haven't heard of Touch (I live in Australia), but totally and completely agree that this isn't the sort of "autism awareness" I'd want to have in the mainstream community - for either myself or my kiddos.
Not sure about the Tom Hanks movie. I think it's about a boy that is searching for clues about who his dad was,by gathering information from real sources, but not entirely sure. I tend to like Tom Hank's and Sandra Bullock's movies, so I'm kinda wanting to see that one, but am hoping it's not setting up awful stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteI know Out,that's what I'm saying! I can offend people in single bounds with my ever so refined bluntness and be totally oblivious to the whole thing. Is that a super power?
It all started with Disney's "The Boy Who Could Fly".
ReplyDeleteI never have even heard of this movie. Gotta check it out!
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