Monday, November 17, 2008

WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN MAN? For work reasons, Spacewoman and I just got around to last week's Grey's, and we both had a supplemental complaint not raised in KCosmo's post. Can we just call a moratorium on representations of autism-spectrum disorders on television, which tend to be ridiculous and grotesque*? Ever since Dustin Hoffman spot-counted the toothpicks, mass-culture ASD has been a combination of attention-begging tics and parlor tricks bearing only an attenuated kinship to actual ASD. So much so, in fact, that Mary McDonnell's Dr. Dixon was both instantly recognizable as the platonic ideal of TV-ASD and unrecognizable as a person with actual ASD (or even a person at all).

Come to think of it, maybe the gigantic difference between TV-ASD and real-world ASD explains why Bailey was unable to diagnose it until Dixon drew her a road map.

Anyway, the worst thing about ASD on television is that it makes people who have never spent any time with someone with an ASD think that they know what ASD is like. Saying that an ASD is that thing where people walk on their tiptoes, can do math in their heads, and are incapable of altering their routines is a lot like saying "Asians are subservient, excellent at numbers, and drive poorly." It gets tiresome.

*Other than on ANTM, which realistically portrayed a woman with actual ASD until Tyra cured her.

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