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The Media's Portrayal Of Autism & The Truth - Page 6

Recently I saw a positive example, in a most unlikely place: a workplace video dealing with poor workplace behaviour, and the Aspie was NOT the negative character, quite the opposite. Whilst traits were a little over dramatised, to be expected in order to set the scene, they were well done. The character was female, quirky, professional, working hard in her cubicle by herself with noise cancelling headphones, was initially portrayed by the other characters as being in her own world and not noticing the poor behaviour of the perpetrator, when in fact she had actually noticed everything and kept a detailed record of his malfeasance. She was also held to account for not speaking up earlier, so was treated equitably in my opinion.

The only jokes thrown out whilst my workplace watched it revolved around how she was “the female version of our Derphantom!”. Internal monologue: shut up and cease drawing attention to me before too many others connect the dots.

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I've seen what some parents have to cope with and its really amazing how they hold it together. The yelling, screaming, biting and fits at any moment would have anyone on edge. I don't know if I could handle it so my respect goes to parents that do this job so well.

The Media's Portrayal Of Autism & The Truth Health & Special Psychology

My parents went to church with a couple that had an autistic child. I have no idea how they cope. Their daughter was 25 and will always need her parents or other assistance to survive.

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It seems there’s a lot of emphasis on autism here. Just curious but is there a reason for this or am I off base?

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I'm sure you've already figured this out since I'm posting over a year after you, but the Site Architect is a special needs parent, he has 3 sons on the spectrum whom he cares for. You can find more information on his website (You can just click his name, it'll take you right to it).

But back to the overall topic…

Last year, Sia wrote and directed a film called Music that focused on an autistic protagonist. The film was met with a lot of backlash from the autism community as seen in a Newsweek article due to its stereotyped portrayal and inclusion of restraints as a way to treat an autistic child. Looking up information about the movie will take you to critical viewpoints from various sites.

I know this can be a sensitive topic for some, so I'm not going to recommend watching the film, but the criticism seems absolutely valid to me.