How Aspies Are Potrayed On Tele

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Recently I've watched an episode of holby city where an aspie is on there taking care of his dying mum in hospital. It p*sses me off to look at how they portray the aspie. The aspie in TVland has no emotion, speaks in a monophonic voice, cannot take care of his/herself and doesnt understand anything anyone says to him. I've watched an aspie character in differetn programme and it is the same thing.

Now I'm an aspie and I know I DO NOT act the way the cliched, obnoxious people in TVland or Movieland does. I am annoyed how the public see aspies like us.

And further more they pronounce it wrong, they say aperjers instead of aspergers. Its a german word therefore pronounced differently.

This irritates me too as we are not all like that, I'm certainly not. By the way, Alternative, I like your signature.

I have never seen an aspie portrayed on television other than in a couple of episodes of Boston Legal. The aspie there wasn't exactly portrayed in the same manner and was portrayed as someone who appeared to act out the aspie components. It was pretty bad acting, I think ... the way he was moving his hands at his sides as if he was ready to jump all over the place was a bit unnerving, and his social skills were so bizarrely immature and did not even compare to what I see in myself as well as from the people in my aspie group. I guess it is possible that an aspie may be like that if exposed to severe social phobia, but why then would an aspie ever become a lawyer?

Other than that, I have never seen an aspie portrayed on television. I have seen autistics, but they are the more severe types that generally get the recognition. I haven't even seen aspies portrayed in movies, though I know of this one movie that was being supported by WrongPlanet itself. I have seen autistics, though.

- Ray M -

I saw that holby city episode too. I was more annoyed by the way the other people treated him than him. They kept talking about him when he was in the room as if he couldn't understand them.
Did you watch the whole episode? Because in the end it showed that it was his mother who made him appear as if he couldn't look after himself at all. It seemed like without her he would have been much more functional.

I've seen Roy on Coronation Street who I reckon is an aspie but he has a fairly normal life, which is the way it should be shown. It's not mentioned that he has Aspergers, but I reckon he does.

Basil Fawlty is supposed to be an Aspie.

He's more like an aspie than an autie, IMHO.

Basil fawlty an Aspie? That figures....after all the poor man is only rying to do thing RIGHT! and it all goes wrong, bless 'im!!

Thanks.

No I watched bits of it. I managed to gather that he was supposed to be an aspie.

I wonder what trouble it caused all of you.

I can understand the monotone; I used to be that way myself, until I started deliberately copying inflections I heard from other people.

But not understanding what other people say... that doesn't make any sense. I can see if it had to do with figures of speech; some Aspies have trouble with those. But AS is defined partly by having no speech delay... meaning understanding and use of speech, even if it's formal and uninflected.

But then, they also portray ADHD as "incorrigible brat" and depression as "somebody who just got dumped and who'll commit suicide at the drop of a hat" (and "drop of a hat" is a figure of speech, and I'm an Aspie, and take that, TV producers!) and Down Syndrome as "adult kid who is unfailingly sweet and apparently has no negative emotions"... Not to mention that they still can't get "schizophrenia" and "multiple personality disorder" straight.

Prejudice against and stereotyping of mental illness and disability is still rampant... and socially acceptable, too!

I guess that's the problem when you get screen writers with no realistic psych experience writing about disorders. As well as actors with no experience in that field either. Inevitably they also portray schizophrenics as psychotic 24/7/365 too which isn't accurate. They take whatever stereotype there is and stretch it to breaking point.

People on TV don't act like people in real life anyway. The way they talk is all wrong... Listen to it like you'd listen to music; the people on TV have a wider range and the tempo varies much more than people in real life. Everything on TV is exaggerated... the plots don't make near as much sense as those in a well-written book; because everything is there for comic or dramatic effect... people keep secrets longer than it makes sense to keep them; confusion lasts longer than it ought to... coincidences happen at a higher rate than they would in real life... personalities are stereotyped and fit into little boxes, not complex like real people are...

When a socially-disabled Aspie can tell all that about TV, you know it's bad.

I don't like TV much.

And they never stutter or say something wrong or stupid. Like so often happens IRL too.

I don't think I've ever seen an Aspie on TV or in a movie. There's definitely a question of which is worse: unflatteing/inaccurate representations, or none at all? I don't know the answer to that.

either don't watch the show anymore or just forget about is the best thing to do. In a few years(if it doesn't contiune) everone well forget about it.