I read this interesting academic essay today, about how Aspergian people are "storied" in tv, film, novels, storybooks and popular media:
http://brock.scholarsportal.info/journa ... le/311/247
The overall conclusion in the essay in these various stories, ASD people are depicted as hero or freak, with little representation in between those stereotypes (which she appears to deplore). In tv and films I can see her point quite strongly; I haven't read any picture books. Where I don't agree with her quite so much is novels.
One issue that really jumped out at me was the assertion that when ASD children first go to school, a negative attitude which has been conditioned by the popular media is waiting for them even before they start. I tend to agree, and wonder what impact that on these young minds and their learning journeys.
I wish more attention had been paid to the media stereotype re some homicides in the USA: Aspergers as ticking timebomb, dangerous freak, potential and actual killers, subhuman, - even when the offender is not on the spectrum yet presumed to be - like the appalling Elliot Roger chapter.
Another issue not covered is representations of Asperger protagonists in novels and non-fiction books written by Aspergerian novelists/writers - some examples spring to mind: "The Rosie Effect". "Nobody from Nowhere" Temple Grandin; John Elder Robison; "Pretending to Be Normal" by Ms Wiley (can't quite recall her full name). I did wonder if the essay writer made the assumption that only people with or involved in ASDs would read works by people who are on the spectrum, so these didn't count. I think she is wrong in that.
The runaway success of the novel "The Rosie Effect" with its enthusiastic reception by NT reviewers and NT readers demonstrates that people can engage favourably with a believable depiction of an ASD person: in this case, a successful university teacher, neither a hero nor freak, portrayed in a warm and sympathetic way. He is simply "different" - in his choices, outlook, theories and little ways of managing daily life (for example he likes predictability in whatever he chooses to do) and his search for the as yet unknown woman he wants to marry begins with him making a list of set requirements she must possess!). I can't see any serious reader not liking this engaging character, whatever their own neurology.
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PS: The novel "No Highway" by Neville Shute, written in the 1940s (reprinted many times since) is the earliest novel I can find where the central character is so very clearly Aspergian (he is depicted as successful, very eccentric and obsessed in his interests, different, and ultimately a hero in terms of the plot). As Shute himself worked closely with many engineers in real life in his earlier years before he went to Australia, and his main character in "No Highway" is an engineer, my guess is that the central character is largely based on Shute's observation of a person or persona that he worked with during the 1940s. It is simply not credible that he made the character up from his imagination and coincidentally provided this acute depiction. It is an extraordinary depiction.
16 Sep 2015, 12:20 am
