Autism in the Media

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Most of the media representation of autism is awful in my opinion. There are the few cases of good representation though.

I was diagnosed and joined this site in 2013 and the progress in these 5 years has been beyond my expectations. At that time while there were autistic characters on TV despite an exception or two the autistic characters were not called autistic. At that time most of the news stories were about what burdens we were and what a tragedy it is to have an autistic member of the family. While those stories are far from gone you have a lot of stories about autistics accomplishing things by using their autistic traits. Even as recently as a year ago we were always described as a "person with autism" despite many autistics preferring to be called "autistic". Now you do see "autistic" or "autistic" and "person with autism" in articles.

There are still way too much stereotyping, having autistic characters that have every autistic trait and have it to the extreme and inspiration porn and it would be nice if seemingly not every autistic character was a savant. Those very significant problems do not negate the progress made.

My favorite autism portrayal over the last 5 years is Dakota Fanning's portrayal of Wendy in the movie 'Please Stand By'.

Good article.... and I think you're right. No matter how much we diss "rain man", there's no denying that it brought autism to mainstream fictional media. Since then, there's been a plethora of shows which use characters on the spectrum as central or background characters. Often I think that the best of these are the ones in which the reason for the characters' differences aren't stated at all. The UK-French series, "The Tunnel" is one example of this.

As to the news media. I'm not sure that they're getting better. IMHO, they're getting worse but we, the people with autism, are finding new ways to express solidarity and outrage. We're acting as one to get these biased news stories shut down.... and that's a good thing. It's the start of the civil rights movement for autism and I'm proud to be both a part of it and a witness.

It is important how Autism is portrayed in the media.

I have been diagnosed 3 times. The 3rd Time was for clarifications as the 1st diagnosis when I was 11 years old 1997 said I was Autistic the 2nd when I was 14 2001 said I wasn’t the 3rd one claimed the first diagnosis was correct.

Now the psychologist contacted my workplace to inform them the news as the psychologist knew I wouldn’t say anything. One that same day that evening there was a TV show on where they had an Autistic character on this particular episode and it was such a bad portrayal. The boss thought I was turning into that person and I got laughed at and bullied which lead to me leaving which was sad as the day before the diagnosis I was told I had a promising career.

I think the way Autism should be portrayed in the media it has to be done in a positive but realistic way. Whether TV drama or documentary.

Yea that's terrible, that psych has/had no right to speak for you

A very negative view there, and that must be an American perspective.

In Britain, we have had two series of The A Word, the story of a couple bringing up an autistic son, which was made with input from The National Autistic Society.

Then we have the wildlife series Spring Watch, Autumn Watch and Winter Watch which has Chris Packham as co-presenter. Packham has also made a documentary about autism called Chris Packham: Asperger's and Me. If you can find Packham's documentary, watch it.

The TV show that I watched was a British TV show called “Holby City” and it was back in 2004. It was a bad portrayal of some who was suppose to have ‘Asperger’ and it did insult me at the time.

As for the psychologist I can’t remember whether I did give them permission or not. I could well have done.

Every autistic character in TV and media that I come across is a savant. It would be nice to see autistic characters who are not savants and just ordinary people with autism.

One of my favourite movies is 'The Host'. It's a giant monster movie but the main character is a guy with an ambiguous neurological condition which makes him clumsy and absent minded. He's not autistic but I relate to him very much.
What I love about this character, named Gang-du, is that he stands up for himself constantly. And he has unique ways of doing things. He also feels very deeply and expresses himself openly.

He's a really great character. You should check him out.

MrMacPhisto, That is awful with that Psychologist telling your boss at your workplace causing you to get bullied and railroaded out of a promising job due to a fictional TV character. In fact some of those fictional portrayals of certain people has been how prejudice and hate got started towards certain racial groups. In the early 20th century the movie "Birth of a Nation" turned African Americans' into awful human beings when they are really no different than anyone else. It also, increased white hatred towards them. Now I cringe inside when a news show mentions a shooter or other criminal as being on the Autism Spectrum in the same manner it gave a person's race years ago. In that way Neuro-typicals' will see those of us on the Autism Spectrum as murderers', rapists' and other undesirables' when we are not. As more people see us like that it can lead to marginalization to unwanted and low paid jobs and unemployment as it did to certain racial groups in the past. Your condition was invisible and had nothing to do with your skin and your race until that Psychologist shared it with your boss. Maybe it is time to find a lawyer who works in discrimination cases and share with him what happened to you.

To be honest I don’t see any point in suing. It is the NHS that I’d be up against and that is such a large organisation and also I tried to go to court over the 2nd diagnosis when they said I wasn’t Autistic and contradicted the original diagnosis which led to me being confused. That did more damage than the psychologist and my old work place. Also led to me living in complete denial as well for years.

Back to the subject in hand I am watching a British Quiz show called The Chase and one of the Chasers Anne Hegertty is suppose to have Asperger and that is why she has a job as a Chaser.

These days we've been labelled and I'm keen to reject labelling because it's an artificial division between you and all that is.

I'm also finding that we're getting chucked in this bag with gay people, which is annoying as what we need is totally different to some other minority group. IMHO what people with Autism often need is access to benefits, medical treatment, mental health support, carers, assistive employment, and diagnosis. So it likely has nothing to do with human rights which would be a different thing altogether. I keep hearing "Autism pride" and I feel cringy and want nothing to do with this misguided piece of activism. It seems as though it's sphere of influence grows ever wider, untill everyone will be encompased and labelled by it. I suppose there are a few human rights which would be relevant to use such as: Right to social security, right to rest and leisure, adequate living standard, right to education etc, but I've never thought about it in these terms. There's also a tendency to assume that someone from 1 group is in support of the other group when they might not be.

When I hear about new treatments, or support for people on the spectrum on the news I feel encouraged though. Recently I heard about this treatment to do with the pruning of the neurons in your brain. Also quiet times at supermarkets or autism assistance dogs seem like really nice things as well (I wouldn't have need an assistance dog personally.)