Bigoted Review of "Adam"

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Yeah, I think that's a great letter, Roxas. No doubt you have everyone's support, I never cared for Reed's reviews to begin with. What an odd way for a mainstream critic to cross that divide from "I don't see eye-to-eye with their taste in film" to "I very much dislike them as human beings."

The important thing to remember when trying to associate his Rex Reed's piece with journalism is that it isn't journalism. He's a movie critic. While he should be held to the same standards of a reporter, he's not. He's meant to sell shock, spin, and his personal opinions in editorial form.

The overlooked guilty party in this are his editors for printing his review without thinking about the backlash. (I'm not disputing that he's ignorant for writing it to begin with but it's the editors who decide what should be left on the cutting room floor before a story goes to print, not the writer of the article.) They could have cut out that paragraph and this movie review (and newspaper) wouldn't be getting negative attention.

It's really a shame that this guy passes off junk science and battered opinion as fact.

Nice letter, Roxas.

Arigato. I don't want to brag, but composition and rhetoric is one of my better talents.

Lethal to get romantically involved with us, wow...
That was new to me.

Hopefully it's kind of a strange NT metaphor, or... does he really think people will die from getting romantically involved with an aspie? (Maybe if they get suicidal from the depression we cause in almost every case??)

Does he himself care for other (aspie) people's feelings writing this?
Or is the explanation that we don't really count as "other people"?

And that we can't explain things... which things???

Hmmmmm........

I sent a reply of my own to the New York Observer.

That's the spirit. If enough of us b***h about this there's no way they can ignore it.

When I checked the "Sent Items" box of my e-mail account, I found my little letter to Rex Reed. In this letter, "Reed" is Rex Reed and "DGM" is yours truly.
Here it is, excluding the addresses of both parties:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the Editor:

As a person with Asperger's syndrome (diagnosed September of 1997), I
wish to add a few remarks of my own to the review discussed in the subject line.

Reed: "[Adam's] alarmingly empty life is so devoid of passion that he can go to a funeral and feel nothing."
DGM: I may be able to do the same--because I do not break down and weep until I actually _see_ the sick or dead person.

Reed: "Emotionally blocked, they say things that hurt and sting without meaning to be rude, and are weak at understanding, receiving or exchanging the emotions of others."
DGM: Rex Reed shows emotional blockage of his own. He says things about people with Asperger's syndrome that hurt and sting _them_ without meaning to be rude. Many people with Asperger's have learned that trying to exchange emotions with others too often ends in failure and thus cease to try.

Reed: "Almost without exception, they leave you perplexed, riddled with doubt and totally depressed."
DGM: Perhaps that's because many people who have Asperger's syndrome also have a diagnosed clinical depression. I feel perplexed and ridden with doubt myself sometimes.

Reed: "Challenged by social interactions and given to obsessive routines that revolve around a single subject of interest, [people with Asperger's syndrome] do not like to be touched, they feel incapable of explaining things and they cannot cope with people in general."
DGM: Remarks like these make me think people like Rex Reed are scary; their harsh remarks about our situation make us feel judged without a trial. I sometimes feel incapable of explaining things--when I am not sure what the right words are to make the explanation work. I may not like to be touched--when I am not sure that touching be appropriate in the situation.

Sincerely,

Douglas MacNeill

Rainman on parade topic

I turned the situation around, and wondered if the movie itself was bad enough to garner such a review. GIGO.

I will be quite happy when the movie about Temple Grandin is finally released.

Wow. Harsh. I don't think he noticed that he is showing a lack of empathy himself.

Substitute: "he is devoid of empathy" and you'd be closer to the nasty truth about him.

WHO DO THEY THINK HE IS DR MANHATTAN?!

even if we get them to regret this it doesn't make a win though, the real problem is the people who read the review, I don't care if an individual person who I will probably never meet understands anything about who I am, if people take his word for it then it causes a problem, and if our letters get to the editor or even reed himself it's nice, but unless we can get that message to the general public it doesn't undo anything, and honestly isn't any real change from the original insults

That's a good example of how people can categorize people incorrectly. I have been the victim of two seperate assults both by black people. If I now said, 'all black people must be like them' then that would be both bigoted and ignorant. I know many black people and they are nice, friendly. Depends on the individual! Also can you imagine if we said ALL black people have no emotions, there would be an outcry! Oh and I apologize to black people for using you as an example!

I've noticed most rappers are blacks and so are basketball players and lot of them curse in the streets and most of them have picked on me in my childhood but I do not think all blacks are that way. In fact I knew one black kids in my special ed class when I was 8 just before I went to my new school and he was friendly.

This topic has been completely derailed. -.-