Autism has many variants, but not on TV from what I see. What I want to see the most is a portrayal of autism as something that isn't just a brainiac-type personality. Autism isn't just a brain thing, but a brain-body relationship issue that sometimes leads to very physically powerful people. Some may be so uncontrolled as to hurt themselves and others, while some may obsess over training to the point of it being nearly their entire lives.
What I mean to say is that I don't see a lot of autistic characters in the brawny roles of media, not even as the "cute" subversion of "brainy brawn". I have to wonder why this is, whether media people see autistics as stuck in their head all the time and thus somehow not able to care for their bodies to the extent of an athlete or what.
The only fellow I've seen as a sort of autistic brawn role is Lou Ferrigno, in his documentaries as well as his semi-autobiographical role in the Incredible Hulk episode "King of the Beach" (normally, he plays the Hulk in that series, but here he had two roles). By Lou's disability of deafness due to childhood ear infection, he was shut off from the world and turned to bodybuilding as a coping mechanism for his perceived weaknesses.
I'm surprised I don't see the latter point as a driving point for a bodybuilding autistic character. Is there a fear that portraying an autistic strong-person would make them seem violent and "meat-headed", or simply an ignorance as to the many varieties of autistic obsessions and expressions? I would love to see whether there are in fact autistic strong characters I have missed, but it doesn't look otherwise that I'll see many.
01 Sep 2016, 5:55 pm
