Autism in the Media

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Autism in the Media

"Weepinbell, w-e-e-p-i-n-b-e-l-l; Tentacool, t-e-n-t-a-c-o-o-l ; Geodude . . . ," yelled Connor. We were playing his favorite game - identify and spell the names of all 156 Pokêmon characters. Connor is a three-year-old boy I worked with as part of the SonRise therapy that his mother organized after he was diagnosed with autism. During my thrice-weekly Connor-directed playtime visits, I entered his world instead of making him enter mine and encouraged eye contact to strengthen Connor's connection with others.

I begin this critique of autism depiction in mass media relating my relationship with Connor because he informs my understanding of autism and colors my critique of media representations. For people who do not know autistic individuals personally, however, perceptions of autism have been shaped, by and large, by character depictions in a series of feature films over the last fifteen years, most notably Rain Man (1988), House of Cards (1993), and Molly (1999). I here examine these three films, each with an autistic main character, to evaluate the image of autism presented to the public and to discuss how that image has changed in the last fifteen years. However, before an analysis of the films, I will briefly overview autism as it is currently diagnosed and treated.

Autism is the label given to a set of behaviors summarized by the International Classification of Disease ICD-10 Handbook as1:

1. Impairment in reciprocal social interaction.

2. Impairment in verbal and non-verbal communication and in imaginative activity.

3. Markedly restricted variety in activities and interests.

Generally, autistic children are first identified by ...

... middle of paper ...

...ons of autism over the last fifteen years reflect popular notions and hopes for cures to psychological disorders. Because mass media representations of autism reach a thousand fold the number of individuals who ready Psychology Review Today and other academic journals, films are an important source of information and a possible forum for advocacy and should be used as such.

Bibliography

1. Frith, U. 1989. Autism; Explaining the Enigma. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.

2. Hobson, P. 1993. Autism and the Development of Mind. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

3. Mesibov, G., Lynn, A. and Klinger, L. 1997. Autism; Understanding the Disorder. New York: Plenum Press

4. Grandin, T. 1995. "An Inside View of Autism." http://www.autism.org/temple/inside.html Feature Films:

Rain Man (1989)

Molly (1999)

House of Cards (1993)

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