A Criticism of Representation of Autism in Mainstream Culture · 4:17pm Dec 26th, 2020
You want people like me to share my voice? Fine. I’ll do it. I want you to shut up. Sweet Celestia, just shut up and sit down, and listen to what we actually want to say, not what you think we want to say in your delusional fantasy.
I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want your condescending attitude. I hate them, and I hate you. It’s like you have a savior complex, like you’re the only one that holds hope for the helpless autists. You put this supposed celebration out and pretend like you’re doing something good with a disguise of diversity, bright colors, vague happiness, and obnoxious pop music, but all you’re doing is two things: scoring internet points for yourself in the social justice world, and pushing the picture that people with autism are all borderline vegetables who moan to express their feelings and have their deformed faces permanently stuck in the smiling position. That’s just a small fraction of how autism manifests itself, and showing only one angle of it only hurts the rest of us. No one will seriously believe me when I have a legitimate concern when it comes to autism, because when I say autism, they think of these childish representations.
That’s not to say there haven’t been good representations; I really enjoyed the more realistic portrayal in that Temple Grandin movie. But I don’t need to be pitied and congratulated after every single little stupid thing I do. “Yay, you’re living your life normally like a normal person! You must have overcome a lot! I’m so proud of you!” Sure, whatever. “Oh, but don’t you understand? The way others see me viewing autistic people is very important to my public image. My assertion of my concern for mental health on Twitter gives me dopamine, so I’ll create this project that does more harm than good, and then worship the ground at your feet mockingly. Doesn’t that sound nice? Why aren’t you praising me?” Yeah, you honestly wonder why? If you don’t understand, you have no business muddling in this affair. Sia did not make this because she legitimately cares about autistic people. It’s just a crutch she can use to appear more friendly in the public eye. I speak for a lot of us when I say we don’t want her and her stupid stereotypical portrayal of disabled kids. Come back when you’re a little MMMMM, genuine!
“She can understand everything you are saying to her.” She’s not an intelligent monkey. Why do you speak like she is? “She’s a magical little girl.” Who do you think she is, the Messiah? What did she do? Have autism? Hooray for her. “She sees the world in a completely different way from us.” What, do you think we have freaking Kaleidoscope eyes? Blaaaugh, we’re so weird and quirky. We’re like the constructs in The Thing, where we’re this amalgamation of eyes and mouths and weird body parts. Honestly, the way these disillusioned celebrities act is so cringeworthy. And some would say, "She has good intentions!" Fine. But Sia is a multi-million dollar entertainer who knows nothing about hardship except for mean things being said about her on Twitter, not a humanitarian. They don’t deserve to talk down to us and act all happy and smiley and childish and have PBS Kids-level of laughter and smiles and dumbing-down and intentional stupidity when we’ve got this complex, hard-to-articulate, and completely unrelatable neurological condition. They don’t know a thing. They can’t comprehend that. This isn't something you can just piss on and say it's okay. This isn't Bayformers. This isn't the WWE. That's fantasy, you do whatever you want. This is real, and Hollywood lives in fantasy worlds so much that they are disconnected from reality. So I distrust anything Hollywood says about identity politics or social issues, especially mental health. They don’t even care; they laugh at us and pretend they’re moral.
(Although some of them are actually not right in the head, so I suppose I can give them that.)
Autism isn’t even that bad for higher-functioning people. Sure, you’re sensitive to stimuli, you have weird introverted behavior, and you learn things differently. But so what? The same could be said about anyone. No more should be expected from me than any other functioning member of society. I’m normal, I just have this weird cognitive virus. So I have weird things I do, like repeating experiences without getting bored. Is that a bad thing? But people always express autism like it’s a demonic possession or something to be pitied and avoided. The overwhelmingly negative portrayal of autism led to the autism anti-vaxx movement, where people would rather have their kid die of a preventable disease than have their child get autism. And sure, I wish I could make autism go away, but not out of fear. We turn out all right. We’re just fine. We don’t need this pressure from Hollywood and the media saying we need our hands to be held.
Autism is also mocked relentlessly online, which I don’t mind; good riddance to it. Autism can kiss my butt. (It’d be the first time I’d been kissed there, so I’m crossing my fingers.) But then we have girls who like to self-diagnose themselves with autism, anxiety, depression, or I-want-attention-syndrome going like “Ahaha I’m so quirky. Potato, beans, haha.” Bruh. All you do is devalue the actual condition, not bring more awareness to it. I’m sure everyone on the internet has been exposed to autism. (And you can interpret that in many different ways.)
Actual autistic people do receive help and I do know some of them; the previous bishop of my church ward had a visibly outspoken, behaviorally, moderately autistic son who was 8 or 9 the last time I really saw him. I saw him and I wondered if I could have ended up like him. I wondered how I could connect to him and relate, but he was usually distracted when opportunities came around. I sincerely desired to help because I knew a fraction of how it felt and I didn’t want him to feel misunderstood.
So I suppose having autism was a blessing for making me more empathetic. I can generally understand how people are feeling emotion and why they do so. For my Eagle project to become an Eagle Scout, I organized a project to create weighted blankets for autistic children at a local organization. I did it because I appreciate my own weighted blanket, and I was certain other kids like being gently squished by weight as well. Again, Temple Grandin showed that much, which I was very thankful for. Also, whenever I do experience emotion, it’s incredibly severe. That means good moments are extremely good, but bad moments are incredibly bad. It’s partly how I wrote such vivid depictions of fury and violence in my work and got stuck into a porn addiction; the emotion is simply too strong for me to usually resist. I hate it and I wish it could go away. But maybe that should be what these films should talk about; using autism as a tool for good, not something to overcome through a frickin’ dance competition or a soccer game.
Who actually does that? “Yay, I’ll never have any more problems with my self-doubt and self-worth ever again, thanks to my hero celebrity.” Shut up! Shut up and get out if all you’re ever going to do is display autism like an abstract physical fantasy that bumps up your moral standing by 50 points if you make a movie about it! We're not magical creatures, like unicorns. And we're not stereotypes either. For being so woke and progressive and accepting, you sure do offend a lot of people! We are people. We are more to our personalities than our conditions, and we have more emotion than just distress and unfiltered happiness. I’ll prove it right now; I am pissed while writing this. If I could kick her in the chest right now, I would do it without hesitation. Big surprise, right? This is Hollywood, full of criminals, of course I’m pissed.
I want a more subtle and realistic appreciation for autistic people, on an end of the spectrum that isn't nonverbal. It would be far more relatable than the nonverbal types who likely wouldn’t understand the implications anyway. But you know, and I know, that they will never, ever do it unless someone who actually cares about autism and people with it decide to go to the trouble of making an entire film that’ll make, what, a lousy 10 million at the box office. That's the thing, though, whenever a social minority or their legitimate problems do get shown in media, it's for, like, three seconds, and Hollywood goes like, "Yay us! I'll sprain my wrist from patting myself on the back too hard! I'll censor this in China in order to get more money, but hooray us! We're so caring about you, unless you're a straight white male! Now give us your money. We're the good guys." Like, who asked you to defend us? Who actually wanted this? No one.
Human struggle is turning weak things into something strong. So I’m not going to have this mental illness define me. I have autism, so what? Screw you. I’m not going to be worshipped or babied because I have autism; that would make me feel uncomfortable--as a result of the autism. What did I do to deserve that? It would just reinforce that I am only of worth because of a genetic mistake. Total BS.
I want to be defined by what I manage to become, not because of the condition I’m stuck with and can’t do anything about. I can do something about my life and how I choose to live it. I will defy the odds and prove that my mental health and weakness to medical anxiety isn’t enough to stop me. I’m so overpowered, I need to have a permanent negative status effect to hinder me so I don’t outpace everyone else if it wasn’t there.
And for the record, Sia is both literally and figuratively the most retarded person in the trailer. I can say retard; it’s our word. You others can say E-tard, just make sure you don’t say it with a hard R.
👏 👏 👏
And for the record, whatever excuse Sia had for "good intentions" died with this tweet:
junkee.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/sia.jpg
Haha. "FURY." I can almost hear her shaking her fists like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
Cripes, this makes MLP: The Movie so awkward to watch now.
5422802
I barely understand anything she says anyway. Her Australian accent is thicker than aa lava, and her typical pop-music slurring of words and moaning in the middle of a sentence doesn't help anyway.
I don't usually share my opinions on stuff like this, but you are completely right. Two members of my family have autism, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that I'm autistic, and I've had quite a lot of friends with autism and other mental health issues like cerebral palsy, so I know a thing or two about it. One of those things I know is that this movie's portrayal of autism is a lot of nonsense. Most ponies with autism do not have the non-verbal type. My way of explaining it is that there are several ways to wire an electric circuit to do the same task, and with autism the brain is just wired slightly differently. More often than not, they can do the same stuff as anypony else. They can live normal lives without being mollycoddled. Also, they know even more than everypony else that all the problems in the world cannot be solved with a catchy song.
Oh, and 5422802 , you're right about that tweet killing off her excuses. Yes, it's a little awkward watching the MLP Movie now, but I have something to say about that. Songbird Serenade was not a main character in the film and did zilch to help the Mane 6 fight Tempest and the Storm King. She made it slightly more bearable for the ponies that were captured, but she didn't get rid of the issue and, well... To be honest, she didn't do anything really. The very same can be said for this film. It might make those who watch it slightly more accepting of ponies with autism, but really it fuels the problem of the media portraying it in the most stupid and unrealistic way possible. Well done, Sia, guess who isn't going to watch that thing. I am judging it before watching it, and I am loving the fact that you're annoyed. Perhaps, in your film, you should have had an autistic kid who does speak but has other issues like meltdowns? You'd do brilliant in that role.
... I don't even understand what's happening. >.<
Sia. Honey. I liked you fine in the MLP movie. What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
5422819
Yeah, she was really there to be a big name VA.
I will forever maintain–now more than ever–that Coloratura should have come back.
5422831
Exactly! We already had plenty of high-profile VAs anyway. Zoe Saldana, Liev Schreiber, Michael Peña, Emily Blunt. We didn't need her except for her stupid rainbow song.
5422825
5422831
She was ok in the MLP Movie, but really Songbird Serenade only existed to make the Movie more popular.
Sorrynot sorry. If this is how Hollywood portrays those of us who have autism, they can go [insert whatever rude phrase you like here]. I'm half annoyed and half laughing at the ridiculous world some celebrities choose to live in.5422833
*quietly sinks down*
I liked that song.
... doesn’t help this post in any way, but um... it’s about it on that front.
Still agree this looks like utter trash though
Reverend!
I hear you there. I have Asperger's myself and I don't like a lot of the portrayal of autism in the media. It's all one note. You're either this or that, no in-betweens.
I sympathise with your problem. Its overall harmful to reduce an entire demographic to the most 'extreme' stereotype and calling it 'representation'. It can also be dangerous if people 'learn' to associate said demographic as very real threats to themselves due to the chosen portrayal.
5422854
It's perfectly OK to like a musician's music and not their personal views. For example, I'm not keen on a lot of the political views John Lennon held in his later years, but I still enjoy his music.