FanInAZ
08-14-2017, 10:05 PM
Sam (Played by: Keir Gilchrist)
Atypical (Netflix)
Masquerading as a show to "educate" people about Autism, it follows the struggles of an Autistic 18 year old and his mother. Sam is a composite of ever stereotype about Autistics/Aspies in the book, so he depicts us as hapless, helpless neurological defects. It’s not just the quantity of issues is far beyond what any real life Autistic would deal with, it also include at least 1 issue that I’ve never heard of before.
In the 2nd scene of the pilot episode, he’s explaining why he doesn’t like riding the bus. The writer comes up with some non-sense about how contact with the back of the seat cause him tactile issue (issues having to do with being touch), which required him to sit like a ridged statue. If he writer would’ve conferred with actual Autistics about the actual issues that some of us have on buses, the tactile issue would come into play when the bus is crowded, resulting in inadvertent physical contact. The other issue would be the noise level. Many are going to say that show like this benefit us because it brings awareness, no it doesn’t. You don’t help someone by making the general public aware of issues that the person doesn’t actually have, nor by portraying them in a way that would cause people to be afraid to interact with us because they might do something wrong that might set us off.
Instead, you need to do what Dustin Hoffman did when preparing for his role as “Raymond Babbitt” in “Rain Man.” He didn’t memorize every single stereotype about Autistics in order to create a composite character; he instead spent time with a real life Autistic in order to learn how one specific human being lives their life in order to portray that one single human being. Yes, he depicted someone who was much “lower functioning” then myself, but at least he depicted an actual human being. “Atypical” does not.
Atypical (Netflix)
Masquerading as a show to "educate" people about Autism, it follows the struggles of an Autistic 18 year old and his mother. Sam is a composite of ever stereotype about Autistics/Aspies in the book, so he depicts us as hapless, helpless neurological defects. It’s not just the quantity of issues is far beyond what any real life Autistic would deal with, it also include at least 1 issue that I’ve never heard of before.
In the 2nd scene of the pilot episode, he’s explaining why he doesn’t like riding the bus. The writer comes up with some non-sense about how contact with the back of the seat cause him tactile issue (issues having to do with being touch), which required him to sit like a ridged statue. If he writer would’ve conferred with actual Autistics about the actual issues that some of us have on buses, the tactile issue would come into play when the bus is crowded, resulting in inadvertent physical contact. The other issue would be the noise level. Many are going to say that show like this benefit us because it brings awareness, no it doesn’t. You don’t help someone by making the general public aware of issues that the person doesn’t actually have, nor by portraying them in a way that would cause people to be afraid to interact with us because they might do something wrong that might set us off.
Instead, you need to do what Dustin Hoffman did when preparing for his role as “Raymond Babbitt” in “Rain Man.” He didn’t memorize every single stereotype about Autistics in order to create a composite character; he instead spent time with a real life Autistic in order to learn how one specific human being lives their life in order to portray that one single human being. Yes, he depicted someone who was much “lower functioning” then myself, but at least he depicted an actual human being. “Atypical” does not.