Paris Yee
I went to film school and now I coach after school gymnastics. No, not like the Olympics... yeah.
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It always interests me how many autistic characters are on the high-functioning (Asperger’s Syndrome) end of the spectrum. My younger brother is autistic, however he is nothing like the characters in the works that you have examined; he is on the lower-functioning end of the spectrum. His language skills are much less developed and it is tremendously more difficult for him to communicate than it is for any of the autistic characters typically portrayed in media. Although I have seen quite a few autistic characters, I’ve never seen any like my brother.
As you’ve mentioned, currently more than 1 in 70 children are born with some form of autism. When my brother was diagnosed (he’s 19 now) the number was roughly 1 in 150. I wonder what the actual distribution is… i.e. what percentage of those diagnosed are actually on the higher-functioning end of the spectrum.
I would also be very interested to see some characters that are non-high-functioning. I feel that many people who have only experienced autism through film and television have a distorted view of the disorder and believe that it starts and ends with Asperger’s. Would love to see some work that dives deeper into the actual disorder, rather than exploiting certain aspects of Asperger’s to build quirky and amusing characters.
A great exposé. Well done!