look okay the DSM was very bad at that time and could literally not categorise anybody who didn’t fall into nonverbal autistic or Aspergers-y territory and it wasn’t made in bad faith
it’s just very outdated and i have a right to be pissed off about it
Sesame Street does portray someone on the spectrum well though. I really like Julia and even though I wish she was around when I was younger, her presence makes life better
yes maybe they should have not just put a socially respectable (read: by a neurotypical) play about neurodivergence and mental illness on the school curriculum and instead put in actually good plays fancy that
but i get to do Antigone, which includes lots of juicy references, like that bit where the Chorus references tons of instances of women being placed in unjust situations as Antigone marches off to her tomb
Have it feature supportive parents because I feel there’s too many depictions of parents with kids on the spectrum who are in agony just because of something the kid can’t control… I’m looking at you, Autism Speaks
and i got to take over the lesson for about 10 minutes to explain the stories of various women (most of whom Zeus knocked up, because i mean, of course) and it was great
Some of them are somewhat good. I’ve read a few good books about autism by autists, and I’m speaking not about just aspies.
yeah but i mean
do you really think that those would be the ones that a national curriculum would use?
they’d probably use some bullshit reasoning like “we don’t want The Normal Kids™ to get upset when the book inevitably places the autistic character in the right when they feel uncomfortable about certain things in society, they’d feel like the book is judging them personally, and we can’t have that!”
Not for normal education. But I had found some good books in the library of my university
Give us Billy from the new Power Rangers movie. He is a great character who I can relate to more than many neurotypical individuals
like do you seriously think that a government who has allowed countless cases of abuse in mental health services to occur unpunished is going to let people see a play that says something as subversive as “maybe the thing with eye contact is a bit weird and we should stop pretending it’s a huge thing when it comes to being able to create social connections”
good grief no we have to make sure that as few people as possible have access to that through their school education! quickly, find a play by a neurotypical writer that makes us feel good about ourselves!
nice try minorities but we’re way better at explaining your problems than you are! but just in case you’re upset, the character isn’t explicitly autistc, so Who Knows™ what’s Wrong™ with her. so really you shouldn’t be that upset.
up next we will be diving into a play with a single gay character who talks about how bad AIDS was for about five minutes then never does anything important
