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18 Jan, 10 tweets, 4 min read
Are you looking for some good autistic representation in film?

Then this thread is for you!

Here are 9 films and TV shows with autistic subjects/characters who are portrayed accurately and sensitively.

I have watched (and enjoyed) everything I’m about to discuss.
First up is Loop, a Disney-Pixar animated short film.

It’s about a nonspeaking autistic girl named Renee (who is voiced by an autistic actress), and her interactions with a neurotypical boy named Marcus. Image
Next is The Reason I Jump, directed by Jerry Rothwell.

This is a documentary about five nonspeaking autistic people around the world. It’s also a stunning, immersive piece of visual art. Image
Next is the TV show Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, on Freeform.

All of the actors who portray autistic characters on this show are autistic themselves, and there’s some great autistic LGBTQ representation (and service dog representation) as well! Image
Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has some fabulous autistic representation too!

One of the main characters, Entrapta, is canonically autistic. Her storyline is complex, and continues over all of the show’s seasons. Image
Next up is Pablo, a BBC children’s show about an autistic boy.

The writing team for the show is all autistic (as far as I know), and all of the voice actors for the characters are autistic too. Image
The documentary I Am Greta (available on Hulu), is also a striking piece of autistic self-representation in film.

The documentary is narrated by Greta Thunberg herself, and demonstrates that her autism is integral to her activism. Image
Citizen Autistic is a documentary about the autism rights movement, and disability justice.

It is a good film to watch if you want to learn more about the politics of neurodiversity. Image
Wretches & Jabberers is a documentary about two autistic men who travel the world to meet other nonspeaking autistics.

It gives a lot of insight into the difficulty of existing as someone with high support needs in a world that is not readily accommodating. Image
Last but not least is the movie Keep The Change, a romantic comedy featuring two autistic lead actors.

It tackles some difficult themes with grace, and currently has a well-deserved 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Image

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More from @autisticats

The Autisticats Profile picture
20 Jan
CW: autistic meltdown, prone restraint, death

This is an extremely hard thing for me to write about.

But in Sia’s new movie, the autistic character Music is shown having several meltdowns and being held in prone restraint.

(Leaked video via Auteach on TikTok)
For those who don’t know, prone restraint is extremely dangerous.

Just a few days ago, the story of a 16 year old autistic boy named Eric Parsa came up on the news.

He died last year at the hands of police, by being held in prone restraint and sat on during a meltdown.
When I was younger, I had pretty frequent meltdowns.

My parents would put me in prone restraint, roll me up into a blanket so I couldn’t move my limbs, and then sit on me.

I was an 80 pound child, and they were adults.

I remember desperately gasping, “I can’t breathe!”
Read 9 tweets
The Autisticats Profile picture
19 Jan
There’s been a lot of conversation recently in the United States about raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.

As you talk about this, please remember that it’s currently legal to pay disabled people far below minimum wage.

It’s legal to pay us less than $1/hr, bc we’re disabled.
“[In the] 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act... there’s a clause that allows any firm with a 14(c) certificate to pay out wages based on productivity or ability... These wages have been recorded to be as low as three cents per hour.”

forbes.com/sites/sarahkim…
The supposed logic behind this loophole is that disabled people are “less productive” than the average worker.

But for most jobs, especially with the right accommodations, that just isn’t true.

So what ends up happening is that disabled labor is just severely exploited.
Read 10 tweets
The Autisticats Profile picture
5 Jan
There’s been some discussion in the autistic community about masking, representation, etc. specifically on TikTok.

I think one important thing for everyone to note is that TikTok is not a very accessible medium of communication for a lot of autistic people, including myself.
The reason why there aren’t a ton of high-profile autistic creators on TikTok who have trouble with spoken communication, etc. is I think partially because of the spoken language, video-based format of the app itself.

It’s also because of the way the algorithm is set up.
I personally have a super hard time articulating myself verbally in the manner that TikTok requires. So I use Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. to do my advocacy work.

And the thing about that is, nobody would know I have that difficulty just by reading my writing.
Read 7 tweets
The Autisticats Profile picture
4 Jan
CW: ableism, Sia

Yesterday, in an interview on an Australian TV show, Sia said this about her decision to cast Maddie Ziegler as a nonspeaking autistic person in her new film:

“It is ableism... but it’s actually nepotism because I can’t do a project without [Maddie].”
When I saw this, I was stunned.

For those who don’t know, nepotism is “the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.”

So yes, her decision was ableist and nepotistic. But why would she just outright say it?
Ableism is bad. Nepotism is bad. So I was asking, “where is Sia’s sense of self-preservation?”

Then, as I was talking with my girlfriend Abby, she said:

“[Sia] doesn’t need to have [a sense of self-preservation]. No one is holding her accountable but the autistic community.”
Read 8 tweets
The Autisticats Profile picture
29 Dec 20
We’ve gained thousands of followers in the past few months, many of whom may not be well-versed on what autism actually is.

So, here’s a basic run-down of how autistic people’s brains work, with links to sources where you can learn more.

Let’s begin!
Neurotypical brains are organized so that higher-order concepts affect the perception of low-level sensory stimuli.

Meaning, NTs have a hard time seeing “trees” when they know (or think) they’re looking at a “forest.”

This isn’t the case for autistic people.
Autistic people can accurately perceive low-level stimuli without being thrown off by higher-level (global) cognitive processes.

This is referred to as “reduced global to local interference.”

It means we can see the “trees” despite knowing that we’re looking at a “forest.”
Read 10 tweets
The Autisticats Profile picture
28 Dec 20
SPOILER WARNING for Soul.

I watched the Pixar movie Soul with my family last night, and I really enjoyed it.

I think one of the reasons I loved it so much, was that 22’s experience of life in Joe’s body was so reminiscent of autistic people’s experience of life every day.
22 has never experienced life before, so she comes into every situation as an outsider.

She’s not aware of social rules, so she does things that Joe would never do, or that seem “odd.”

She’s never had a body before, so her senses are extremely heightened.
Because everything is new to her, 22 is very sensitive and easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli.

She gets frightened by crowds of people, sirens, loud noises, etc. in NYC and then ends up running away due to sensory overload (which could be viewed as elopement).
Read 9 tweets

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