Thread by @ekverstania

There seems to be a TV/movie trope in which autistic adults are presented in a poignant, light-hearted way as having real but childlike adult relationships; and there's ALWAYS a sage grown-up allistic coach figure, to guide them in how to do it in the Proper (neurotypical) Way.

Can you name some TV shows and movies where you've seen this?

This is what made me realise that the Eternal Children and the Normalising Sage is a trope.

https://twitter.com/syrnhuyslrtbn/status/1475804196100194304?t=OC25hi-NKEGykn40Mr9Yrw&s=19

You know what's also annoying? If we criticise based on a trailer (remember Sia's Music?), someone will say, "OMG, see the actual movie before you criticise!" (I did see the whole of Music, BTW.)

I call bull****:

if you want to please us, your trailer won't patronise us. A trailer is supposed to give a hint at what's in the show, right, so that people will want to watch it? So, the marketers are not gonna choose what they consider to be the WORST moment to represent a film.

They're going to pick the bits most likely to attract their main stakeholder group, in this case the ableist allistic public.

So, yeah, nah, I spot a pattern.

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1475456999865339904?t=ugwbGCNUXF3nOCU-LjTiBA&s=19

I watched the trailer, by the way, and the actors themselves look OK. Maybe they'll redeem it a bit.

Pretty sure murder apologist Tony Attwood would give the show a thumbs-up, because it's all about sponges becoming viable taxpayers.

https://twitter.com/AnnMemmott/status/1475759218288476163?t=AVtvVf-7W9_iB6YxrxL43g&s=19

The psychologist in Mozart & the Whale lingers in my mind.

Back in the day the movie was sort of OK, even though it was clumsily done, because it was all we had. And I think that's why some autistic people sort of like these things: "because at least it's something".

I wish I had the energy to write the three autistic-charactered stories in my head. One is a play, one is a musical, one is a novel (a thriller). The musical would be the easiest one, I've already composed a lot of the music, but...

...the play is actually the most exciting one, because it is set in Gauteng in an aspirational future, a future of decreased ableism.

There is no mention of psychologists, counsellors or non-autistic parents in the story, but the one character, who is nonspeaking, is married to a neurotypical woman.

There's also no drama or plot stuff around this relationship; she barely features in the story, you just see her when she goes out to work in the morning and asks the others to check on her husband later.

The characters are not all wrecked by their awful past either. The office manager is a trans woman and in the play, nobody carries on about that, EVERY character in the ENTIRE play treats her as normal.

The whole of the play takes place in one of those houses that have been converted for business use, I think Marshalltown has some like that, or Turffontein.

I can see this place, the interior, pretty clearly in my mind, as though it exists in the real world, as though I have been there.

Hey, I just had a cool thought! Instead of this How-to-Be-Normal Coach, there should be a TV trope of a part-time housekeeper and personal assistant who provides support where executive function fails. They also make phone calls.

pastemagazine.com/tv/amazon-prim…

And then sometimes the client might say something like, "I want to get better at doing [X thing] on days when you're not here. Could you please help me do a task breakdown on that?"

And then this wonderful professional organiser/PA/housekeeper who's been trained to do this and who shows not an inkling of patronising their client, simply pulls out the sheet for that task, and they talk through and practice it, and discuss the schedule implications.

And in my preferred trope, none of this is a plot point, it's just there to normalise it, like you might have a scene in movie where a character wakes up, dons a woolly gown and opens the curtains, so the viewer knows this is set in the winter.

In some renditions of the trope, the professional organiser/PA person also has a disability. That would be cool.

And another thing! The autistic characters don't all just have One Special Interest Per Person, and the story doesn't work through a series of scenes or incidents reflecting a DSM symptom list.