29/08/2013
Robert Lloyd
Los Angeles Times
The key to "Neurotypical," Adam Larsen's engaging film about autism from the inside, is in the title, a word that some "on the spectrum" use to describe people the world calls normal.
It's a word with a little attitude built into it: "That is so neurotypical," no one here actually says — though some of the autistic speakers do indeed regard the nonautistic with something of the amused, bemused pity with which Spock once beheld Kirk.
"I look at neurotypical life," one tells Larsen, "and I'm sorry, I really don't want to be one of you." Another, befuddled by the phenomenon of small talk: "I thought most of the rest of the world were idiots with no thoughts."
Premiering Monday on PBS as part of the documentary series "POV," its interest, from both sides, is anthropological, not clinical. There is some talk of medicine — parents weigh the pros and cons of putting their daughter on drugs, an autistic activist cautions against "chemical straitjackets."
But Larsen's interest is in how people with different world views get along. (Sometimes, as in one mixed neurotypical-autistic couple, who manage to stay delighted by their differences, very well; sometimes, as in another, who feels that his wife's recent Asperger's diagnosis gives her an unfair advantage in their relationship, less so.)
Shot largely in Virginia and North Carolina, because that's where the filmmaker is from, "Neurotypical" — which does not identify any of its subjects or speakers until the end — runs on the testimony of the autistic and those who live with them. There are no expert voices, except as experience equals expertise.
If Larsen's subjects don't present the full range of what for good reason is called a spectrum — only language-challenged 4-year-old Violet is incapable of reflecting upon her state of mind — we get a sense of varied experience, of humor and of desire: "It is possible," says one young autistic woman, "to be romantically involved with other people. Just because Temple Grandin doesn't do it doesn't mean it never happens."
Some reveal their strategies for coping in the rarely straightforward straight world, masquerading when necessary, as "pseudotypical," finding ways to put the rest of us at ease. These can be amusing; one repeats the last three words of his interlocutor's last sentence, to signal interest, and has developed a workable methodology of neurotypical flirting. ("But I really don't know what I'm doing," he admits.)
The point, which is never stated but the whole of Larsen's film embodies, is that we are all on some sort of spectrum, whatever our diagnoses or lack of them, each with a uniquely wired brain and an individual way of interpreting the world and coping with it, and each with a gift. ("I believe that oddness results in cultural content," says John, a fiddler with Asperger's.) However much we seem to speak the same language, we are all foreigners, struggling to communicate.
01/08/2013
Tom Roston
Doc Soup
In the cultural marketplace of ideas and views, we’re constantly exposed to buzzfeeds and blowhards. It’s so rare that the space is cleared for truly nuanced, thoughtful and unique perspectives. Documentaries tend to be a great way to fill that void.
And for anyone and everyone who was appalled at the news that the ABC show The View anointed Jenny McCarthy, the celebrity mother of an autistic boy, to be a co-host, there is a doc antidote: Neurotypical. Watching this POV documentary is a way of cleansing yourself of the artifice, bad faith, misdirection and plain stupidity that McCarthy conjures with her dead-wrong belief that vaccinations are the cause of autism.
It’s such a shame that the limited time that is spent discussing autism in the mainstream press often focuses on McCarthy, the latest being ABC’s stunning decision, earlier this month, to give such a public platform to a celebrity who has no scientific basis for her belief and has helped maintain a myth that not only endangers lives — because of exposure to diseases that vaccinations would have rendered harmless — but also seriously screws up the thinking of families who live with people with autism.
Now, I know I’m adding to the attention given to her, but I only do so as a way of shining a light on Neurotypical, because I think it’s relevant when you consider that the film is all about giving people with autism the space to express their views. We so rarely get to hear from them.
Watching the film, I was moved by how Wolf, an articulate guy who’s on the spectrum, talked of us neurotypicals (people without autism). And I was floored by how John described the existential import of the game of tag — a perspective that can only be rooted in his very different way of looking at the world.
Those are the viewpoints that should be heard, but, instead, it’s McCarthy who gets so much attention to spread her stunningly irresponsible message. Her co-hosting gig of The View starts in the fall, but I’m hoping that the public outcry protesting her selection could change ABC’s commitment to her.
You can just bet that McCarthy’s controversial status was well considered when ABC executives picked her. Whether or not her contract stipulates that she can or cannot talk about autism, I can assure you that either course will be used for ultimate impact. She’ll either make a well rehearsed and highly publicized announcement that she won’t be discussing the issue as an act of noble high-mindedness or they’ll put on a reasoned discussion relying on the good old American value that everyone has a right to their opinion.
But they don’t! Not fascists. Not bigots. Not, in my opinion, even climate-change deniers. And definitely not her. Take her off the show and let John and Wolf have a day to share their views. That’s what I’d like to see.
It’s no coincidence that POV — point of view — has aired Neurotypical. That’s because POV promotes points of view that are well considered and resonant. The View simply relies on viewpoints that hook eyeballs to the screen. But not all views should be trusted.
So, I hope you’ve seen Neurotypical. As I said in a post a year ago about the same subject (“A Neurotypical’s View on Autism Documentaries,” no less), I can’t claim to know this subject like those who live with it. But that doesn’t mean we neurotypicals can’t be open to their views.