Quote:
Originally Posted by Dezzy
It's more important that these roles are written and performed sensitively yet are true to life more than anything else. If someone can embody the role well, and it doesn't come across as making autism out to be a quirk, then that's all that matters I think.
Twitter should be clamouring for better written interpretations of autism than clamouring for only autistic people to play these roles.
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That's pretty much my thoughts as the parent of an autistic/LD child... being autistic isn't a personality trait, and an autistic character shouldn't have "being autistic" as their only or over-riding defining factor. I honestly think the "community" is unintentionally doing harm here by not recognising that autistic people are individual personalities, and that the best person to play the role is whoever best captures that individual personality... not whoever "does autistic best". It's such a harmful, hurtful stereotype that autistic people are all the same or similar, that it defines them, and the twitter activists themselves seem to be really playing into it... I'm sure not intentionally but my honest impression is that while they obviously understand autism, they don't have a great grasp on the LD/non-verbal side.
I see it the same with sexuality and actors I guess - if someone has written a new, fictional gay character then I think they should probably try to find a gay actor for the role. However, if it's a film about an EXISTING gay person then it's not the same thing - "being gay" isn't the defining part of the character and the vital part is getting whoever captures that individual... e.g. in Bohemian Rhapsody the important thing was the portrayal of
Freddie Mercury, capturing his energy and presence, and the right person for the role was the person who nailed that. Waffling a bit but I guess what I'm saying is, the character in this film shouldn't be cast as "an autistic kid" any more than Freddie Mercury should be cast as "a gay man".