Katherine Lashley
The film Temple Grandin (2010), directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes, is based on its title character’s life. Increasingly, Grandin is internationally known as a woman who has autism, an autism advocate, a designer of humane cattle slaughter systems and an animal science professor. It portrays a good portion of her life: focusing mostly on her high school, college and early career years, it also provides flashbacks from her childhood. In many respects, the film is a realistic presentation of Grandin’s life – many scenes are directly inspired by events that she herself describes in books such as Emergence (Grandin and Scariano 1986) and Thinking in Pictures (Grandin 1995). The value of such scenes, some of which are discussed in this chapter, is that these scenes introduce viewers to autism and may even encourage viewers to recognise their own neurotypical bias. And yet other aspects of the film are more problematic: the portrayal of Grandin by a neurotypical actor – what Tobin Siebers refers to as ‘disability drag’ (2008: 115) – has been rightly criticised, and there is a risk that introducing autism through Grandin in particular merely serves to reinforce what disability studies scholars have identified as the supercrip narrative in media representations of disability.
I see
Temple Grandin as a complex film that is neither easily dismissed nor unproblematic. It is important to remember that it breaks some boundaries in disability film by putting Grandin’s character in the spotlight, drawing on her own narratives of autism, allowing viewers to visualise her method of ‘thinking in pictures’ and her original door metaphor, and in the end presenting her experience through her perspective – an autistic perspective – and not that of the neurotypical mind. Grandin herself asserts that the film is an accurate representation of her life and how she sees the world. She explains that one of the reasons why the film is so accurate is that the director Mick Jackson also has autism and also thinks in pictures: they both see images in their mind and they can remember images more easily than words (see Grandin and Panek 2013: 197). Since he thinks in a similar way to Grandin, he could also use his own experiences with picture thinking in order to effectively portray her thought processes.
At the same time, however, Temple Grandin becomes one of the many films that, as Alexandria Prochnow notes, depict high-functioning autism, ‘which simply is not the norm in the autism community’ (2014: 136). This film, and a number of authors and public speakers, tend to emphasise and focus on those with high-functioning autism, which is a disservice to those in the autism community who are working with severe autism. The film’s overall uplifting image of autism can provide encouragement for those dealing with autism, but it can also give viewers false expectations and parents false hope, especially if their child has severe autism and is not progressing well. That is, in a sense, Grandin is far from being representative of all autistic people.
In what follows, I outline how Grandin is portrayed as a supercrip in the film, and how this supercrip motif encourages people in the autism community, educates a general audience on autism, yet also neglects another reality of autism which includes those who are not supercrips, savants and not high-functioning. I then argue that the actress Claire Danes engages in disability drag as she is not disabled, though she portrays autism. The use of disability drag in filming the work also contributes to the supercrip motif and the image that autism is not a severe disability. In the last section, I argue that the film emphasises the common metaphor of the door, which illustrates Grandin’s separation in the autistic world from the neurotypical world. The door metaphor also extends to the viewers as the film becomes the door (or window) through which neurotypicals can learn about autism and hopefully become more understanding of the autism community.
On-Screen: Grandin as Savant/Supercrip
In his book
Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination, Stuart Murray notes that ‘with autism, it is especially the imagined place of savantism that appears to exercise public imagination’ (2008: 13). When it comes to savantism, probably the most iconic image is Raymond in
Rain Man (1988), who can calculate objects and number instantly – a human calculator. It is interesting that Prochnow does not see savantism as playing a role in Jackson’s film:
Temple Grandin is a unique case of a realistic depiction that just happens to be a high-functioning, super intelligent, autistic person; Temple is not a savant nor is she portrayed as one. She is not just a quirky person, and she is certainly not undiagnosed. This HBO film realistically shows the struggles and achievements of a real-life autistic person, though it certainly cannot be generalized as representing all people with ASD. (2014: 145)
That Grandin is not a savant and is not portrayed as one is an assertion I do not find to be wholly satisfying. The fact that Grandin discovered that she could more easily understand animals and communicate between them and humans greatly enhanced her value as a student and employee: she was able to give her professors and employers material that other people could not provide for them. The level of education she has attained and the recognition that has been directed at her professional achievements are both highly unusual. As the film makes clear, Grandin graduated from high school, college, earned her PhD and redesigned livestock facilities; in fact, as she writes in Animals in Translation, ‘Half the cattle in the United States and Canada are handled in humane slaughter systems I’ve designed’ (Grandin and Johnson 2005: 7).
While Grandin is not a savant in the way that other savants can calculate complex numbers or hear a piece of music once and play it on an instrument, some would say she is a savant in her communication and intellectual abilities – in fact, a number of people in the autism community consider her to be one because of her achievements. Prochnow’s most compelling statement is her observation that Grandin’s life cannot ‘be generalized as representing all people with ASD’. A number of parents and specialists of autism have recognised that Grandin’s experiences, especially those in her later years after she graduated high school, cannot be applied to all autistics because a number of autistics have trouble graduating from high school, attending college and gaining employment. An article entitled ‘Postsecondary Education and Employment Among Youth With an Autism Spectrum Disorder’ by Paul T. Shattuck et al. (2012) analyses the education and employment of those with ASD between the ages of 19 and 23:
The overall rate of paid employment since high school among youth with an ASD was 55.1%. Twenty-eight percent had attended a 2-year college, 12.1% had attended a 4-year college, the combined rate of attendance at either a 2- or 4-year college was 34.7%, and 9.3% had attended a vocational or technical education program. Approximately one third (34.9%) had not participated in any postsecondary employment or school. (2012: 1046)
These recent statistics illustrate how difficult it is for those with ASD to attend and graduate college, and to gain and keep a job. Most important, Grandin herself recognises that she is not a representative example of an adult with autism.
A number of disability studies scholars recognise the image and stereotype of the supercrip as a staple of media representation of people with disabilities. The supercrip is someone with a disability (whether physical or mental) who does not succumb to the disability, but rather overcomes the disability by having a good attitude, working hard in life and at their education and career and finding what typical people would consider to be a fulfilling life. Supercrips accomplish their dreams and succeed in life despite their disability. The supercrip is popular in media because it sends an uplifting message to the nondisabled, who may think: ‘If they can achieve this with a disability, then so can I, since I don’t have a disability.’ Nevertheless, a number of disability studies critics recognise the negative impact of the supercrip on those with disabilities who have not achieved great success and also on those with more severe disabilities, especially for those people who are so severely disabled that the disability (not the person) does hinder the individual from achieving more (see Longmore 2001; Black 2007; Gregory 2013; Haller and Zhang 2013).
Rhonda Black writes that the supercrip ‘portray[s] the individual with a disability as exhibiting great courage, stamina, and determination to overcome his or her disability. This individual then serves as a motivational role model for others but may lead individuals with disabilities into feeling like failures if they have not accomplished something extraordinary’ (2007: 67). The film portrays Grandin as a supercrip because it shows her courage, stamina and determination to prove herself and to do the work that she wants to do. To be fair, these qualities are evident in Grandin’s own narratives of her life – which rightly emphasise perseverance in the face of challenges – as well as in her on-screen portrayal. For example, when Grandin is in high school, she discovers that when she gets into the cattle chute, which squeezes her sides, she feels calm. Therefore, she creates her own version of the cattle chute, called a squeeze machine that is built for a person and kept in her dorm room. When it comes to the challenge of the squeeze machine, she carried out a social experiment, and then wrote a report to prove to the school board that other people also find the squeeze machine soothing. When her math teacher challenged her to discover how the visual room was distorted, she persisted in finding the solution. When ranchers and cattle hands told her that cattle moo anyway and that the moos do not have a meaning, she completed her observations and research to prove that cattle moo and act in certain ways for a reason. But the risk is that general viewers unfamiliar with autism may believe that this is an accurate representation of autism – that all or most autistics are like Grandin, which would encourage viewers to ignore people on other areas of the spectrum, especially those who are not savants and those who are not as high-functioning as Grandin. Yet because of the history and proliferation of the supercrip in films in television shows – not only with autism but supercrips with other disabilities as well – viewers are primed for the supercrip autistic and are therefore not expecting (in some ways) a view of autism that comes across to many in the autism community as more realistic or honest.
Black addresses the connection between the supercrip and the inspiration provided: ‘While it may be argued that a true story does not perpetuate stereotypes, we believe that the focus of the characters’ lives as “inspiration” and “full of great accomplishments” perpetuates the images of the “supercrip”’ (2007: 79). Rochelle Gregory asserts that ‘HBO’s portrayal of Grandin does occasionally slide into a supercrip narrative’, and I agree with her. Grandin’s inspiration and accomplishments shown in the film contribute to her image as a supercrip. Terri Thrower also asserts that it uses the supercrip and overcoming narratives (2013: 208). Gregory further explains of the scenes that show Grandin’s mind: ‘Ultimately, these scenes spectacularize Grandin by setting her apart, both intellectually and socially, from the world around her’ (2007: 79). While Grandin as supercrip is distinguished from both autistics and typicals, the film also attempts to join these worlds together through her portrayal. Earning a PhD, becoming a professor and creating one’s own livestock consulting business are impressive achievements, whether one is neurotypical or autistic. Of course, Grandin’s success translates easily to the neurotypical world because neurotypicals are more familiar with higher education, developing a career (especially in teaching) and building a business.
Beth Haller and Lingling Zhang state: ‘The role [of the supercrip] reinforces the idea that disabled people are deviant – that the person’s accomplishments are “amazing” for someone who is less than complete’ (2013: 20). Grandin’s autism is portrayed as deviant at first as it leads her to the squeeze machine and cattle, yet her accomplishments – college degrees, books published, public speaking, teaching – are seen as amazing because she has autism, and previously the research on autism had asserted that autistics could not achieve very much. Also related to the supercrip theme is the idea of compensation: the disabled person is compensated with a gift or talent to make up for being disabled in some way. Paul Longmore writes: ‘A recurring explicit or implicit secondary theme of many stories of adjustment is the idea of compensation. God or nature or life compensates handicapped people for their loss, and the compensation is spiritual, moral, mental, and emotional’ (2001: 8). Grandin appears to be compensated when it comes to cattle because she notices patterns about cows’ behaviour that others do not. Thus, her compensation is mental because she can see things that others cannot and she devises solutions that others have not thought of or implemented. She is also compensated morally as she is inspired to produce more humane ways to give cattle injections and to slaughter them. This moral compensation is pertinent because in the past, a misconception about autism was that autistics are unable to understand what another being thinks or feels and cannot sympathise. Yet Grandin demonstrates that she can sympathise, especially with cattle (moral compensation) and that she has the intelligence to do something about it (mental compensation).
A motif in disability narratives that appears to be related to the supercrip narrative is the story of adjustment. Longmore describes the story of adjustment: ‘the dramas of adjustment say that disability does not inherently prevent…handicapped people from living meaningfully and productively and from having normal friendships and romantic relationships but these stories put the responsibility for any problems squarely and almost exclusively on the disabled person’ (ibid.). Haller and Zhang have recognised that ‘disabled people receive messages about society’s expectations of them through mass media representations such [as] the Supercrip narrative, which tells them to “overcome” a disabling condition, or to seek “cures” as in the Medical Model’ (2013: 19). Indeed, Grandin’s story is one of adjustment to problems linked to the social negotiation of and reaction to autism. As Grandin herself suggests in her various books, she has adjusted to society and the strictures set by typical people. In this sense, because she has overcome and adjusted, she becomes a supercrip.
Connected to the image of the supercrip is the message sent by the media when nondisabled actors portray those with disabilities and portray the supercrip: the disability in ‘disability drag’ can be viewed as not as disabling as the disability really is, simply because the actor is not disabled and the actor is playing a supercrip. Thus, the image of the supercrip and the disabled person who can easily be healed is proliferated, causing even more issues with the accurate representation of autism.
Beyond the Screen: Disability Drag and Issues of Performance
Claire Danes’ performance as Temple Grandin brings up the issue of disability drag, as termed by Tobin Siebers, where an able-bodied actor portrays a disabled character on screen. Such a performance makes the audience aware of disability, and potentially even accepting of disability, though the audience is aware that the actor will return to being able-bodied (2008: 114–16). In one sense, the performance of disability drag actually reinforces the preference for able-bodiedness. However, Siebers goes deeper to understand how disability drag functions: ‘it also exposes and resists the prejudices of society. The masquerade fulfills the desires to tell a story seeped in disability, often the very story that society does not want to hear, by refusing to obey the ideology of ability’ (2008: 118). In this sense – although it is an imitation that highlights the able body and ability of the actor – disability drag also makes disability present and sometimes more visible, encouraging audiences to confront disability rather than to hide it. In this way, more able-bodied people can learn more about disability; through performance disability can be brought into cultural discourse. Instead of hiding the disability, it is brought to the forefront (2008: 119).
That Siebers’ understanding of disability drag is nuanced, however, does not mean that he sees such performances as unproblematic. Prochnow writes:
One problem that would be hard to fix is that there are no autistic actors playing characters with autism; obviously, acting is not a career choice conducive to most symptoms of autism, but at the same time it can be inappropriate to have actors play roles that they have not experienced themselves. (2014: 147)
Prochnow aptly points out that many autistic people are played by neurotypical actors and that there are few, if any, actors who actually do have autism. While it can be inappropriate to have typical actors portraying autistics, there is also a need for representations of autism that are as accurate and realistic as possible. Although the director, Mick Jackson, has autism and brought his own autistic experiences to the film, many – if not all – of the actors are typical. That is, even though Danes is typical, she is being directed by Jackson, which returns disability to the performance in a way. Viewers should determine which may be more problematic in a presentation of a disability, particularly autism: a non-disabled actor directed by an autistic director, or an autistic actor directed by a neurotypical. In the case of film – which is, after all, an artistic form largely driven by speculation and judged based on its investment return – one must wonder whether the use of big-name stars can be effective at rendering disabilities visible. A number of scholars, including Haller and Zhang, Black and Prochnow assert that more people with disabilities should be playing characters with disabilities. In particular, Black writes about the relative benefits and risks of casting decisions relating to disability:
The films we reviewed employed famous actors and actresses, an obvious box office draw. In one sense, if the movie has a positive portrayal of a character with a disability, the increased viewing audience provided by a big-name star could help increase public awareness. On the other hand, what message is being sent if audiences never see actors with disabilities? (2007: 82).
The influence of the big-name star can be seen clearly in the marketing for Temple Grandin. The DVD case and film poster show a close-up of Grandin’s character (with Danes’ face, although quite changed due to make-up and costume) and large letters at the top-centre announce ‘Claire Danes’, while the name and title of the film is placed in large letters at the image’s bottom-centre. The announcement that Danes portrays Grandin helps to attract audiences to a film about autism and Temple Grandin that they might not have seen if it were not for the popular actress.
In addition to noting the difference that a famous actor makes in a film about disability, Black also focuses on the plot lines and issues dealt with in disability films:
And finally, more films should portray individuals with disabilities as having ‘typical’ emotions, routines, interpersonal conflicts, and in general have plot lines more similar to those in films featuring main characters without disabilities. Films including a character with a disability should not focus on the valiant struggle against the odds, where the disability is the central focus of a person’s life. Instead, we would recommend that feature films portray a person with a disability living a full and rich life where the disability is incidental to the character’s role. (2007: 82)
The goals of having a character or disabled character engage in a plot that does not centre around the disability is commendable. Can this be done for films on autism? For Temple Grandin, I am not so sure the film could have focused on much else other than her autism, despite the fact that it devotes much time to Grandin developing her career at the ranch. While her story includes being a woman and being a minority in a male-dominated business, her education and career are driven by her autism. Her autism – her perseverance – leads her to pursue her desire, which is to work with cattle, despite the sexism she experiences on the ranch. If anything, the sexism engages her autism – her perseveration and fixation – in order to help her become successful. All the while, autism is in the background, influencing everything she does.
As Temple Grandin follows the supercrip narrative and uses non-autistic actors, it is also of importance to analyse how this positions the audience. Martin Norden notes that many disability films place the audience in the able-bodied perspective, not the perspective of the disabled character, and that this makes the disability into a ‘spectacle’ (2001: 21–2). The film, however, presents everything from Grandin’s perspective. Audience members do not view through an able-bodied perspective or character, but rather through an autistic perspective. As the film follows the supercrip narrative, the story of adjustment, and engages in disability drag, it does break away from the need to present disability narrative through an able-bodied perspective.
The most pertinent part of
Temple Grandin includes the presentation of Grandin’s term and description of her thought processes that she calls ‘thinking in pictures’. In her books, she explains that images, not words, flash through her mind, which tends to operate visually (1995: 19). She also explains that language does not come easily to her, so much so that it is almost like a second language that she has had to learn. She has to translate the images in her mind into words in order to communicate with others, something Grandin explains multiple times throughout her books so that readers can understand her thought process of images. Similarly, the film illustrates this – taking the ‘thinking in pictures’ description back to images and away from language. When someone asks Grandin about a church steeple, images of different steeples appear quickly on the screen. The film shows the fragmentation of her thinking by displaying the images so rapidly. It also shows how Grandin has often translated language into pictures in her mind using specific examples and exploiting the visual nature of film. In one scene depicting graduate school, Grandin wants to study the meaning of cows’ mooing for her thesis. In order to do so, she must have a form signed by the feedlot owner. After getting that signature, Grandin runs to her professor’s office and hands him the graduate study form, which is dirty and wrinkled. The professor comments: ‘It smells like half the cows signed it.’ In her mind, she pictures a cow sitting at a desk and signing the form, after which she says, ‘No. Cows can’t write.’ This exchange also shows that she is a literal thinker: she takes the words literally and therefore envisions a cow signing a piece of paper.
Another example of Grandin thinking in pictures is shown when she is a teenager and temporarily living with her aunt at her ranch. Her aunt tells her, ‘We get up with the roosters’, and Grandin then imagines her aunt sitting atop a roof with the rooster, also doing the ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’. It is a funny image – even Grandin smiles and laughs, recognising how silly it is. Once again, viewers visualise the literalness of her mindset, and they see that Grandin seems to realise that she is literal, though she cannot entirely help it because that is how her mind works – routinely transforming language into images so she can remember and understand. The film allows neurotypical viewers visual access to how Grandin sees her world, how she thinks and how she interprets language through the use of images. It automatically turns Grandin’s experiences into a visual representation, creating a valuable connection between the film, the mind of its title character and the audience.
The Metaphor of the Door
This metaphor of the door – appearing both in her books and in the film – is one that she enjoys using because it has helped her to understand complex situations. She has used it in order to help herself transition from one stage of life to another: graduating high school, graduating college, embarking on a new career and even when overcoming her fears of going through transitions. Joseph Straus has observed that the metaphor of the door is popular in a number of autistics’ writings: ‘Much more commonly, we find a metaphors [sic] of doors…and glass. Both involve an idea of separation – the autistic world and the normate world are distinct – but the boundary between them permits people on both sides to see through…and possibly move through as well’ (2013: 471). Grandin recognises the meanings of the door metaphors she uses as well. She sees the doors as the path that will transition her from one period of her life into another. She would find physical doors that she would look at, draw, write about and eventually even walk through, physically signaling to herself that she is transitioning in her life. While Grandin discusses several doors in her books, the film covers two sliding glass doors: one in the cafeteria at her school and the other at the supermarket.
When Grandin is getting lunch at school, the sounds and sights overwhelm her so much that she rushes to leave the cafeteria. However, when she arrives at a sliding glass door, it opens and closes in front of her, scaring her and stopping her. The film connects the swift open and close motion of the sliding glass door to an image that Grandin has stored in her memory from a black-and-white film of the blade coming down in a guillotine. She also connects the sliding glass door to a butcher knife chopping salami, again envisioned in black and white. She tries a second time to rush through the door. The third time the door opens, she drops her tray and finally runs through the sliding glass door when it is open.
When Grandin was in her early twenties, after she had graduated from college and was working at the feedlot, she lived by herself and had to do her own grocery shopping. The supermarket has a sliding glass door, and she is afraid at first to enter. The door opens the first time, but she does not walk through. It closes and then opens again when a couple walk past her into the supermarket. She rushes in after them, as if using them for protection against the sliding door closing upon her. Upon leaving the supermarket, she again feels fright at the automatic sliding glass door. She reminded herself that it was a door and that she could see through it and walk through it – that a door would not keep her from living as ‘normal’ a life as possible. The automatic sliding glass door that Grandin encounters in the film echoes her experience that she recounts in Thinking in Pictures: she had to clean a series of three sliding windows, and one day she became stuck between two of the windows. ‘While I was trapped between the windows, it was almost impossible to communicate through the glass. Being autistic is like being trapped like this. The windows symbolized my feelings of disconnection from other people and helped me cope with the isolation’ (1995: 63).
The film shows some of the discrimination that Grandin experiences at the cattle yards and what she viewed as yet another door keeping her from her work: the men would not allow her into the ranch and past the gate because she is a woman. Since she knows that they are discriminating against her based on her gender and not on her autism, she decides to imitate them: she trades in her car and buys a big, old, beat-up pick-up truck. She buys jeans and a cowboy shirt, then proceeds to roll in the mud to dirty up her appearance and even smears mud on the truck. Once she manages to get inside the ranch and is working alongside the men, the men further antagonise her by placing bloody guts and entrails on the front window and on the top of the truck. Offended and enraged, with her bare hands she wipes and throws the guts on the ground and yells at the men who are laughing at her, ‘I’ve eaten bulls’ testicles. Ate ‘em at my aunt’s ranch. Regularly! This is a waste!’ Viewers then see the men appearing contrite as they have stopped laughing and watch her drive off. Although the film does not connect the bloody entrails on the truck window with the other images of windows and doors, this, too, holds the same meaning. She has faced discrimination and ostracism at the ranch from the men, and this is literally and physically represented by the blood and guts on her truck’s front window. This bullying is an obstacle or window that keeps Grandin from fully working at the ranch and being accepted by the men there. Like the other windows and doors she has encountered, though, she does not allow this to stop her from pursuing what she wants to do (see 1995: 110).
Fig. 1: Temple Grandin’s door metaphor is rendered visually for audiences.
Another metaphor of the door appears at the end of the movie. Grandin is with her mother at an autism meeting. The presenters invite her to speak at the podium. As she walks up the centre isle from her place in the back, the film shows the image of the door on the screen, and she imagines herself walking through it. She tells herself: ‘It’s a door’, meaning that speaking about autism in front of all these people is a door that she is passing through: she is transitioning from being an autistic herself to being an autistic who can explain autism and in the process become one of the best and strongest autism advocates there is.
An interesting point about the door metaphor is the fact that it
is a metaphor. A number of people have argued that autistics have trouble with metaphors and abstract thinking. Even Grandin asserts that she has trouble with abstract thinking, yet she explains that she can use and think in metaphors. She turned the metaphor into a real door several times throughout her life in order to make the metaphor tangible. She has written that as she has grown older and has had more experiences, she no longer needs the tangible door, but that she may still use the door metaphor in her mind. She has proven that her mind can grasp the intangible through images. A metaphor, in this case, and in many cases, is visual after all.
Temple Grandin accurately reflects one experience of autism, providing typical viewers the opportunity to see Grandin’s story of autism and how sensory issues have affected her. When it comes to considering just how many television shows and films portray autism and whether or not they are true in their presentations, Temple Grandin stands out. The film was not made to show other autistics how to navigate the outside world; rather, it shows neuro-typicals what the world can seem like to an autistic person: sights, sounds and other sensory issues are illustrated to inform the viewer that little things that they might take for granted can often cause problems for the person with autism. The film attempts to do what Grandin does in her books, and that is to make the experience of autism open and available to neurotypicals so that they may better understand autism. To this end, the film is successful. In keeping with Grandin’s metaphor of the door: this film is itself a door, available for neurotypicals and autistics to view in order to understand another aspect of autism. One need only open the door and enter in order to be fully immersed in Grandin’s life.
Conclusion
What is clear is that
Temple Grandin can open more doors to discussion and knowledge of autism. For instance, in the spring semester of 2015, my first-year writing class read Grandin’s book
The Autistic Brain (with Richard Panek, 2013), watched
Temple Grandin and wrote an essay about autism in connection to something in society, such as school or career. Many of my students said that before reading and watching about Grandin that they did not know what autism was, or that they had misconceptions about autism. A discussion about the role of autism in society can also lead into a discussion of the disability and disabled in society. Students looked more critically at the education system – what was good and what could be done to improve it. Students examined the workplace and social acceptance, recognising that there needs to be more acceptance, education and understanding. Through the perspective of Grandin’s autism, students (and by extension, viewers) can experience one version of autism and learn a little more about the developmental disability that affects at least one in eighty people.
Indeed, as a viewer I have experienced the ambivalence of watching the uplifting story of Grandin and then reflecting on my sister, who is not a supercrip, but an adult with autism who works a part-time job, cannot keep up with college work, and who may never be able to live on her own. I have just felt uplifted by the supercrip narrative applied to autism – if Grandin can do this, then so can other autistics! And I have just felt let down, because I recognise that my sister is not that kind of supercrip, even though she is very advanced in her autism and has improved so much from being labelled as severely autistic and nonverbal to talking and working part-time.
The supercrip narrative, though a common motif and often unrealistic, may provide hope for parents whose child has recently been diagnosed as on the spectrum. For those with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome, this film can be more of an accurate representation, especially for Aspergians, as they themselves may also be a supercrip having achieved higher education and/or a promising career. While this film follows many of the conventions seen in disability film, it is one of the few films of autism, and it is paving the way for more in the future that will hopefully provide more realistic representations that are more applicable to others on the spectrum. Thus, more doors between autistics and neurotypicals are being opened, not only by scholars, but also by those in the autistic community and potentially by neurotypical audiences.
FILMOGRAPHY
Jackson, Mick (dir) (2010) Temple Grandin. 107 minutes. HBO Films. USA.
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