AspenMW

The Right Way to be Autistic (Final Exam)

As I was reading Ari Ne’eman’s piece on the conflicting narratives of Neurotypical and Autistic individuals, I was reminded of research I did on the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, specifically in regards to the author Mike Haddon’s writing process, and how he actually did very little research when creating the character of Christopher Francis Boone. At the time of my digging into the book’s history, I was impressed by Haddon’s stance that he felt he did not need to perform in-depth research because the autism spectrum is so broad and vast that there is no singular set of requirements for an autistic individual to have, and the critical response to the book led me to believe this was a valid stance to hold. However, after reading Ne’eman’s piece, I have come to wonder if this was truly the best course of action for him. In this essay, I will use Haddon’s Curious Incident to discuss the merits of autistic consultation in media and why I believe that the story of Christopher Boone is one of the better depictions of autism, despite the ways in which it could have benefited from an insider perspective during the writing process.

Christopher Francis Boone is, in no uncertain terms, a savant; in many ways, he is a stereotype of autism, gifted in math, a personality built around the logical world which falters and fizzles out when faced with emotional spontaneity and anything he cannot reason his way through. To Ne’eman, this in and of itself might be a piece of damning evidence in condemning Curious Incident alongside other stories about autism written by neurotypical individuals, and I sought out critique of the book written by individuals on the autism spectrum, in search of a more personal view point. In researching this, I came across a blog post by Nomi Kaim, an autistic individual, which focused on her reaction to the character of Christopher. One of the first things she brought up was the ways in which Christopher is a textbook example of an autistic individual;

“Many of Christopher’s character traits fit the textbook definition of autism. He has profound difficulty communicating and interacting with people, including overly literal interpretation of language; difficulty interpreting gestures and facial expressions; and an inability to take other people’s perspectives. His speech is excessively formal, and he is incapable of social spontaneity or reciprocity. He constantly misses the big picture, or context, of what is going on. He fixates on a few themes he cannot let go of, rocks or groans when overwhelmed, and is hypersensitive to sound, smell, and touch.” (Kaim)

However, she spends just as much if not more time talking about the depths of Christopher’s character, and the ways in which he breaks the mold pushed so often by neurotypical authors. She relates to his confusion born from vague terms like “keep off the grass”, his love of animals, and the way he uses logic and reasoning to make his way through an emotional world. Yes, this is only one kind of autism, but it is a portrayal of autism that resonates with real individuals. One thing that Curious Incident succeeds in, which I think Ne’eman would agree with, is the way that those around Christopher interact with him. One of the key goals of autistic self-advocates is to the push for “both support and acceptance throughout society” (Ne’eman). This is, I feel, one of Curious Incident’s most noteworthy triumphs. Christopher’s parents, Ed and Judy, both strive to support Christopher to the best of their abilities, within realistic limitations; Ed cooks the simple meals that fit within Christopher’s particular palette, while Judy does her best to understand Christopher without allowing her own neurodivergent traits to get in the way. Judy in particular was an interesting character to me because of how far from the stereotype of a “refrigerator mother” she is.

If anything, she cares far too much, without any outlet for the ways in which she cares. Christopher, like many autistic individuals, rejects her offers of physical affection, and lashes out when she tries to touch him without consent, yet as the book progresses she makes strides in learning about Christopher and his boundaries so that she can be the best parent she is capable of being for him.

When Ne’eman talked about those who “define disability not according to its effect on individuals with disabilities, but on the basis of how it is perceived by those around them”, I was prepared to reread Curious Incident with a critical eye, remembering a good deal of time spent on how Christopher’s parents reacted to his unique sense of self, but found that their reactions to him were often background noise compared to the way the book focused so heavily on Christopher’s life and the way autism effected it. It left me wondering how Haddon had managed to write a story that seemed to succeed in its depiction of an autistic character when he didn’t even go into it with the intention of writing one. For the most part, I agree with Ne’eman’s assertion that it is the author’s moral obligation to consult autistic individuals whenever they seek to represent autism in the literary space, yet somehow Haddon created a character that resonated with many and disturbed very few, without having done so.

I am led to believe the aspect of this book which aids the most in its success in depicting an autistic character is the fact that it is told from a first-person perspective. There is never as large a focus on any aspect of the world as there is on Christopher and his perspective of it. He is the most important character, and the book frequently asserts his competence and independence, while balancing this out with his limitations, such as the times in which he is overstimulated by loud noises and foreign environments. These limitations, however, never hinder Christopher so much that he cannot accomplish his goals, which goes a long way in establishing Curious Incident as one of the more positive representations of autistic characters.

Ne’eman spends a large portion of time in his Dueling Narratives essay discussing who has the power to control the narrative surrounding autism; that is to say, whose voice is most prominent, neurotypical individuals speaking for autistic individuals, or those autistic individuals themselves. Curious Incident is a strange case in that it does not truly fall into either of these categories; though the story is told from the perspective of an individual on the autism spectrum, can it truly be considered a story with an autistic voice when it was written by a neurotypical individual? One argument I make in defense of Curious Incident is based around the following quote, also used in Dueling Narratives:

“The tragedy is not that we’re here, but that your world has no place for us to be. How can it be otherwise, as long as our own parents are still grieving over having brought us into the world?” –Jim Sinclair, Our Voices

Haddon may not be an autistic individual, and he performed the minimal amount of research in writing one, and I find this to be a fault of the book, in that Christopher is still a savant, a child so talented in mathematics that he goes on to take college levels classes as a middle schooler. However, in much the same way Ed and Judy Boone desperately try to create a place for their child to be accepted in the world, Haddon is like a third parent to Christopher, crafting a realistic literary world that is not built for him, but making sure that he is strong enough to attempt to carve out a place for himself in spite of this. The book would have benefitted from an autistic perspective in the writer’s room, and this is not a statement I consider subjective; there is always room for improvement.

However, Haddon deserves at least a portion of the applause he has received for creating a character who is far more than the few stereotypes he fits into. I agree with Ne’eman, that for the most part autistic perspective is a requirement in the creation of autistic characters, and Christopher as a character could only have benefitted from this. Curious Incident’s success is in spite of the minimal research done, not because of it, and this is a fact that I stand by.

I would love to hear any thoughts Ari Ne’eman has on Curious Incident. It would be fascinating, I think.

Word Count: 1427

The Contemporary Freak Show

For many, unfortunately, the cartoon freak show is the first interaction one ever has with the concept of disability; a passing joke in a film where characters blatantly and derogatorily designated as ‘other’ chanting “one of us, one of us”. It’s not hard to see that the concept of the disabled body is one largely treated as a joke, and this is due in no small part to past depictions of disabled bodies as spectacle in ‘freak shows’, or their continued negative representation in popular contemporary media; from children’s shows like Johnny Bravo and the Fairly Oddparents to major motion pictures like the Greatest Showman, which leave controversial films like Freaks perfect pictures of positive representation in comparison.
To understand the way disability is understood and portrayed in modern media requires one to first understand the way disability has been depicted throughout the history of media. While this essay does not have the capacity to examine each and every differing cultural perspective towards disability throughout history, the three that are the most relevant will be discussed. Firstly, one of the most common ways the able bodied tried to rationalize the disabled body was religiously/morally. A child’s cleft palate could be seen as a divine punishment for the gossiping nature of a parent, a birthmark covering one’s face, a symbol that they were chosen by a higher power. This moral association with disability places the responsibility of the reactions of the able bodied onto the disabled individual; they are at fault for the way in which they are ‘othered’ by society, freeing said society from blame.
It was also common throughout history for the wealthy to collect relics of deformity as curios, one of the most well known examples being the caricature of the English explorer whose study is decorated with pygmy bones and shrunken heads; this form of the disabled body as spectacle also ties disability to savagery, which was often used to further white supremacist goals; “Learned gentlemen of the early Enlightenment collected relics of the increasingly secularized monstrous body in their eclectic cabinets of curiosities, along with an array of oddities such as sharks’ teeth, fossils, and intricately carved cherrystones,” further dehumanizing the disabled body (RGT). However, the most relevant othering of the disabled body to this essay is that of the pet freak: “For example, Egyptian kings, Roman aristocrats, and European royalty kept dwarfs and fools as amusing pets,” (RGT). This was, in a sense, the earliest from of the freak show.
My first exposure to the concept of the “freak show” was in the Fairly Oddparents episode “The Grass Is Greener”. The main character, a child named Timmy Turner, is feeling neglected and runs away from home, to go live at the carnival, populated by ‘freakish’ Carnies: an alligator man covered in scales, a man full pins that he claims he can’t feel, and even the classic bearded lady. In this cartoon, all of these characters are clearly meant to be presented as undesirable, a crowd this child does not want to partake in. Each can be linked to a historic sideshow act, the most obvious being the bearded lady. However, in a twist, it is revealed in the end that they were all actors, posing as freaks to present an environment so hostile and foreign that it would take on a sort of “scared straight” approach in getting Timmy to return home, thus linking the moral of the story to the earlier association of disability and morality. Freaks, Carnies, whatever they may be called, are a group that one finds themself in when they make bad choices; that is the lesson children are taught.
The Johnny Bravo episode “Carnival of the Darned” is perhaps an even worse example of the freak show used as a comedic/moral device in children’s media, because not only is the presence of the ‘freaks’ meant to teach a lesson to the child, of gratitude and humility, but one of the ‘freaks’ is actually the first woman in the entire run of the show that the titular Johnny does not romantically pursue, meant to be a joke at the woman’s expense. As icing on the cake, the freaks end up quoting the film of the same name, Freaks, chanting “one of us, one of us,” as they reach towards Johnny, before he flees in terror. This is not even the only children’s program to quote the 1932 film; 2009’s Astro Boy uses the same line while a gang of rusted, deformed robots reach out towards a shiny, new android in an old junk yard, furthering associations of freakhood with two things: fear and humor, in the process foregoing the controversial yet sympathetic message of the original film and denoting the concept of a society of “freaks” as something to be mocked.
And now we come to P. T. Barnum, the man who popularized the idea of the freak show in North America. It would be both inaccurate and unfair to place all of the blame of these freak shows solely onto Barnum; he was as much at fault as those who paid to gawk at disabled bodies, after all. It would be equally unfair to those he exploited, however, to make a film in 2017 that sanitizes and romanticizes the story of P. T. Barnum’s freak shows for a modern day audience, and Disney still did that, so I will, in no uncertain terms, be placing quite a lot of blame on him.
Though there is no concrete proof of this, it is widely believed that P. T. Barnum is the man who coined the adage “there is a sucker born every minute”. This is in keeping with P. T. Barnum’s nature as a proud capitalist and businessman, with little he wasn’t willing to do to “fill his own coffers” in the words of his enemies. But he is relevant to this discussion because of his treatment of and exploitation of disabled bodies, the best known example likely being Charles Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb. At the ripe age of 4, Stratton was sold by his family to P. T. Barnum’s sideshow, where Barnum would dress him up in humorous adult attire, claiming he was a minimum of 11 years old to further the spectacle of such a small man. At age 5, Stratton was given his first cigarette, simply because P. T. Barnum thought it would be funny, and thus the man was turned onto a life of nicotine addiction and alcoholism. Quite possibly the worst thing to come from this relationship, however, is the twisted gratitude Stratton felt towards Barnum, from whom he received an admittedly generous wage. When Barnum fell into debt later in life, an adult Stratton would bail him out with a loan, considering himself a business partner to the man. Not long after, Barnum would arrange a “munchkin wedding”, available for spectatorship to the public for a modest sum, between Stratton and another little person, even going so far as to make the best man and bridesmaids little people, for the gag. Barnum didn’t even care that the best man he chose was a known enemy of Stratton’s; he just wanted it to be funny.
Though Barnum’s misdeeds were egregious, there are too many to go over here. It should just be known that Barnum was very much the kind of man to succeed in profiting off of the othering of the disabled body, utilizing “contrived mystery”, a term used by Sharon Snyder in the same piece in which she goes into the different perspectives literary figures often hold towards disability; “While Bill would reference James’s accident as a humorous example of literary myth-making, Jake soberly contemplates wounds as a constitutive feature of postwar identity.” (Snyder).
From Barnum’s legacy was spawned a film, a pop-ballad musical with a half-baked message about self acceptance, which painted P. T. Barnum as a charismatic, swashbuckling hero, with women tripping over themselves to be with him as he rescued people from burning buildings. In the film, though Barnum initially seeks out the ‘freaks’ to cash in on the value of their spectacle, he begins to respect them as friends, and even family, and helps them to take advantage of the othering of their own bodies. While it is true that many of the freaks led more luxurious lifestyles under Barnum’s employment than they would have otherwise, there is no attempt at nuance in the film, which simply paints his ‘freak shows’ as a net positive, further watering down the cultural impact had by his freak shows.
There is irony in the title of the 1932 film Freaks, because it humanizes the divergent-bodied characters that star in the film more effectively than The Greatest Showman ever could. The fact that the piece of media which handled the subject of ‘freaks’ with the most tenderness, not only for its time but compared to the majority of media even today, is also the most controversial, is very telling about the way we as a society view the disabled body. Like the life P. T. Barnum, there is more nuance in this film than I can adequately cover, and the climax of the story in which the ‘freaks’ physically assault the antagonist, resulting in her deformity and conversion into another freak is one I am not equipped to analyze, but what I can do is discuss the way the film treats its disabled characters up to that point. Now, I have gone this far without saying so, but it is difficult deciding what terms to use in describing the titular ‘freaks’. Even “disabled person”, seemingly the most sensitive term possible, is more complicated than it would seem at first glance; “As typically used, the term disability is a linchpin in a complex web of social ideals, institutional structures, and government policies.” (Linton) So, I will be using the term freaks, as they are called in the film and were referred to at the time.
This film, in 1932, was the first time disabled characters were ever depicted on screen living normal lives; the first third of the film shows the titular freaks going about their day to day lives, interacting with their coworkers, buying groceries, returning home to their apartments. This meager chunk of a movie does more to humanize the freaks of the film than anything The Greatest Showman even attempts, especially when the freaks converse with their able-bodied peers, blurring the line between the othering. Browning “begins to undercut the voyeuristic aspects of the traditional freakshow by showing the freaks engaged in the activities of everyday life, dispelling the initial shock and revulsion, and encouraging the viewer to see the freaks as individuals who have overcome their disabilities” (SHC), all of which would be absolutely necessary in familiarizing a 1932 movie-going crowd with these characters, although the idea that these characters ‘overcame’ their disabilities is rather contentious.
Another innovation of the film is the dichotomy of the freaks and the able-bodied characters; while media has historically coded disabled characters as villainous, it is the able-bodied Cleopatra and Hercules who scheme to murder one of their fellow circus performers, while the naive and trusting freaks accept the two into their society. In the iconic “one of us” scene, the initiation rites performed to allow Cleopatra into their tight-knit family set her into a rage, because she cannot possibly conceive of a world where she needs to be accepted into a group of freaks rather than the other way around; she is the ‘normal’ one, and the freaks should be grateful that she is gracing them with her presence. The film ends with the freaks receiving Hans’ inheritance money, Cleopatra’s drive for attempting to seduce and murder him, and going on to live rather lush, priveleged lives, almost as if they are being rewarded for the struggles they have had to overcome their whole lives. The way the perceptions of the freaks and able-bodied characters are flipped, Cleopatra and Hercules being vile, conniving murderers with hearts blackened by greed and the freaks being innocent, ‘normal’ people, was revolutionary for the time.
Of course, this film is not the holy grail of positive disability representation – it’s called Freaks, for crying out loud – but it deserves to be lauded for the steps it took towards un-othering the freaks, especially for its time. The fact that The Greatest Showman, a film that came out nearly a century later, is so misguided and naive in its attempts to push a moral of self acceptance, shows the damage a joke as simple as having a group of ugly characters chant “one of us” in a cartoon can have. Mocking the freaks becomes normalized when it occurs from the point that a child first turns on Nickelodeon, and now The Greatest Showman will further contribute to this normalizing of viewing the disabled body as spectacle, despite the fact that Freaks took the first step 88 years ago.

Some thoughts on Good Kings, Bad Kings

Every once in a while I read a book that is at once extremely thought provoking and engaging and equally upsetting to experience. This is one of those books. I’m not sure how I feel about it just yet, but I know that the feelings are strong. I don’t even know how to satisfactorily put my thoughts and feelings into words yet, but I feel compelled to share them nonetheless.
I really enjoy the character of Joanne Madsen. I think it is very interesting that despite the payments she receives for having been hit by a bus which allow her to not be homeless and live a life of (relative) luxury, she still is affected by her disability. Before she forced herself to work, without even needing to, she was essentially confined to her apartment, where, even though she has the privilege of a motorized wheelchair, because it is simply more convenient not to leave, she never had to. While, yes, the fact that she was capable of never leaving her apartment and having food delivered to her is a fact of privilege, the way in which she is still disconnected from the world provides an interesting look into the fact that regardless of class, disability will always affect others.
Tiny bit for the end but I hate Michelle Volkmann and the way she dehumanizes the people around her for a paycheck and I especially hate that the people she has go to the ILLC don’t always even necessarily want to but she coerces/manipulates them for the sake of $300 dollars. The (TW) sexual assault scene made me throw up.

Aspen’s Response to Stephen Kuusisto’s Plato, Again

“Plato, Again” is one of the more poignant depictions of the intersectionality of oppression that I have seen. It successfully shows the ways discrimination based on race, gender, and the functioning of one’s body interact in various ways. It focuses on the discrimination Caroline Moore faces after beginning treatment for her breast cancer, although the discrimination is not isolated to her illness, but also to her race and gender.

Throughout the piece, Moore makes reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. To those around her, living in the shadows, Moore’s shadow is the only part of her that they see. Symbolically, her “shadow” is her cancer; no one in her work environment is able to look beyond her illness to interact with her in the same way they did beforehand. She notes multiple times on the ways people treat her differently compared to before knowledge of her cancer was available. Her boss, Bill Densk, had previously never paid her so much attention that she felt it necessary to examine him closely enough to have a good idea of what he looked like; she was a respected employee with a master’s degree in computer programming and enough experience and knowledge in her work to put her into a managerial position. Yet, now that she has begun treatment for her sickness, it is as if Densk has suddenly noticed that she is not just a good worker, but a black woman, and one with an illness. During their meeting, he touched the place where her breast was removed, a clear violation of her personal space and an act of sexual harassment. However, there is a palpable shift in the dynamic between the two, and it is clear Densk no longer cares if he oversteps his boundaries. Before, she was a black woman, but one capable of doing her job without interruption. After being removed from the workplace by her treatments, she is less valuable to the company, as she will be removed again in the future, with less free time to dedicate to her position, and so Densk no longer sees her as vital. She is now simply supplemental, all due to her illness.

Lori, another character in the story, unsubtly changes her behavior towards Caroline. Previously a shy spoken, quiet woman who treated her with respect, Lori becomes progressively more comfortable in exerting her authority over Caroline, who has been demoted to being beneath her. This showed what I thought was an interesting dichotomy; I had expected Lori to be more sympathetic towards Caroline, because they are both women in a male-dominated workplace. However, Caroline’s absence during her treatment has allowed Lori to rise in power within the environment, power she is not afraid of exerting over Caroline. It seemed almost as if Lori was transformed into a different person than Caroline previously knew. They no longer had the solidarity of both being women, because Caroline was, in her eyes, no longer another woman. To Lori, a disabled woman is almost a different being entirely, one that she feels no sympathy or need for solidarity towards. Lori is more than happy to stay within the cave, because she benefits directly from Caroline’s stepping outside of it.

At no point is the allegory of the cave more prevalent than in the beginning of the story, when Caroline is watching young adults playing in the nice weather, and she observes that a young black man is “laughing too hard to succeed”. Caroline believes he is only seeing the shadows of the world because his laughter must mean that he does not fully grasp the harshness of a world in which an illness can allow others to take everything from you. So jaded by her experiences is she that she cannot perceive another’s happiness without understanding it as ignorance. Her own harsh reality, and the shift in the way others have treated her because of it, has irrevocably changed her idea of what truth is, and her own life in general.

Word Count: 667
I pledge: Aspen Garritson

Dickon Sowerby and the Fetishization of White Poverty

I found myself extremely confused by the authorial intent behind Dickon Sowerby while reading the Secret Garden. I couldn’t help but contrast him in my mind with the equally impoverished yet in no way romanticized Indian servants of Mary. While I understand that, at that point in the story, Mary was not yet fully capable of loving, as she did not understand love, the different ways Dickon and the servants are treated both by other characters and by the writing itself are striking to me. In our last class, we all made clear our presuppositions of the racism in this story, with the treatment of the Indian servants, and the fact that India itself is described as a place of illness. However, until Dickon Sowerby was introduced, I had thought that the text was equally classist; that in associating India with poverty, that was what fueled the racism. However, Dickon is described as being dressed in patchwork clothes, with ragged hair, constantly smelling like the forest. He is a picture of poverty, and yet he is romanticized to an extreme degree, referred to as an angel by Mary and associated with the Greek god Pan with his flute playing and animal charming. I found myself reminded of the story behind the writing of the Lord of the Flies; it was written in argument to the 1858 novel The Coral Island, which depicted young British men crash landing on an island, forming a functional society, and “taming” the “savage natives”. Golding understood when writing Lord of the Flies that British youth were no different from any other race or ethnicity in that scenario, and the Secret Garden’s treatment of poverty seems close to The Coral Island. The Indian servants go unnamed, and are killed by the same disease as Mary’s parents because they can’t afford to flee, while Dickon is a godly child who can literally talk to animals. The racism is not subtle.

extremely late post about Dolphus Raymond

howdy everyone, I initially typed this up in Google Docs, and until now would have bet money on my having already posted it to the blog. As I am currently typing this, you all know that is not how things played out. Enjoy an a very late and very passionate rant about my least favorite character in To Kill a Mockingbird

It is easy to hate Bob Ewell because he is an easy man to hate. He was written that way; he is a literary condensation of vitriol, hate, and racism. I would call him a caricature, but we live in an unfortunate enough world that there are people like him in real life. However, he is not the worst character in TKaM. That would be too easy. No, in my mind, the worst character in the book is Dolphus Raymond.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a dated book, whose at-the-time progressive views and themes are centrist at best when viewed under a contemporary lense. Though this is apparent in multiple aspects of the book, I am focusing on Dolphus Raymond, the spineless coward. Mr. Raymond comes from money. His is an old, storied family, which would have reasonable power and influence in Maycomb, were he not a lover to a black woman and father to her children.

Maycomb is under the illusion that Dolphus is a drunk; he is constantly drinking from a brown paper bag, and acting outwardly inebriated. This is, however, a ruse. He is a sober man, who just happens to love a black woman and be happy with her. There is nothing inherently wrong with this way of living, and he knows this. However, the issue comes in the way he handles the prejudice of Maycomb.

Dolphus, as previously stated, comes from wealth, which is likely a large part of why he can get away with his life as a quote unquote vagabond and drunkard. He claims he does this to preserve the peace in Maycomb, but all he does is actively choose not to challenge their racist perception that only a chronically drunk man could enjoy the company of people of color enough to seek them out. It is possible that this could be to protect his wife and children from the scorn that they would receive from the town, by allowing them to not gather too much attention to themselves. However, instead they live as the family of a drunk man, still looked down on by the town, still forced to face the harshness of prejudice and racism everyday.

Dolphus Raymond could make a change. He could look at Maycomb and say “you are wrong. Your ideas and your racism are wrong.” But, like Atticus Finch, he looks at this deep-rooted evil, and he chooses to play along. He avoids any conflict, which could lead to betterment of the society as a whole, in favor of preserving the status quo.

Drinking out of a bag, and defending a black man on trial, are only band-aid solutions that fail to reach the root of the problem, which is the white people who see this as a problem. Without directly addressing these people, no real change is made. Anyway Dolphus Raymond is a spineless loser and so is Atticus for never confronting Alexandra and saying “get that racist BS out of my house you monster”.