Autism in Film and Television: On the Island

Published by University of Texas Press 2022

Autism in Film and Television

On the Island

Edited by: Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer

https://doi.org/10.7560/324912

Overview
Contents

About this book

Global awareness of autism has skyrocketed since the 1980s, and popular culture has caught on, with film and television producers developing ever more material featuring autistic characters. Autism in Film and Television brings together more than a dozen essays on depictions of autism, exploring how autistic characters are signified in media and how the reception of these characters informs societal understandings of autism.

Editors Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer have assembled a pioneering examination of autism’s portrayal in film and television. Contributors consider the various means by which autism has been expressed in films such as Phantom Thread, Mercury Rising, and Life Animated and in television and streaming programs including Atypical, Stranger Things, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Community. Across media, the figure of the brilliant, accomplished, and “quirky” autist has proven especially appealing. Film and television have thus staked out a progressive position on neurodiversity by insisting on screen time for autism but have done so while frequently ignoring the true diversity of autistic experience. As a result, this volume is a welcome celebration of nonjudgmental approaches to disability, albeit one that is still freighted with stereotypes and elisions.

Author / Editor information

Murray Pomerance is an adjunct professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, and author or editor of dozens of books, including Virtuoso: Film Performance and the Actor’s Magic and The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz.

R. Barton Palmer is an independent scholar and formerly Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University, where he was the founding director of the World Cinema program. He has coedited multiple volumes, including Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television.

Reviews

Autism in Film and Television makes inspiring reading. The essays collected here are gratifyingly varied in their approach and often illuminating in wholly unexpected ways. This welcome volume carries the power to inform, and perhaps transform, the ways in which teachers and students around the world think about portrayals of autism in popular film and television.

— Thomas Leitch, author of The History of American Literature on Film

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
PREFACE Two Meditations Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 1 Autistic Android? The Curious Instance of Star Trek’s Data Ina Rae Hark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
CHAPTER 2 Life, Animated: Adapting a Book about a Hero with Autism Rebecca Bell-Metereau Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
CHAPTER 3 Where Is the Autism in Rain Man? Daniel Sacco Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
CHAPTER 4 The Good Doctor: Images of Autism and Augmented Intelligence Burke Hilsabeck Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
CHAPTER 5 Oddity and Catastrophe in The Big Short Jason Jacobs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
CHAPTER 6 Diagnosing the Detective: Sherlock Holmes and Autism in Contemporary Television Christina Wilkins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
CHAPTER 7 She’s So Unusual: The Autist in Stranger Things Brenda Austin-Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
CHAPTER 8 Autism, Performance, and Sociality: Isolated Attention in The Social Network Elliott Logan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
CHAPTER 9 Hidden Worlds of Female Autism Daniel Varndell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	130
CHAPTER 10 Eye Contact in Juárez: Borderline Empathy and the Autistic Detective douglas McFarland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
CHAPTER 11 The Creative Evolution and Reception of Netfl ix’s Atypical Christine Becker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
CHAPTER 12 Community’s Human Laugh Track: Neurodiversity in a Metamodern Sitcom Joshua Schulze Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
CHAPTER 13 Portrait of the Autist as a Young Man Fincina Hopgood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
CHAPTER 14 Due Diligence: Exploring ASD in Nightcrawler and The Accountant Dominic Lennard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
CHAPTER 15 Mind the Gap: Autistic Viewpoint in Film Alex Clayton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
CHAPTER 16 Performative Restraint and the Challenges of Empathy in Being There and Phantom Thread Matthew Cipa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
CHAPTER 17 “A Spoonful of Sugar”: Watching Movies Autistically Mark Osteen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	240
CHAPTER 18 David and Lisa: The Healing Power of the Group R. Barton Palmer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
CHAPTER 19 Jesse: Torture That Autist Murray Pomerance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	272
Works Cited and Consulted Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Photo Captions and Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	308
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	310
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	314

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Illustrations
- Other: 19 b&w photos
Keywords: autism; autism and the media; autism and American culture; autism and American media; neurodiversity; disability; autism spectrum disorder; autism spectrum; film; television studies; film studies

eBook

Published: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 9781477324936