Page 148 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

D sab l t es and the Med a | 1

disabilities and were in “emotional, psychological or social crises, which made
them more vulnerable.”
Another disability that has been grossly misrepresented in the mass media
is autism, a neurological disorder characterized by impairments in social skills,
communication, and behavior. Despite the fact that today we know more than
we ever have about autism since Leo Kanner first identified the disorder in 1943
and since 1967, when Bruno Bettelheim’s The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism
and the Birth of the Self was published, we still talk about autism the same way
that we did in the days of both men. Much of what is said about autism in the
mass media presents a view of autism that still draws on the metaphors and
images of autism used in the 1960s. Autism is still said to be “mysterious” and
treatment a “mystery.” Similarly, the causes of the disorder, and life with au-
tism, is often considered “hopeless.” Despite significant advances in scientific
research and in educational methods, the popular representation of autism has
not changed from that of earlier decades, and shows little sign of changing. This
disconnect between what we actually know about autism and popular represen-
tations of autism, persists and is ultimately not beneficial for our understanding
of autism, of disabled children and adults, and of disability as a whole.
It is necessary to foster more positive representations of autism and life with
autism in order to stop seeing autistic persons as broken and diseased beings
who need to be fixed and made nonautistic. This task is easier said than done;
attempts to change stereotypes about autism can sometimes result in more mis-
understanding. In “Autism: The Art of Compassionate Living,” Jennifer Liss of
WireTap writes about the efforts of parents to battle stereotypes about autism
and to raise understanding. In her video, Autism Every Day, autism mother and
ex-CNN news anchor Lauren Thierry describes how she tried to capture “autism
every day” to combat myths of autistic persons as “idiot savants” and of autism
as caused by bad parenting. Said Thierry: “The party line is supposed to be that
anything that raises awareness you’re supposed to be happy about. That notion is
10 years old. At this point we need to be showing the world what the vast reality
truly is.” That reality, according to Thierry, includes images of kids not sleeping
through the night, banging their heads against the wall or running into traffic,
not images of kids setting basketball records or passionately playing the violin.
However, as Liss writes in her article, it seems that Thierry sought a particular
image of life with an autistic child in her video, one which emphasized only the
negative. Before filming, Thierry told her subjects not to vacuum the house or
do their hair. The camera crew showed up unexpectedly, so her subjects had no
therapists present; the cameras rolled as a mom struggled with her son to brush
his teeth, as a 9-year-old was in severe distress, and as a 5-year-old was having
his diaper changed. Though Thierry undoubtedly wanted to tell the truth, much
of the footage of Autism Every Day is characteristic of nonfiction programming
designed to attract ratings. And such dark and uncomfortable revelations are
only one side of living with children with autism.
One of those dark and uncomfortable truths that the article “Autism: The
Art of Compassionate Living” refers to is the killing of autistic children by
their parents. Dr. Karen McCarron, who allegedly killed her 3-year-old daughter,