Autism on Screen- Killer Diller

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Time for another autism on screen again, this time exploring the portrayal of autism in the 2004 musical drama film ‘Killer Diller.‘

The film follows Wesley, a young musician and troublemaker who is sent to live at a Christian halfway house for young offenders. Reluctantly drafted into the choir, Wesley encounters Vernon, an autistic savant with a gift for music. His captivating piano playing inspires Wesley to invite Vernon to form a blues band with the choir members and embark on a journey of music, understanding and friendship.

You can check out the trailer below (apologies for the poor quality, it’s not a very well known film- I found it very difficult to source):

So how did this film fair in terms of representation of autism?

Well, by now you all know how I feel about the over-representation of autistic savants in TV and film, so as you can imagine I was yet again disappointed to see this rare trait highlighted in another film. So let’s quickly move on from that! 😛

Much of the behaviours exhibited by Vernon were consistent with classical autism symptoms like rocking, missing social cues, inappropriate social behaviour etc.; however, as I previously found while watching ‘Cube‘, nothing felt unique about the character, Vernon was just another Hollywood carbon copy of autistic stereotypes.

In addition to this, many film scholars have noted that in films featuring autistic characters, the filmmakers choose to use autism for the purposes of redeeming the main character. This film is a prime example of this. Vernon’s presence in the film is used to redeem Wesley, who up until he meets Vernon, is selfish and wayward. However, like ‘Rain Man‘, ‘Snow Cake‘ and several other films featuring an autistic character, the protagonist is transformed following his encounter with an autist.

Thankfully in more recent years, the focus has since changed wherein autistic characters are no longer seen as secondary, but are protagonists in their own right as we have seen in ‘Atypical‘ and ‘The Good Doctor‘ (which by the way, is proving to be an excellent series as the year has moved on 🙂 )

Huzzah for Progress! 😀

All in all, this film (if you can find it) was worth a watch at least once- especially if you’re into blues music. It may not have been the greatest depiction of autism, but it’s an easy watch with some decent music to boot 🙂

Enjoy the weekend everyone! 🙂

Aoife