Greetings Earthlings 🙂
This week I’d like to focus in on the 1991 film Little Man Tate and it’s depiction of Asperger’s Syndrome.
Directed by and starring Jodie Foster, Little Man Tate tells the story of Fred, a young genius (sigh) with Asperger’s syndrome and his relationship with his loving mother Dede. Fred struggles to relate to his peers due to his high intellect in school whilst his mother wonders why he can’t just be a “normal, happy little kid”. Life begins to change for the better for Fred however when his intellect is discovered by a child psychologist who wants to enroll Fred in a school for gifted children.
You can check out the trailer for the film below:
So how did this film fare in it’s depiction of autism?
Aside from the obvious genius/savant conundrum (I’m sick of giving out about it’s over-portrayal in film at this stage! 😛 ), the Asperger’s traits portrayed here were highly stereotypical in my opinion. Granted, the film never explicitly mentions autism, however many experts consider the character as having Asperger’s.
The film is very dated in it’s portrayal, however, this would have been one of the earlier film portrayals of autism when knowledge was limited in contrast to newer more accurate representations such as in Mozart and the Whale, My Name is Khan and most recently in the Netflix orignal TV series Atypical.
However I have to give props to casting- Adam Hann-Byrd could easily pass for Jodie Foster’s real son in looks and accent! 😂
In addition to this, Foster’s character has to be commended for her determination to make Fred’s life as “normal” as possible, despite him being delightfully unique (as I always say normal is overrated!). Far too often autism is used as an excuse these days which will ultimately impede autists from reaching their true potential.
Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings! 🙂
Have a lovely weekend!
Aoife
A Is For Aoife Not Autism 
No clue if your blog is still going but I’m too burned out to check, almost can’t put on a T-Shirt by myself. You may experience a loss of executive functioning from time to time too but maybe not. I have never thought about stereotypical portrayal of autism the following way (thanks for the inspiring blog article) before. What if autism is too complex for most people to grasp? Why would a writer be different from the general audience? I’m not talking about a lack of cognitive capacity. People asked me (I’ve unmasked the shit out of me recently bc I got too tired from being part of the Harlem Globetrotters of autistic camouflaging) what autism is because they would have never ever thought that I could be – well – anything other than a little eccentric. I’ve explained it in my own words that I chose very carefully regarding to whom I was talking to. I blew their minds and in return they blew mine. They blew my mind too because from the follow up questions I gained absolute confidence that they got it.
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