Well, I could not wait and I went out and saw the movie Adam. It was an interesting movie though I was not overly enthused about it. However, there were some points that hit home. The man with Asperger's has a romantic relationship with an NT woman in the movie. This is something that society sometimes has prejudicial attitudes against. For example, David Miedzianik
whom I have previously written about expresses his desire to have a girlfriend in his autobiography. Uta Frith in her book, Autism, Explaining the enigma, quotes what David says but adds the adjective 'normal' in front of girlfriend, a word that David never uses. It has to be remembered this is a movie and not real life. There are problems in this relationship and the two sometimes have conflicts. The Asperger's character also mentions certain celebrities having diagnoses of autism, which as many of my readers know, I have attempted to debunk. The girl's father also does not approve of the relationship due to the Asperger's character's sometimes poor social judgment. I wrote about a similar concept in a short story I wrote some years ago,
Guess who Isn't coming to lunch. I can't help but think that maybe the screenwriter read my short story, but probably not. The short story was in part inspired by my friend Jerry Newport who in turn was one of the two people inspired by the other Asperger's love story, Mozart and the Whale. However, the two characters in Mozart and the Whale both had Asperger's and "Adam" deals with a mixed marriage type of relationship (though the two characters are not married). Also, the movie gives a shameless plug for Lianne Wiley's book "Pretending to be Normal" Though I have not read this book, it is yet another autism spectrum book that I don't feel has much to offer me. The author is a female (10 to 1 ratio of males to females among both AS and HFA), has a husband and children as well as a doctorate degree. This is someone who does not seem terribly impaired to me from what I know about her, so with memoirs like these, you really don't know how much a celibate, not successful, hardly ever gainfully employed autistic male fares or can get insights about them.
The character in the movie also had a pretty good job compared to most on the spectrum-electronics engineer. However, he is let go from this job and then his girlfriend gives him a book on getting employment for asperger's, which I think was another actual book that Jessica Kingsley published and not some fictional book for the movie. The being fired certainly hits home with me and I suspect some other persons on the spectrum as well. The character had disclosed his disability to the employer, so, at least in the movie, disclosure did not work. I don't believe it works too well in real life either.
I wonder if there will be other autism and asperger's movies. There probably will be someday but it seems that in proportion to the popularity of autism (as well as Asperger's) that has become pervasive there is a surprising dearth of them.
I am not sure I should say anything else about the movie as it would ruin it for anyone who might want to see it. I still wish that autism with a speech delay (which is what I had as a toddler) and Asperger's were treated as separate disorders in the DSM and in other places. Then Ari Ne'eman and the rest of the NDs who may have AS but never had a speech delay won't try to speak for me.
Well, not a complete waste of money and good part of an afternoon, but I guess you can go see the movie and judge for yourself.
The character in the movie also had a pretty good job compared to most on the spectrum-electronics engineer. However, he is let go from this job and then his girlfriend gives him a book on getting employment for asperger's, which I think was another actual book that Jessica Kingsley published and not some fictional book for the movie. The being fired certainly hits home with me and I suspect some other persons on the spectrum as well. The character had disclosed his disability to the employer, so, at least in the movie, disclosure did not work. I don't believe it works too well in real life either.
I wonder if there will be other autism and asperger's movies. There probably will be someday but it seems that in proportion to the popularity of autism (as well as Asperger's) that has become pervasive there is a surprising dearth of them.
I am not sure I should say anything else about the movie as it would ruin it for anyone who might want to see it. I still wish that autism with a speech delay (which is what I had as a toddler) and Asperger's were treated as separate disorders in the DSM and in other places. Then Ari Ne'eman and the rest of the NDs who may have AS but never had a speech delay won't try to speak for me.
Well, not a complete waste of money and good part of an afternoon, but I guess you can go see the movie and judge for yourself.