Raising Awareness About: Disability On TV

[possibilities]

The new CBS show Tracker has a "computer expert" who aids the main character in solving cases. He's a double amputee who walks on prostheses. I don't know yet how much screen time he'll get, but am hoping it will be more than just an occasional background scene.

[EtheltoTillie]

Echo is a new show on Disney plus. It has a deaf actress playing a deaf superhero from the Marvel universe. She’s also indigenous. 

[possibilities]

I loved Echo, even though I'm not really a Marvel fan.

[EtheltoTillie]

18 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I loved Echo, even though I'm not really a Marvel fan.

I like it too.  It's less a superhero story and more a strong woman story.  But my husband and his brother like it too.  They're lifelong scifi/comic nerds.

We all like origin stories, and this is a good one.  I like the Marvel movies with emotional content.  I hate the ones with endless battle scenes, and I won't even go see those (e.g., the many Avengers flicks). 

Edited February 14 by EtheltoTillie

[Bookworm 1979]

5 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Echo is a new show on Disney plus. It has a deaf actress playing a deaf superhero from the Marvel universe. She’s also indigenous. 

I think she's an amputee, too.

[EtheltoTillie]

21 minutes ago, Bookworm 1979 said:

I think she's an amputee, too.

Oh, you're right.  The character is but I don't know if the actress is.  Maybe that is done by CGI. 

[possibilities]

Since nobody else seems to have seen it, I guess I'll review "As We See It". 

I'm not on the spectrum, so am probably not the best person to have an opinion. I have known people who are on the spectrum, as friends and community members, and I've spent decades (most of my adult life) in the cross-disability ghetto, so I have a personal interest, but it's not my area of expertise.

Anyway, the show is about a group of autistic people who live together in an apartment with a non-autistic paid support person. They seem to all be financially supported by their families, who also pay for the aide. So, there isn't any content about how the bureaucracy works for people who don't have family money, which is more what I'm used to in real life. But, that does mean the show bypasses the poverty and state-sponsored degradation issues, and gets to focus solely on other things, which I agree is worth doing.

One thing I like is that each of the characters is very different from the others, both in personality and in how autism affects them. They are really fighting the "all of them are alike and if you've met one, you've met them all" syndrome, which I appreciate a lot and think is a really important thing to show.

Two of them work at money jobs, one in fast food and the other is a computer programmer. We see how they function at work, how their co-workers react to them, how things look to everyone from a social angle. 

The three of them are living in the apartment together, funded by their families, on the condition that they participate in particular goals and activities, supervised by the hired aide, mandated by their family guardians, and designed to promote their personal growth and skill-building for independence and for functioning in society.

These tasks include things like: "you must attend this social function and bring someone with you or you lose this or that privilege" or, for the one who doesn't have a job, is a couch potato, and has a really hard time leaving the apartment: "you must walk to the end of the block and back" or "you must log X many steps per day".

Another of them is supposed to pay his bills and keep his job, which we find out is because <major spoiler ahead> his dad has cancer and is desperate to get his son set up so he can function if/when dad dies.

I was frustrated by the way that the families are giving them all assignments, but not providing them with any kind of education and support.

For instance, the one who has trouble leaving the house: it's because he gets overstimulated and disoriented as a result. When he figures out he can wear noise-cancelling headphones, he starts going out, taking busses, etc. without being forced. But why didn't the aide or his family or SOMEONE suggest that a long time ago? Why did he have to figure it out himself???? 

Also, one of them is super lonely and really wants a boyfriend. She wants to have sex, and all her family does is tell her no, and try to stop her, rather than helping her navigate her loneliness or desires. So it becomes a battle and a really dangerous situation. I think they did this to illustrate the wrongness and futility of an "enforcement only" regime, but it was very painful to watch.

They do eventually figure out how fucked up they've been and try to do better, but it was really upsetting and enraging for a while. Maybe they thought they had to show the wrong way in order to make the right way make more sense, but it does undermine the characters to a large degree, because if you do know anything, you think the families are inexplicably stupid, especially for families who seem to be so involved in and caring about their lives.

I do love a scene <here comes another spoiler> where the three housemates are sitting on the living room couch watching tv together. The aide comes in and asks what they are watching. They say: "Porn. Do you want to join us?" And the aide takes it totally in stride. No shame, no censure. {And no, she doesn't join them]

There is an on-going story about the aide, and her relationship with her boyfriend, and whether she will stay with the group home or move to another city with the boyfriend, for his and possibly her own career.

Something that I really liked was that she did not feel like a martyr being in the job, she genuinely likes and respects the people she's "supporting" and she is also shown to fuck up sometimes and not be some kind of hero just for being there.

Also, there are times when her boyfriend, who is not portrayed to be a total villain, is also not portrayed to be necessarily a perfect match for her. It's done with enough complexity that you can see his point of view, but you also see why he's not necessarily right for her, or how maybe he is but it's really not clear, and how her internal debate is well-earned both on the pro and con sides.

Rick Glassman, who plays one of the housemates and who I saw interviewed about the show, which is how I heard about its existence, says that some of the autistic actors are playing autistic characters but not all are. I think I understood him also to be saying that all of the autistic characters are played by autistic actors. He said he really loved how he knew each of them as their characters but then they were totally different when they were not acting. I mean, yes, that's how acting works. But I think sometimes people get typecast, and he was saying that wasn't so in this production. I think that shows they are making a genuine effort, not to just do the usual maudlin BS. The show is not inspiration porn or misery porn. Some of the beats are familiar, but it's making an effort to be 3 dimensional, at least.

There's more to say, but that's all for now. 

 

Edited February 14 by possibilities

[Bookworm 1979]

4 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Oh, you're right.  The character is but I don't know if the actress is.  Maybe that is done by CGI. 

Nope, no CGI, she's a real amputee!