jtotheizzoe:

Touch: Why Are We Obsessed With Autistic Kids Having Superpowers?

Kiefer Sutherland’s new show Touch premieres this week, and the plot hinges on the “superpowers” of a non-neurotypical child Jake. Jake can predict the future, which is of course not only impossible, but dangerously stereotypical of autism spectrum disorders. Actually, “stereotypical” is the wrong word. “Bullshit” or “insulting” are closer to the word I am looking for.

I am sure there will be plenty of the terrorist ass-kicking and 1,000-yard stare neo-MacGuyverism that Kiefer Sutherland has come to be known for, but is this really how we should portray autism on television, or anywhere? From io9:

The danger here is that the autistic character could be akin to the “magical negro” or the “noble savage” in popular culture, says Steve Silberman, a frequent contributor to Wired who’s writing a book about autism to be published in 2013. Silberman explains that these are

“… characters that were significantly disabled in a social sense, but who had a kind of innocence and purity that enabled them to play their central role in the narrative: that of redeeming the hero, who wasn’t disabled and was only temporarily an outcast. Those characters usually faded offscreen when the hero attained his rightfully high status in society; they were only valuable for what they could render unto the mainstream characters — very much like the gay “best friend” in a million TV shows who coaches the female lead on her romantic problems but never has a sex life of his own (“gross!”), or the fat girl who’s “like a sister” to the geeky-but-hot male lead.”

(via io9)

Plus there’s the whole ‘Hey! You must have some superpower, yes? That means we don’t need to worry about making any allowances for you!’ that people with disabilities, particularly non-neurotypical people, have to put up with.