. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Avenue with Flowering Chestnuts
Dear friends and readers,
I spent part of yesterday watching a movie made by a woman, Gerardine Wurzberg, about two disabled, to be specific, autistic people: Wretches and Jabberers, in an AMC moviehouse in DC. I sat with an acquaintance. The auditorium was crowded.
In a nugget generally, the film is about how the disabled are treated in many societies: indifference, fear, discomfort, repugnance. I long to see it widely distributed. It could awaken consciences. It shows common ideas about intellectual disability ignore and are themselves responsible for destroying these people’s real talents (not giving them any opportunity to develop them), and makes plain the risk of homelessness these people daily face.
Van Gogh’s painting is the emblem for this blog: Van Gogh was a mentally troubled/disabled man who created beautiful work but spent crushing time in an asylum, and died broke, in another words a gifted man his community/society did not take real care of, responsibility for (“an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of sickness” as the wikipedia article puts it)..
Wurzburg tells the story of two now middle-aged men, Tracy and Larry, who live in Vermont and, with their autistic advocates (a sort of state-paid part-time companion) go travelling to three counties: Sri Lanka, Japan, Finland. There
they attend two conferences about autism, and meet with four young people who are autistic too. All six people are unable to speak normally or easily and communicate through typing on computers as I am doing right now.
The central characteristic of the film I want to emphasize is its lightness, nothing inflated, no exaggeratedly emotional moments. The film is not melodramatic, eschews wrenching your heart more than is necessarily (if you are someone whose heart is capable of being wrenched): in fact every effort is made to keep the tone light, easy, jogging along.
Thus it’s hard to write about as once I begin to tell the content I don’t think I am capable of conveying this tone as well as the content. As in many films nowadays we have a narrator as well as flashbacks interwoven with the present journey narrative, itself subdivided by insertions of Larry and
Tracy’s meeting with the four young people, their parents or friends and going with them to say a temple, a restaurant, walking in the streets of their city. The content tells of the shameful indeed devastatingly indifferent and therefore cruel treatment these two men met with earlier in life, how it has permanently maimed them, how precarious is their dignified and decent existence today. I was not surprised to find that the basic treatment of autistic people in Japan and Sri Lanka is no different (today in Japan worse in this way: the autistic young man is not allowed to go to public school, the schools will not have him; there is no money for the young man in Sri Lanka) and not that in Finland I saw the one place where the society and government has found the young woman a job appropriate for her real intellectual skills, but I was surprised to discover that Finland did little more than that and like the others the young woman was dependent on the kindness and income of a relative (one
remove therefore from a park bench perhaps).
Tracy and Larry
Larry Bissonette today is an artist who lives with his sister, Sally. He has a bedroom in her house and a studio. We see him visit Bernie Saunders who decries tax cuts on the disabled. (Massive unemployment has soared among the autistic in the last 15 years with the policies of outsourcing and destruction of government meritocracy tests in the US.) Vermont it seems is not that generous a state. Larry is extraordinarily intelligent; his writing on his computer shows a depth of thought and lexical complexity that is startling given that he was not educated at all for most of his life, far from helped at age 8 put in an asylum for 14 years about which the film leaves it that the less said the less painful. Larry says of this time he desperately missed his sister. I felt today he might have been talking, not typing had he been able to go to a learning disabled pre-school of which Alexandria, Va had a fine one in the 1980s, since shut down, closed. Many tragedies have probably happened since then because of this closing.
He seems to have been rescued in his 30s and at long last helped to learn to use language, to use the typewriter. And now he makes modern art pieces which are centered on photos of autistic people across the spectrum (from mentally low IQ to relatively independent functioning people — some with jobs.
Tracy Thresher’s life is more at risk. It seems that he has no permanent home. He seems to have access to comfortable bedrooms in public facilities intended for disabled people only a certain number of nights a month. So here we see the limits of Vermont’s decency. He says he sometimes sleeps in a crisis center and also a homeless shelter. His advocate cannot be with him all the time so quite how he manages I don’t know. I assume someone provides him with some minimal income as he has no remunerative occupation or job.
The four young people they met brought me near to tears at moments — not quite though as there was this light talk and light music going on. I was nearest when the mother of the Japanese boy turned away to hide her face where she was crying silently. Also when the two men parted from each of the young people; the young people were so happy and gratified by their meeting with one another and Larry and Tracy and looked or spoke desolately of loneliness when the parting came. We see them (all of them) at autistic conferences: panels where they talk to audiences so like most other people, they choose a conference with similarly-minded people delving their own interests.
We also listen a lot to the autistic advocates and learn their names: Pascal Cheng is with Tracy. I did not catch or do not remember the name of the man with Larry, only his sister, Sally.
The theme or thesis of the film is that the attitude the general public has towards high-functioning autism is based on ignorance of the people, of their real gifts and talents, and a rejection of their outward behaviors, which does include twitches, sudden gestures, an inability to socialize with ease, sudden emotional and physical outbursts like running about or getting very excited uncontrollably for a few minutes now and again. The movie wants us to see this as cruel intolerance and I for one do.
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I have a hesitation and qualm about the film. First while I can understand the light approach may bring more people into a theater and thus function the way the film is meant: to bring home to a larger audience the plight of the disabled in our society, I am not sure eschewing strong drama throughout is rhetorically effective. In history we see that the melodramatic work is the one that makes the effect. Wurzberg may feel that this is not an era where compassion and justice get much purchase in the media, but I wonder if she had been willing to use more commercial techniques (told more of a full story with climaxes) she might not today at least have her film in many more theaters all day long.
Second. I reprehend the title. I have a book at home which is about individual autistic people in London and how they survive (including uses of group therapy) and don’t (one suicide). They are children of people with money so access to services in Britain even before the recent cuts is not adequate at all. It’s called Bring in the Idiots. This reminds me of how books which seek to de-scandalize women from earlier ages and tell their stories for real are forced to use lurid language in the title for the woman and include a sexualized picture on the cover. I cannot understand the makers of the book or this film bowing to this kind of pressure — or quite in this case the producer felt it necessary to label the film with a title coming out of the very rejection of autistic people the film is intended to fight.
These two thoughts come from my worry about how much good this film can do — one would like to see it reach many people and change their false conceptions (whatever these be) about autistic people. Funds must be put in hands of people across each country who are trained and empowered to provide jobs, homes, companions in centers for these people. But I noticed that as I came in the attitude of mind towards anyone going to this film was not open-minded. At first I couldn’t find the theater: no 13 out of 14. When I asked, the person who answered looked at me, with a glance of askance, of distancing, as if to say; “are you one of ‘them,’ a freak?” I heard someone say she was asked if she was the parent of such a person since she didn’t look like “one of them.” A curious atmosphere surrounded the stairs going down to the theater where ushers were. Like something very odd was happening somehow. Well I’m not and it was not. I wished I could believe that the audience was made up more of the general public, but I felt not so.
Jim asked me if I had a preference which film would I have people see; Even the Rain or Wretches and Jabberers. I’d say Wretches and Jabberers because the average person still will dismiss a fiction (no matter how closely based on recent Bolivian history and politics) and respect a documentary as “factual.”
I write this blog in the spirit of my blog on Even the Rain which even now is only in 16 movie-houses across the US. Wretches and Jabberers played once at noon in three theaters in the larger DC area (including Maryland and Virginia) and then not again. I encourage others to inquire about it and say they’d like to see it in their local theater. Here is a list of theaters where the movie is going to be screened this and next month.
A last related issue: while the theater I was in was crowded with people, it was not packed (as the latest Jane Eyre was two weeks ago) and it did seem that a number of people in the audience were themselves Aspergers Syndrome people (probably also high-functioning autism as there is no fine line) or related to someone who was.
Afterward, I walked amid the flowering trees of DC; I had intended to go on a walk with a group of people I’ve now joined (net group in Washington DC), but by the time I got back to my house, ate lunch, and was ready to go out again, it was late to meet the time line. I was emotionally tired from the strain of going out once already. But it was to be an excursion tour around the Tidal Basin to see the trees later that afternoon. Alas (or maybe happily for my projects at home), as is not uncommon with me, I got slightly lost getting back to the Metro so missed my blue train and got back home near 3:00, whereupon it rained.
So in the end Izzy and I were like Mrs Allen and Catherine in Northanger Abbey in our house, saying if only the sun would come out … (which it did, but too late to get back on time).
I did walk among the trees along K street on which the movie house is located: there beautification proceeds apace by the Potomac. Lovely scene. So I include a second impressionist picture of flowering trees.
Berthe Morisot (1841-95), Tremire, Flowering Trees — she lived to her fifties quietly, without understanding of the origin of capital, monopolies (effective)
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
A friend on facebook wrote: “We often construct a huge barrier with a label between “us” and people who are perhaps a little bit less intelligent. It’s a very frustrating situation.”
I replied:
What it is, is that autistic people _look_ different. The intensely frustrating thing is the prejudice arises from simple things like the person will twitch or doesn’t quite make eye contact with you; it really stems from small reactions of discomfort, which then go on to create a large wrong picture of the person’s inner life, which picture leads to treatment that does indeed destroy the person. Our society refuses to help them develop themselves.
As with the deaf before the 18th century, disabled people are far more disabled than they need be because of unthinking atavistic responses to appearance. I mean to make it clear that our society more than refuses to help these people develop themselves; it stops the development and disables them far more than they would be if given a chance.
Another blog, this one by someone autistic:
http://novapeers.pbworks.com/w/page/38617080/WretchesAndJabberersMovie2011
“I saw the movie Saturday (Georgetown Lowes). This is very much a documentary, showing the visits by the two guys from Vermont, first visiting Colombo, Sri Lanka, Japan (I forget the city, but part of Tokyo) and Finland (not sure of the city). There were some excerpts of lectures in which the guys spoke (using assistive technology because they either could not speak or could not speak autonomously (one of the guys could read from his lightwriter).
They two had assistants to help them with life functions, and as mentioned, used lightwriters or the equivalent. It showed nonverbal autistics in Japan and Finland using their own devices.
One of the guys said that he was basically unable to communicate through high school, until he was about 18, and discovered he could type.
So basically this was a sort of documentary of the trip, in which they discussed their lives with autistics from the different parts of the world. The viewer watched the interactions of the different people.”
This article about exercise contained some central features I find troubling and problematic.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/sc-health-0330-fitness-autism-20110330,0,1015
300,full.story
Autistic people are referred to as “they” as if such a person is somehow radically different from others; it is assumed that neurotypical people exhibit a set of characteristics (all of them) which include a liking for exercise. Then it’s assumed the autistic person should want to be like a neurototypical and how shall we go about forcing this.
On each count no real understanding is gained of anything much.
I’ve a book which I recommend to Jon to add to the library of books on autism: The Science and Fiction of Autism by Laura Schreibman. One of her chapters suggests that there is a real continuum between neurotypical people and autistic people as there is across the autism spectrum. Among the theories about personality type she explains is that the male human being tends to be more asocial than the female (more competitive, less cooperative) and that it may be autism is a kind of extreme of certain characteristics found in men — and reinforced by our society.
I found this which I put before the group: A Rant against autism awareness month:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/04/autism-acceptance-for-autism-awareness.html
I’m bothered by talk I come across of people as empty shells and living utterly deprived lives necessarily. Not so. Autistic people can live rich lives inwardly.
E.M.
Ellen and Jim,
Please take a moment to rethink your reservations about the title of W&J. It was *chosen by Tracy and Larry* and it functions in the same way that LGBT use of the word “queer” functions. It is a reclamation of the word. You and I, as speaking people, are Jabberers. They use the term Wretches for non-speaking people, as an act of reclamation — undoing the summary disability-phobic judgement of all too many Jabberers that those who cannot speak must live Wretched lives.
This film is as exquisitely radical as it is *precisely* because it is understated.
Its strength will grow quietly from the bottom up, as it must. The top of the media food-chain regarding autism is dominated by Autism Speaks and other organizations using fear and pity to fundraise and gain media presence, and by the shrill voices of those who cling to discredited theories of causation and the false hope of quack cures and treatments. “All our base are belong to them”, so to speak, so grassroots alliance-building is the only way to begin to “move all zig for great justice” (as the rest of that Internet meme goes).
Autistic self-advocates and their allies *are* beginning to be heard and responded to by the more enlightened decision-makers and power-brokers. This film is one more step in that process.
Please learn to celebrate it as such *without reservation*. Until you feel you can, you are not done learning.
I hear what you say and to some extent have agreed with you in the blog.
If it’s true that Larry and Tracy chose the title of the film that does make a difference, but I am wary (as I said) of using words that carry a strongly negative charge. I’ve heard the argument that the person who is part of the despised or hurt group takes the word meant to be vile and reclaims it by using it him or herself, but I’m not persuaded that that is what happens at all. It seems to me that majority of people using the word in an ugly way are reinforced in their usage and ignore the subtle ideas underlying reclamation. Thus I am also against lurid titles for books about women and using prejudiced ugly words for groups of people. I don’t want to repeat examples as I find these words so hurtful.
I did say I liked the light approach and thought it effective; you concede the melodramatic one draws people so we have more common ground than seems at first. I’m willing to concede that drawing crowds with melodrama will not necessarily bring any good change.
So I in turn ask that you understand that when I evaluate something and find some flaws I am paying it a compliment of respect, of rational dialogue. As a general rule I don’t simply praise things — that would be the equivalent to my mind of asking for melodrama instead of seeking to create a realistic human social atmosphere. I try hard to be accurate and hope my praise is all the more believed in.
E.M.
It is also crucial to keep in mind that a child sitting outside ‘norms’ of development may not necessarily have a learning difficulty. Even so, this decision might be left in the hands of those in professions specific to specific developmental areas, for example speech and occupational therapists. If a child is moving outside ‘norms’ of development in 1 or more developmental areas, then we should make our formal observations into a developmental report. This report should not make suggestions as to what we suspect might be the concern.
I don’t know what is meant her by the “concern”. It seems that what’s suggested is the “experts” should keep information from the child’s parents. What’s worrying here is someone who has no personal stake in the matter is making decisions as to what is known or written down about the child with impunity and without accountability.”
Did these men really think of these travels and adventures on their own? Or was it yet another “helper” giving them an idea and then filming the so-called action. How did they pay for the travels if they are unable to work? The reason I want to know is that I believe that much of this film was staged….just like Autism Speaks does to incite pity. My son is a happy kid who happens to have autism and a low IQ. He may never have great ideas or great adventures but I hope for him to have a happy life with meaningful work and relationships. It is my responsibility to help make that happen for him. Its the same wish I have for my other two boys, no more, no less and certainly no pity.
The word “Pity” has become one that we are supposed to disapprove of. There is nothing in the least wrong with pity if we use words like empathy, sympathy, compassion. This is reactionary rhetoric which teaches people to not want what is the source of social progress and social togetherness: the sympathetic imagination, identification. No the two men did not travel on their own; no they did not have the money to pay for it. They had helpers who the state assigns to them; the trip for all four was funded in part by the conferences they attended and by the film-maker making the film. Good luck to you on the idea you can make a job or meaningful relationships happen for your son. You will discover you cannot at all do it alone; you need people to enter into your case and help you. There are so few jobs out there nowadays that unemployment among high functioning autism is 95%. It’s absurd to say you don’t want deep empathy and identification. Unless we all do that for one another generally and individually, our society turns into walled in competitive tiny groups at war with one another.
There is nothing wrong with empathy or even sympathy. The pity I am refering to is the disingenuous “oh the poor autistic” attitude I have run into time and time again: teachers that give grades far above what he deserves, boy scout leaders handing out unearned awards, people pretending to know him when they really only know about him, telling him how great he is doing when he barely meets the minnimum. These types of behaviors only make it more difficult for him to truly learn a skill and lowers the value of a earning a grade or an award (if everyone is special then no one is special). Why would a straight A student with awards need help? My son is fully aware of plastic people, he is surprisingly perceptive to underlying motives. He once told me that the teacher teaching about bullying was actually a bully herself….he was right. I never said I was going about this alone. I said HELP make it happen. I don’t expect someone else to solve his problems for him. Some things cannot be solved, only managed. I am fully aware of the problem of unemployment and it is a daunting task to find something appropriate for him. We are in the process of having him job shadow right now and he loves the custodian job. Happy kid just wanting something to do. It takes so little to make so much happiness. Yes, it does take a village to raise a child but at the end of the day, he still comes home to his family.
I regret not replying sooner. I am a college teacher and just now finished my grading and am free of teaching for the summer. You are very fortunate to have access to “shadow jobs.” My daughter is Aspergers and can’t get past an interview; her MLIS (librarian tech degree) counts for nothing in the present climate of massive unemployment for 20-30 year olds. In Virginia where I live we have had terrific budget cuts and the one place which is empowered to place her just put her on a waiting list. She has been shattered by 2-3 years of continual rejection based on interviews — for all sorts of jobs. One may vow “I will make it happen,” but sometimes we are really unable to. Aspergers and high-functioning autistic people are often intellectually and psychologically perceptive and they care a lot about people who are close to them or become friends or teachers; they don’t know how to signal that, a very different sort of thing. Some Aspergers and autistic people don’t have loving families with sufficient income to hope to maintain them after the parents are dead, and one point of the movie is the safety net for such adults is often non-existent.