"Milk and Honey"

I was deeply touched by the documentary Wretches and Jabberers, it made me think of the next poem by rupi kaur from her book milk and honey:

            how is it so easy for you

            to be kind to people he asked

            milk and honey dripped

            from my lips as i answered

            cause people have not

            been kind to me

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As a student of the program of art history and film studies, many films’ references tend to pop up in my mind all the time. Since the topic of autism was brought in the course I’ve been trying to trace the portrayal or face of autism in films. You guys can guess it’s almost non-existent in the Hollywood context or simply awfully wrong. Nevertheless, last week class made me remember the film called The Accountant (2016), a crime thriller film that has as the main character an accountant with Asperger syndrome. As a Hollywood movie, it obviously presents an utterly inaccurate representation of autism, to say the least, especially if it is Ben Affleck who plays the part, but the film does manage to assert the dialogue that follows:  

            SPOILER ALERT! (This is the end of the film)

Woman: He was just like our other two. He was a happy baby. Now he rarely speaks. It’s like our child is missing. He’s not there. He’s lost, and he needs our help. We thought…

Man: We thought… We hoped that he would catch back up. But he didn’t.

Neurologist: One in 68 children in this country are diagnosed with a form of autism. But if you can put aside for a moment what your pediatrician and all the other NTs have said about your son—

Man: What? NTs?

Neurologist: Neurotypicals. The rest of us. What if we’re wrong? What if we’ve been using the wrong tests to quantify intelligence in children with autism? Your son’s not less-than. He’s different. Now, your expectations for your son may change over time. They might include marriage, children, self-sufficiency. And they might not. But I guarantee you that if we let the world set expectations for our children, they’ll start low… And they’ll stay there. Maybe your son’s capable of much more than we know. And maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t understand how to tell us. Or… We haven’t yet learned how to listen.

I watched the film when it came out last year and I thought that the best part of the film was that dialogue but I failed to fully understand its relevance until last week class. Of course, a dialogue at the end of an action film is by no means enough to raise awareness about autism but I do believe that it demonstrates a slow and minimal shift of mindset regarding how autism is perceived... I guess it's just sheer optimism on my part...