When I was at school, I was brilliant at maths. It all seemed so straightforward that I didn’t
really know why it was included in a lesson.
I mean who can’t add and subtract or convert everything to quadratic
equations? Consequently, I was often
bored and never studied very much. In my
other lessons I tended to get bored anyway and didn’t study very much there
either. Everything seemed either obvious
or irrelevant. My teachers alternated
between extreme pride and extreme irritation; reward and punishment.
I was also shy in groups and nervous of people who
stared. I have of course now taught
myself to overcome these weaknesses, as I have also learned empathy and other
things I wasn’t taught at school. These
days I would probably be diagnosed as suffering from some syndrome or other and
given special treatment or put in the IT class.
There weren’t any syndromes in my youth (or IT!), just naughtiness
or laziness or giftedness in one subject or another. But, as an adult, none of this applies. I am just normal.
Along with recognition that some children think differently
from others has come a greater awareness that such differences are not bad, nor
even necessarily worse than others. A
number of famous experts – musicians, composers, authors, etc,- have been outed in recent years as probably
being at some particular point on the autistic spectrum. And, more recently, there has been a rash of dramas
on TV, film and stage featuring main characters with ASDs.
I like the fact that society has come to terms with this and
that it is so comfortable with the resultant openness. There are of course examples of bullying, etc
of those with ASDs, but that is not the point of this post. I just find it so refreshing that we can
recognise skills in those with ASDs and can even be comfortable laughing at situations
in which they find themselves, whilst feeling sympathy and without actually
being unpleasant towards them.
The first dramatisation I took note of was Mark Haddon’s
book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This was a delightful book, narrated by Christopher,
whom we gradually assume to have Asperger’s or similar, who sees the world in
surprising and revealing ways. He
fixatedly pursues the mystery of the dog of the title and gets on with his
difficult life in the process. I was
constantly chuckling at Christopher’s views and deductions and ended having
enormous affection for him, rather than ridiculing him as might have happened
at a time when I was his age.
The book is currently on the London stage and I believe Brad
Pitt is making a film of it. It is a
very popular play such as might not have been the case before Asperger’s was
recognised.
It is not a coincidence that the title echoes that of a
Sherlock Holmes story.
Inspector
Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my
attention?”
Holmes:
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did
nothing in the night time.”
“That was the
curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
I have only recently, thanks mainly to the TV series, begun
to think of Sherlock as on some sort of spectrum. Of course, half the characters in the TV
series display autistic tendencies. But the
point is that the series is played with humour, as well as a great deal of
reverence. It is exciting, with many
unexpected twists and turns, but also peopled with fascinating characters with a
totally different way of approaching the world from you or me (well, me anyway). Watson is of course the complete antithesis. Nothing could have been funnier than Holmes’
attempt at a wedding reception speech, with almost complete lack of empathy or
proper understanding of his role.
Despite the hilarity though of his awkwardness, there was absolutely no suggestion
that we should have laughed at him.
Indeed we understood and suffered with him. I wonder how Basil Rathbone would have played
him today.
But by far the best example though is Saga Noren in The
Bridge, played brilliantly by Sofia Helin.
Saga is also Asperger’s, although it’s never spelt out. I guess it is not a new premise that an autistic
detective might have special skills (viz Holmes), but, in addition, much of the
second series of The Bridge features Saga struggling to learn how to laugh at
jokes, how to interact with her boyfriend, how to tell white lies, rather than
the painful truth, etc. When she takes
out a stack of post-mortem photographs to study whilst lying naked in bed after
sex, or when she sits all evening at home reading books on relationships, we
are highly amused. And the dialogue,
with her failing to grasp at all the emotional sub-text of any conversation, is
hilarious. Yet, again, there is no way
we feel anything but sympathy for the character. In fact this series might be all about the entertaining
interaction between the pair – one highly emotional, trying unsuccessfully to
recover from a breakdown, and the other emotionally bereft, but both equally in
need of sympathy. Indeed, in a neat
twist, it is the Asperger’s detective’s blunt honesty that gets through to her ‘normal’
partner, rather than any amount of counselling.
I hope that this uplifting change in the viewing of ASDs reflects
a better popular understanding of the disorder, or at least contributes to a
better understanding of its naturalness in society. Indeed it would be nice to see other
conditions featured in entertainment in this way. But I fear we have a little way to go and we still
seem to feel less empathy with people over their body size, appearance, mobility,
mental health, etc. Maybe we need more black
humour about the minority of ‘normal’ people who feature in celebrity magazines?
