Hannah Gadsby’s rightful success gives me hope that we’ll be seeing more (openly) autistic people out there in the world, and with that, hopefully, there will be more understanding from the allistic people around us.
Tag: Hannah Gadsby
Sonia Boué www.soniaboue.co.uk twitter.com/soniaboue ‘Mainstream’ media has not yet clocked the seismic cultural significance, for autistic audiences, of Hannah Gadsby’s newest show, Douglas. A lofty but quite oblivious New York Times review by Jason Zinoman misses the mark, because the reviewer seems to have no knowledge of autistic culture. Inkoo Kang of The Hollywood Reporter does better. Kang has been watching the conversation about neurodiversity online, and notes Douglas is a novelty for pop culture. Yes. It is novel, but it’s vital that we take this observation one step further: We need to consider the import of Douglas for autistic people, and what impact it might have towards much needed societal change and improving their lives. For this we need a more sophisticated analysis of Douglas as a cultural artefact, and a dissection of the failings of ‘mainstream’ critical reviews. The Guardian’s Brian Douglas gives the film a worthy four stars, but fails to…
To the next person who says to me “How are you really disabled?” or “I don’t see how you’re autistic,” I’m going to be hard-pressed not to reply “I am so goddamned tired.”