The Co-Production Of Autism In The Film, Wretches & Jabberers

THE CO-PRODUCTION OF AUTISM IN THE FILM, WRETCHES & JABBERERS By: ESTÉE KLAR-WOLFOND SUPERVISOR: NANCY VIVA DAVIS HALIFAX ADVISOR: BETH HALLER A Research Paper submitted to the Graduate Program in Critical Disability Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Graduate Program in Critical Disability Studies York University Toronto, Ontario  M3J 1P3 Master of Arts September, 2013. Abstract: This paper asks why the autistic subjects in the film, Wretches and Jabberers, feel they must prove their intelligence. I examine the words of the film’s subjects, Larry Bissonnette, Tracy Thresher who cross the globe to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland to connect with fellow non-verbal, autistic typists, while also questioning the mechanisms of normalcy that impel non-verbal individuals to communicate in ordinary ways. Utilizing the framework by which the film was assembled − a co-production between autistic adults (wretches) and non-autistic academics, film-makers and support workers (jabberers) − this paper examines the dominant discourses that perpetuate a notion we name autism that are raised in the film.1 I draw upon feminist, affect and phenomenological theory, as well as autistic autobiography and recent literature, to unpack the way viewers may misappropriate the experiences of the autistic subjects and how autistic people may appropriate normative meanings about autism and their lives, thereby suggesting that communication and ident...
Source: The Autism Acceptance Project - Category: Autism Authors: Tags: News Source Type: blogs