Aspies For Freedom

What channel was it on, and what is it called?

These people would probably come to that conclusion regardless. Somone that makes such snap judgments are not likely to be very open minded.

There was a CSI episode that had a similiar senario where an Autistic Man was a suspect in ther murder of his co-worker. in the end the man became the key to find the real murderer.  
http://www.csiguide.com/episode.asp?csi=30

No TV show will show autistic people as criminals because it is just not PC.
It's the *** that happens behind closed doors in the real world that is the real concern.

Somes like a troll to me. Just like the person that posted the animal comments on the Hasit petition.

You made public points in a public thread about an issue over which I'd started a thread.

Misleading representation?  Read your own posts.  You're clearly the one who is misrepresenting things.

You've repeatedly asserted that I've drawn negative conclusions about a programme I have not yet watched, because it has not yet aired.

In doing so, you've completely misrepresented my original and subsequent posts.  Repeatedly.  Despite my pointing out your mistakes and pointing out repeatedly that I have drawn negative conclusions about a trail.  Again, did you see the trail in question?  If you didn't, who the heck do you think you are, to tell me what I can and cannot think about something I personally witnessed with my own eyes?

Harrass people in PMs?  Again, who the heck are you to misrepresent what happened and cast such negative aspersions on my character?

I contacted you by PM, I said that I felt you were being deliberately antagonistic and provactively and that if you persisted with your unpleasant behaviour you left me with no option but to request official moderation.  That's the gist of what I said, it's not verbatim.  Feel free to post up the content of my Private Message to you and let's let others judge as to whether a polite request to stop derailing my thread constitutes "harrassment".  Gosh, you're a deeply unpleasant individual to say such nasty things.

Again, you're completely missing the point.  There are two issues here:

1)  The programme in its entirety.  I have not expressed any opinion on this other than that it's "possibly contentious".  Where have I tried to force others to agree with me when you keep saying I've drawn negative conclusions?  Where?  Where are these negative conclusions that I've drawn?  I think it's possibly contentious but that's irrelevant, it's not a conclusion, nor even a strongly held opinion, I never said it was definitely contentious, because none of us can reasonably hold any opinion on the actual programme yet.  As it hasn't yet aired.  

As to my opinion on the actual programme in its entirety, well, the jury's out.  How can I be apparently "forcing" people to agree with my opinion, when I don't actually hold one?  Are you for real?   :?  :roll:

How many times do I have to repeat that FFS?

2)  Yes, I do have an opinion about the trail.  It was a negative portrayal of Aspies.  So far as I can tell, no one has sought to disagree with me about this, so I haven't gotten into any debate about it, or tried to 'force' my opinion of it on anyone else, because no one else appears to have seen it.  No one else has offered a view on the trail because they haven't seen it, so there's no disagreement.  

Except the ones you're inventing.

No, I actually want a place where people don't hijack threads I've started about serious issues in order to get their rocks off with spurious arguments.

No, I actually want a place where if I say, repeatedly: "I haven't drawn any conclusions about this programme, because it has not yet aired", I'm not repeatedly harangued about "Why are you being so negative about this programme?"  Because it doesn't make sense and just serves to p!$$ me off.

And I want a place where I can come to meet people who want to discuss things rationally and reasonably instead of going off on tangents and drawing me into invented arguments and accusing me of harrassing them when in fact I simple sent them a very polite request to stop being deliberately argumentative and provactive.

Glad to be of service!  :wink:  :grin:

Normal (non-FFS'ing) service will resume shortly.  As soon as noetic stops drawing me into invented arguments and winding me up.   :lol:

I agree.  It did represent Aspies as very burdensome on NT parents.

The whole martyrdom thing was played up, how the mother's life was totally dominated by her son.  Tbh, maybe it's just me being Aspie, but sometimes I think such attitudes say more about 'clingy' mothers and their inability to let go of the apron strings than about the actual needs of the person concerned.  I think there can be a tendency to 'over-mother'.

I think that was picked up on by the cousin character, Maya(sp?).  She didn't seem to hold any truck with the mother's martyrdom and seemed to relate to Daniel more as a person than a problem.

Yes, that struck me as really strange as well.  I couldn't figure that out, and they didn't offer any explanation.  It seemed very curious to me to respond to his Aspieness by changing to a non-green room, but then going back to green rooms later.  Didn't make any sense whatsoever.   :?

Didn't notice that!   :lol:

I didn't notice that either, but I was a bit baffled by the casting.  They cast an actor who had a very mild facial disfigurement - looked like he's had a corrected hare lip, or maybe an accident or something - and I thought that added to the 'Aspies aren't normal' effect.  

I thought that maybe it might be misleading, because maybe the general public might think that's what Aspies look like, maybe they'll think a harelip is a symptom or something.

Of course, we're all individuals and we're all different, and Aspies are probably just as likely to have one of those as the rest of the general population, but in isolation, in this scenario, of using one character as representative of Aspies, I thought maybe it would have been better not to cast someone like that.

My difficulty with the violence thing is that I think there's a very fine line:  I think that Aspies are quite possibly more likely to have violent *reactions* as opposed to violent *tendencies*.  I think there's a huge difference and I'm not sure whether this programme made that distinction clearly enough.

I think that Aspies *can* have very strong, physical reactions, for example to being touched or attacked.  But I think that's very much a reactive thing.  I do not believe that Aspies are innately more violent, or that they have tendencies to be so.

I'm very concerned that the general public is given a too simplistic message:  Aspies have violent tendencies, they are potentially dangerous.  The distinction between Aspies are violent, and Aspies may react badly to external stressors in not being sufficiently clearly made.

Ooh, remind me again noetic about what you were saying about the defendant being innocent?

Hmmm...

Oh, and just in case I missed noetic's point:

Soooooo... the character won't be shown to be guilty.

Well, on a technicality, you're absolutely right.  The character wasn't shown to be guilty -- of murder that is -- because for murder there has to be 'intent'.  However, it was shown that there was no intent.

But nevertheless this programme did pan out to portray the character as a killer, albeit accidental.

And the character was portayed as having previous violent tendencies, to have previously assaulted a young girl.  And the show didn't really elaborate very much upon that, didn't show any 'flashbacks' that might have helped contextualise the incidents.  So it was very much a matter of portraying Aspie = violent and dangerous.

Tbh, the trail I saw was very simplistic:  dialogue says young man killed his mother, action shows young man acting out disturbed behaviour, dialogue says young man as Asperger's Syndrome.

I was really, really hoping that perhaps the trail was just badly edited to sensationalise the forthcoming programme, after all, it's a drama programme and what's a drama programme without drama?  And when you have to portray that drama in a two minute trail (or however long it was), then it's likely there might be cockups in that things are taken out of context.

In some ways, I did think the programme was quite good, it didn't just paint a broad brush, bland Aspie = mental illness/disability = bad kind of thing.  I think it did go some way to informing people what it means to be Aspie - there were elements in the dialogue to explain Aspies don't like to be touched, they don't have empathy/have problems with it, it showed a strong reaction to seemingly bizarre, random (to NTs anyway) sensory overload with respect to the green room.  The programme also gave a couple of examples of Aspies taking things literally:  the character asking the woman in the supermarket "You want me to go away?" and later asking "Is that a joke?" And also the inability to lie:  "How can I plead guilty if I'm not guilty?" and also saying straight out:  "I don't tell lies."

I thought they were quite fair and reasonable representations.

However, I am annoyed that the programme didn't properly contextualise the violence, the previous assault on the girl, who just gave some brief evidence and it turned out the local kids had put dog poo through the door, let off fireworks and also called him a paedophile.  But it didn't really demonstrate a sequence of events, or how maybe the character had acted more in self defence, as opposed to maybe a revenge attack.  It wasn't clear what the assault was supposed to have been.

And then in the court room, the character reacts strongly to being touched by the court staff.  Even though the father was saying Don't touch him, he doesn't like being touched, no one intervenes, the judge doesn't bother to say 'Let him go' or anything.  So the situation escalated and then it looks as though the character is violent, not that he's experiencing a strong reaction to the NTs incorrect behaviour, the emphasis isn't on "NTs should not behave like this towards an Aspie under any circumstances", the emphasis is on: "See, he does have violent tendencies after all"  There's no reprimand for the NT court staff who did that.  It just went to reinforce the idea that NTs behaviour is 'correct' and they don't have to modify *their* behaviour to accommodate Aspies.

And I was very, very disappointed that Daniel turned out to have killed his mother, albeit accidentally.  I thought there were a couple of good plot twists and turns, the aunt having a motive and opportunity, and it looked as though suspicion was falling upon her at one point.  And then there was another twist, and it looked as though it was Maya, the cousin, wot dunnit.  I would have much preferred either of those two outcomes, especially if the cousin had done it, and the character wasn't lying, but was just omitting to tell the whole truth in order to protect her.

But it didn't.  In the end, it turned out the character had killed his mother, so the general perception is that Aspies are violent and are capable of accidentally killing people.  That's possibly the case, in that statistically some Aspies probably are involved in murders/killings, but no more so than the general population I don't think.  Yet most members of the public won't see it that way.  Like with that spurned lover turned stalker who killed his ex-gf the cosmetics girl in the department store.  I bet no one will think:  Oh, that means all ex-bfs are homicidal stalker/maniacs.  People won't think that because they have much more general experience of former bfs and gfs and they know that something like that very rarely happens.  But while they've come across perfectly nice former lovers before, if they've never come across an Aspie before, they're likely to base their judgements and perceptions of Aspies on what they've learned from a television programme.

Yes, people can generally separate fact from fiction (although in some cases, members of the public can't), but they also know that programmes like this are researched, like ER/Casualty have medical advisors about the realism of their episodes, so legal dramas have researchers and advisors about their plotlines.  Again, yes, there's artistic and dramatic licence, but the general perception is that they are loosely based on likely real scenarios.

The scene towards the near the beginning of the show in the supermarket was violent. Dan tried to force his way into a ladies car. I thought this was being used by the writers to induce a believe that Dan had to be held back by his mother to not harm people. I presumed that they would then gradually disprove this leaving the audiences questioning the stereotype they had originally been presented with. Instead they went on to show more violence by him killing his mother and not even having control over this action.  :evil:  :cry:

This program portrayed a person with Asperger's syndrome as violent. People build stereotypes of people when they only have a small sample to go on. I can see no other result than this building the stereotype that autistics are violent. There go my chances at my next interview :evil:  

Interview Rooms

In response to the second interview room Dan said "Much quieter"

The same could be said of the second green interview room as compared to the first. The first was bright green, and a relatively small proportion of the room was not (the blind and skirting board). The second green room was I think a much duller green or it was less well lit? Plus that green took up a lot less of the area as there where large windows.

In the third part when Mia came to speak to Dan they were in the second green interview room, as she entered she said "green"; Dan had his hands up as if he was blocking his peripheral vision maybe looking out of the window?

The program did not mention that a lesser amount of green was less of a problem thou :?

ET Moment

Near the end of the first part Dan and his farther are walking together. Dan farther touches him. Dan said, "please don't"

Nothing wrong so far.

In Part three Mr Ottway said,  "We used to call him ET when he was little"

At the end when Dan is talking to his dad and they touch each other’s fingers together. Call the mother ship I want to go home :lol:

I will also complain to ITV their lack of thought towards the probable effect of this rubish shocks me.

I received something similar

"Thank you for your email.  Your comments have been logged on our daily
duty log which is viewed by senior management at ITV.

Regards

ITV Duty Officer - TT
"

Noetic said

The thing I found offensive was the fact that Dan was portrayed as being unable to stop himself from killing his mother because he is an aspie. Although I think this or murder would lead to a negetive stereotype, how many people would take the time to look at the NAS website to find another view?

It's proportionate. I can only think of 3 TV shows in which as Aspie has featured; all 3 were crime programs, one of which they were a suspect, but later found innocent. Another they WERE the murderer, and I can't remember what their role was in the 3rd.

In the papers, I have only seen 3 Aspies mentioned, 1 commited suicide because he felt he couldn't change the world. One drove her parents to suicide because of her spending habits, and another was convicted of murder. So again, the averages are bad.

So, 1 in 3 Aspies are murderers, and 2 out of 3 have negative motivations.

These averages are bad; if Aspies are repeatedly shown for their negative aspects in the public eye, then people will begin to assume we are a bad thing, and work towards curing us all the harder. Paranoid Schizophrenia has gone the path Aspergers is fast slipping.

Undiagnosed P.Schizoprenia is often declared as an excuse for a murder cases, yet actual murders are very rare and only when the person has been off their meds and have become extremly anxious and panicked. But people still use the term "going schizo" sometimes when refering to someone become extremly panicked/riled to the point of violence.

This makes me very sad. The bad thing is that there is little that we can do. Even if if the station listens to your complaints, what can they do? It's already aired. They can't go and erase it from the minds of those who watched it. altough they could preent it from being aired again.  I only hope this show isn't very popular.  This is why we must try hard to get the postive aspects of Autism in the publics eye just to couteract these negitive ones.

I stand corrected. Shall I prepare for the ritiualistic forum caning? :wink:

I got my 2x4 "stick o' lernin' here, with the rusty-nail an optional extra  :lol:

But even there they're showing the NEGATIVE traits of the AS mum, how her jumpyness and discomfort caused more problems for everyone.

There are positive aspects to Aspies, but they never use them in the story, they only use the difficulties to make a more contrived plot.For instance a "geek" may be shown as awkward and strange, but at some point in the plot his immense expertise will save the day. THe big bruiser guy might seem slow witted and a lump, but his brute force will eventually come in handy, or it'll turn out he has a softer side.

In every Tv show to date though, the Aspie character's traits, are simply there to make the story more complex, they have no redeeming features, but are rather used to obscure the solution with their problems. ie. an interview doesn't go too well, or an attempted arrest results in violent behaviour lending them to be mistakenly mistook for a bad guy.

...I never said I'd seen Holby, I don't watch Holby, the 3rd programme was not Holby City, it was a crime drama but I can't palce where/what it was called, but i know I have seen them in 2 other crime drama's besides "The Brief"