Aspies For Freedom

From 8pm to 9pm there was a tv show on people with prader-willi syndrome, showing their lives and difficulties. Now from 9pm to 10pm is a show on tourrete's syndrome.
A pleasant change from the usual fodder.

I watched Tourette camp.

It was interesting. It was especially interesting/sad when one girl thought the other (the Aspie girl) was faking her tourette's (what, non stop for the past 10 years? :shock: ) because if people with similar wiring cant understand...

I thought it was an interesting sidelight that they showed someone with Asperger's who was obviously very sociable and superficially quite good at it too. just sort of a little thing that chips away at the stereotype, which is a good thing.

I notice on placement and reading other forums that its been quite amusing for the general public to laugh at this program. Was it intentionally mean't to be entertainment? Cause thats what most people seem to have interpreted it as

What were they laughing at?

the random swearing/ obscenities was what was giggled at on sites i belong to. Some people there also thought it was 'put on' too.

Yeah that was pretty much the sentiment ive come across.

In other words - Ignorance.

If people know nothing about it, they could have that reaction, but when its been explained and they are presented with the facts, and the reality of the people with these conditions, the theory goes that ignorance should decrease.
Sadly not. :evil:

This is why im cynical of programs like this. You don't really need to target the general public. The majority couldn't really care in the first place and there are alot of stupid people out there.

As frank Zapper once said. ITs not hydrogen thats the most common element in the universe its stupidity

I have now seen someone's name on msn messenger with a quote from one of the programmes that is blatantly laughing at one child. :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

I saw the Tourette's programme, and was left feeling that I had been watching a freak shew dressed up as social commentary.  The production and editorial values were those of The Sun.

I expected there would be some sort of medical commentary by a neurologist at some point in the programme, to put the disorder in context, but there was none. Probably no one could be found to risk their professional reputation by appearing in such a programme.

One other strange thing I noticed, no idea if it was a coincidence or not, but later in the evening they had a comedy film about very overweight children who had to attend a summer camp.  :?

Extracted from longer article:

Gruesome start to an annus horribilis
Kathryn Flett
Sunday January 8, 2006
The Observer


...ITV1 provided us with a documentary, Teenage Tourette's Camp, in which a selection of youngsters with varying degrees of antisocial tics, OCDs and Asperger's, were sent to a summer camp near Chicago, all of which gave 16-year-olds carte blanche to shout, 'Bomb!' in airports, 'Nigger!' at shop assistants, and 'Twin Towers!' in the thankfully windy wide-open spaces of Downtown.

For much of the time the teenagers behaved like ordinary teenagers, with all the 'normal' sort of high dramas and intense self-centredness. Though it's easy enough to be sympathetic to a condition which alienates youngsters from their peers at a time when alienation is pretty much one's raison d'etre anyway, it was also possible to catch the little so-and-sos faking it for effect. If, as likable-but-challenging Jessica had, you'd also taken an intense dislike to 16-year-old Jenny, the biggest girl in the group, perhaps shouting, 'Fatty!' while passing it off as an involuntary tic would be pretty satisfying? Given most of us are denied this sort of guilty non-PC pleasure, who'd blame the teenage Touretters for making the most of it?

Anyway, lardy Jenny (it's catching - sorry) was a right old 'poor me' pain in the butt, as well as the best advert for a McKeith detox so far this year. Failing to stay the (mere week-long) course, she claimed she'd put up with Tourette's-related bullying for 11 years. Sadly nobody dared to point out that maybe her obesity might be a contributing factor, proving that insidious political correctness is alive and kicking ass even among those capable of shouting, 'Fatty!' at fat birds. Is it just me, or is that a bit bonkers, assuming I can still say 'bonkers' in 2006?

Striking it lucky?

As I write, Ladbrokes are offering odds of 3/1 on Michael Barrymore winning Celebrity Big Brother. So much for the media breast-beating about the 'shamed' former King of Saturday Night's inappropriate 'attempted comeback': prior to entering the house, Barrymore received a three-minute ovation.

BB does not operate according to the rules of an ideal moral universe and though we might not have wanted Barrymore to have made any sort of 'comeback', by selling his soul to Big Brother, however fleetingly, he has undeniably made one.

Welcome then to the cruel, clever, cynical reality of 2006: thanks to brilliant casting, the next three weeks of CBB should provide definitive modern television. Love it or loathe it, but deny it at your peril.

Source: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/screen/st...61,00.html

I think this writer has had her brain stuck in reality tv world too long, and thinks that its acceptable to compare celebrities who make a living from showing off, and young people who have a condition that they cannot control.

Her cruel and spiteful words about those shown in tourrettes camp would surely scare any parent and child who had considered consenting to take part in a documentary. It has been transformed in the minds of those who watch drivel reality tv from an enlightening documentary to pulp reality tv show where people fake things for attention and its just good fun to laugh and tease.

yes, an odious piece of writing.

That was a terrible article, I can't believe a quality broadsheet like the Observer would print something like this.  The author seems to be justifying the bullying of someone because of how they look.  Many people cannot control their weight, because they have a medical condition, or because of their genetics.  Therefore, it is just as bad as racism.