#AutismDoesntEndAt5 > If we want to help autistic people, we have to change how we see them Breanna Himmelright Contributor here’s a scene in the film Wreck-It Ralph that, to this day, continues to haunt me. The character Vanellope von Schweetz, who experiences glitches due to damaged coding, paused from racing to doa checkup on her car and was confronted by the other racers led by Taffyta Muttonfudge. After a few snide remarks, Taffyta and her cohorts started pulling Vanellope’s cart apart, all while mockingly imitating her “glitching”” After having broken her cart—and her heart—Taffyta simply says to Vanellope “You see? You're just an accident waiting to happen.” It is not scenes from the many horror movies I have watched, but instead this scene from a Disney movie about arcade games, that has stayed with me the most over the last three years. And why? Because I’ve seen the same situation play out again and again in the real world with autistic individuals, albeit with more subtlety. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a term used to describe a variety of neurodevelopmental disabilities affecting an individual’s social skills, verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and behaviours and interests. As the name suggests, these disorders occur on a spectrum, with Asperger’s syndrome being at the highest- functioning end and childhood disintegrative disorder being at the lowest-functioning end. According to the Centers for Disease Control in the US, 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with an ASD each year, and if a parent has one child with autism, the chances of them having another jump from 1 in 68 to1in5. What are the chances of those autistic children growing up into autistic adults? 100 per cent. And yet, this is a statistic very few people choose to acknowledge, and an autistic adult is an individual even fewer will actively support. As the president of the David Lam-based DSU Blue Club and a high-functioning autistic Douglas student, I’ve seen this apathy firsthand. Whenever I’ve talked to individuals about the Blue Club, I get students wishing me well and I even get a few signatures. Yet very few of the people who sign up actually show up, and of those that do, even fewer actively contribute. I can’t help but feel incredibly disappointed by this lack of involvement, which I now understand may be due to a lack of information about autism in adulthood. More to the point, on autism in general. When most people think about autistic people, they think about Rain Man, Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, Max Braverman from Parenthood, or even Sherlock. While I can definitely see the The passion of the nerd > James Rolfe crucified for shunning ‘Ghostbusters’ Adam Tatelman Arts Editor ames Rolfe, better known as the Angry Video Game Nerd (or the Nerd) for his profanity-laden Internet comedy series of the same name, recently published a short video explaining that, despite his fanbase’s anticipation, he would not be reviewing the Ghostbusters reboot. Predictably, every Tumblr blogger and hack Internet journalist with an ideological axe to grind raced to sling the first fecal accusations of sexism and hate, utterly misinterpreting the content of his video in the process. In the dreaded video, Rolfe very calmly expresses that he feels the new film isa rather transparent cash grab attempting to bank on the Ghostbusters name without paying adequate homage to the fans or the original actors. Rolfe’s refusal to watch the film is because of his personal bias towards the original, which he freely admits. That’s a fair sentiment. I avoided the 2014 Robocop remake for precisely that reason. The only difference is, nobody accused me of cyborg-phobia. So why did this video turn the entire Internet into a king- sized salt lick? Because there is no safe stance to take on the new Ghostbusters apart from saying nothing at all. Even deciding not to watch it because the trailer was awful is likely to attract groundless abuse. Rolfe knew this, and did the most mature thing possible—admitted his own bias and bowed out. That’s a mark of integrity, not hatred, which makes it even more disappointing to see him so callously misrepresented. Character defamation isn’t a practice I’m surprised to see from so-called news outlets like Pedestrian, Indiewire, and Daily Dot, but the uniform nature of their complaints is curious. Despite his level- headed presentation, each article made sure to characterize Rolfe’s opinion as a childish tantrum, calling him a “whiny man-baby” complaining of a defiled childhood—a description of the Nerd persona rather than the man who plays him, and utterly misrepresentative of his video’s content. Even Rolfe’s lack of comment on the casting controversy has been treated as a calculated move to avoid being called out on his obvious raging sexism. Because sexists always clam up when given correlations between Sheldon’s behaviour and Asperget’s, these characters are a shallow scoop of a very deep pond. The supposed “charity” Autism Speaks (which most actual autistics hate) is no help either. Founded in 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright, the organization has continually portrayed autism as a terrible scourge that has to be cured, rather than a disability that can be worked with. Add in the stream of misinformation coming from devout anti- vaxxers and the overall overrepresentation of autism asa “childhood” disorder, and it’s no big surprise that actual autistic voices are having trouble being heard. Nor is it any surprise that, when people think of autism, they think of a 5-year-old boy obsessed with Minecraft and not a 19-year-old female college student currently studying Environmental Sciences but thinking of switching majors. This attitude means that autistic opportunities to be sexist. Duh. The simplicity of Rolfe’s points belies his detractors’ intellectual dishonesty. In the video, Rolfe compares the new Ghostbusters to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, citing the latter film’s use of fan favourite characters, Han Solo and Chewbacca, to help warm old fans up to the new lead characters. “A little fanservice goes a long way,” Rolfe said, suggesting that Ghostbusters would do well to also feature the original cast in their iconic roles. In his article for Pedestrian, Miles Klee incredulously presents this point as Rolfe being upset that Han Solo and Chewbacca won't be in Ghostbusters. Truly, Klee has championed the cause of shitty film remakes for all time to come. Bravo. Image via Disney adults don’t get the help they need. And if we want to make progress and strive towards being a more inclusive society, then this is an attitude that desperately needs to change. Towards the end of Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope finally learns how to use her glitch to her advantage and (spoiler alert) finishes the climactic race and restores the memories of the citizens of Sugar Rush, who come to realize that she was originally the game’s princess. However, she rips off the princess clothing, and tells Ralph that the whole princess garb isn’t who she is. This scene—along with Ralph’s line towards the end “And the players love her, glitch and all’—gives me hope that those with autism spectrum can still contribute our talents not in spite of our differences, but because of them, even if the neurotypical world may dismiss us for being “glitches.” After all, glitches still have their place in the game. Not one to pass up an opportunity for a good reaming, Dane Cook of all people decided to give his two cents on the matter, thus exhausting his current net worth. His now- historic tweet read: “James Rolfe apparently hates that Ghostbusters is being updated with hilarious women.” If passing on a movie after seeing a shitty trailer is the mark of sexism, that’s an impressively low bar to set, and honestly expecting people to perform such a ridiculous limbo act is laughable. Rolfe is one of the pioneers of new media; his show helped legitimize the Internet as an outlet for criticism and entertainment. Without the Nerd, none of the critics currently shitting on him would have a job, so let’s find something better to discuss.