Media image of a person with autism created in films

Abstract

Research objective. The research objective was to describe the image of people with autism created in selected contemporary films, as well as to determine their cultural and social dislocation and the area of film stigmatization.

Research method. The research covered four films: the documentary film Communion (Zamecka, 2016), the drama film The Black Balloon (Down, 2008), the biographical film Temple Grandin (Jackson, 2010) and the comedy film There are no feelings in space (Öhman, 2010). These particular films were chosen on purpose, taking into account genre diversity, age diversity of protagonists with autism and their levels of psychosocial functioning. In order to carry out the research, the method and technique of content analysis was employed.

Research results. Content analysis of the films proved that they create an image of people with autism that highlights their abnormality; for they emphasise both the lack of developmentally normative traits and the extraordinary abilities and skills of people with autism.
In the field of socio-cultural self-fulfilment, the protagonists undertake various activities that,
in confrontation with the neurotypical reality, expose cognitive and social deficits, as well as the outstanding level of certain skills. The exposition of behavioural and social deficiencies and excesses stigmatises characters with autism spectrum disorders.

Conclusions. The films that underwent the content analysis create an image of people with autism that accentuates their atypicality, and thus stigmatises them in different ways, presenting them as diseased persons who require constant care, as persons of genius, or as interesting “oddballs”. The specifics of social functioning of the film protagonists with autism pose a great problem for their immediate community, whose members show disapproval and lack of understanding of the peculiar way of being determined by the disorder.