Last night the girlfriend and I went to see Billy the Kid, a documentary about a 15-year old "outsider" living in Maine that is clearly an Aspie (and was diagnosed after the film was completed). The director was on hand to discuss and take questions, as was John Elder Robison, NYT bestselling writer of "Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's."
Observations: it was a fine film and did a lot for humanizing Aspergers, but it was weird seeing a group of people (NTs) afterward talk about the strangeness of Billy's experience, when all I saw was an experience that was similar to my own in a lot of ways. Whenever I catch myself thinking, "Aspie's just have magnified versions of issues that normal people have," things like this make me realize that there is a real gulf between the ability of NTs to cope with their environment and the inability of Aspies to automatically decode social behavior. The director attempted to make the point that we all share a common experience, but I'm not sure that she really understood that, while we face the same environment, we're essentially bringing a stick of gum to a knife fight. Still, she had a good attitude about Billy, and thought he had a lot to offer. But I should point out that Billy was far more lucid and communicative than most Aspies, particularly when he was alone with the camera, or with his mother -- and he was just as inept in social situations as one would predict.
John Robison was interesting and a good example of a fifty-one year old guy who found out about Aspergers late, wrote a book, and found himself in the spotlight: he was loud, blunt, funny, and he'd come to grips with his dissimilarity with normal people.
It was also interesting to see a question-and-answer session -- with mics and cameras -- given the subject matter. I was thinking that there was zero probability of an Aspie asking a question, and I was nearly right -- one fully autistic guy managed to say something, and it (as could be expected) wasn't a question. I had a chance to meet the director and John Robison afterwards, but (as could be expected) didn't. The lights were bright. The crowd was too thick. Too much pressure. You know the drill.
Anyways, the film will be out on DVD soon. It's good.
24 Jan 2008, 3:50 pm
