“How to Dance in Ohio" Autism Documentry

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Documentary follows autistics as they deal with anxiety around a school dance. The documentary premiers at the Sundance Film Festival Sunday. HBO will air it in the fall.

http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2015/01/15/hbo-autism-documentary/19965/

Ah, proms and the dance. NT gatherings I never bothered with.

I never attended prom or any school dances either. I mean honestly, you stand around and listen to sh***y music while you're surrounded by dozens of other people, and you're not even allowed to get wasted enough to stop caring? Doesn't sound like my idea of a good time at all.

I also have an aversion to these events because all the "popular people" (who, non-coincidentally, are NTs) get to act superior and all that.

Not my thing.

I most certainly did not attend "my" prom. That is why I am curious if or why these autistics wanted to attend, and how they fared.

This is now on HBO. I watched it last night.



I like the overall idea of making teenagers do a practice prom so that later when they really want to date or have to dance, dress up, whatever, they'll have some experience. There were some things I did not like, such as when the girl said she didn't like touching people and the teacher said, "We'll break you of that!" Why not just say something like, "We can help you make that more tolerable." Or "You might meet someone one day, like a romantic partner, or your child, who you don't mind touching."

I also thought the boss in the bakery was WAY off in how she handled talking to the girl with the glasses. Why couldn't she just say something like, "When you did X, it had Y results. Please do Z instead." I thought everything the boss said was vague. I'm on the extreme end of neurotypical and *I* would have been puzzled by what she said. I would have asked for specific examples. Or simply quit.

Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

I liked it. I liked how they just let the story tell itself and tried not insert their own personal opinion into it. Showed it as it was. The part where the counselors were setting up dates was downright cute.