Did the movie Rain Man do a disservice to those with Autism?

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As in it made people have a very misconstrued idea of what Autism is?

At the time it did a lot of good.

That the Rain Man stereotype still persists so strongly 31 years later is on the people that keep on perpetuating the stereotype, not the film.

I watched that movie, but I didn't feel offended or anything by it. The autism spectrum is so diverse, so when a character in a movie has autism there will be stereotypes, because one autistic character isn't going to be like every real life autistic person out there.
I'm literally the opposite to Rain Man.

For the time I think it was very good and helpful.
But the persistence of the stereotypes is a problem

In 1988, people usually thought that autistic people were not able to speak.

Dustin Hoffman REALLY tried to play an LFA savant, and I think he did a pretty good job.

The only problem is that people assume that autism is severely mentally debilitating. Out of the three real diagnosis that existed, two of them required a person to have an IQ that was at least clinically in the normal range. Some autistic people actually seem pretty normal and can be bright.

I'm at least happy that Hoffman played a SAVANT! So he seemed to have SEVERE problems, etc.... but then at points it was like OK, is this guy ret*d, or a fantastic genius?

There's a divide between "aspies" and "auties".
Rain Man was not like an aspie, but he was like an autie.
Things to note is he never looked at his brother, always looked off to the side.
Was in constant motion, never sat still, did a lot of rocking.
Wandering off when his brother's back was turned.
The whole savant thing however was there to make him an interesting character.
Most other auties I have known don't posses such powers.
Usually savant is just excelling in a particular area.
I am a "savant" in my writing skills compared to the rest of my academic skills which are poor.

Both. I am told that I am very intelligent. But at the same time I am basically helpless. I need a 24hr babysitter.

Rain Man was a helpful movie for its time. what bothers me is that the stereotypes in that movie still continue to this day and people still think that it's okay for people to raise their voices at autistic people that way.

It was a good movie. And it made folks aware of autism, and how it isn't quite the same thing as "mental retardation", and portrayed an autistic as being a mosaic of both talents and disabilities. For a single movie to address a large topic like autism is asking a lot. For its time it was ok.

It's a decent film, but it's hardly the most in-depth, detailed and enlightened look at the topic. Then again, any movie that is doesn't tend to be a significant hit at the box office.

And yes, I deliberately refer to the film in the present tense. Films don't generally get wiped from the records after their initial periods of screening. In fact most pre-2000ish movies are probably much easier to access than they would have been at the time of their release, thanks to the prevalence of streaming services and suchlike. Sorry for that bit of pedantism.

It isn't, nor did it ever pretend to be, nor could one feature length movie ever be, a comprehensive docudrama about the complex vast issue of the entire autism spectrum. But it was rather good ok entertaining movie that did more good than harm to the cause of autism awareness.

An actual long running TV series would be better suited to the subject. And there was such a series a few years ago in the 2010's, Parenthood, that did have more than one aspie characters in a running drama. Even Parenthood wasn't perfect. But it was good both as a show, and as a look at autism. Sadly it went off the air after I only caught one or two episodes.

Rain Man put autism on the Hollywood map of public consciousness, but there was at least one movie that depicted autism before that. That was the late Sixties British movie "Run Wild Run Free" about a boy growing up on the Yorkshire Moors with selective mutism. The word "autism" is never mentioned in the movie AFAIK, but the main character is clearly autistic. I saw it in a theater when I wasn't much older than the little boy in the movie, and it struck home with me more than did Rain Man.

Now that I think about it there was at least one even earlier movie that has an adult aspie/autistic as a major supporting character. The character is Bo Radley, and the movie is "To Kill a Mockingbird".

It wasn't the worst possible starting point for portrayal of such characters. The main problem was that in the interim, until fairly recently, there simply wasn't anything else that got such wide mainstream recognition. A stake was put in the ground, but the territory never got explored.

I have this problem in that I am naturally blunt, though I try to be polite, etc..... Sometimes I rethink what I wrote and even make it a point the next time I can, to reassess and change things. I'm glad people here are often so forgiving there.

My point in what I wrote was not to offend, but show that there IS a dichotomy. There are some things I am HORRIBLE at, and maybe it seems like everyone is is far better. What I meant with the rainman statement was that it shows that situation as a whole.

The idea of savants has always seemed interesting to me. And it is generally judged not by a persons relative strengths, but in comparison to those known to humanity as a whole. With mathematical ability, for example, it wouldn't be worthy of note to the world at large if he could add 2+2, or even multiply 5*90. But the idea that he could so quickly look at a picture and tell how many objects there were(Few NTs could do this at this level), or count cards(NTs tend to use short cuts at best, and have a hard time), or memorize a phone book(This is just plain RARE), is astounding. AND, if not for the parts where you see an obvious deficit, you WOULD call him a genius.

A huge part of the movie was that Raymond had an ability that Charlie wanted to have, and saw potential in. Charlie ALSO expected a big inheritance, and found that there wasn't any. So he used Raymond where he shouldn't have. Anyway, most of that movie could be seen as how Raymond was treated by everyone. And there was as much good as bad. One of my favorite scenes is that restaurant scene. Raymond keeps repeating a number, after a waitress drops some toothpicks. Charlie asks for how many toothpicks there were in the box. She tells him the number, and he gets upset with Raymond saying it is wrong. 4 toothpicks short. The waitress looks in the box, aghast. There are four still in the box.

Anyway, it tried to be realistic for the time. Frankly, Charlie was the only one at fault. He shouldn't have taken Raymond out of his comfort zone, and subjected everyone else to that.

Good point.

And that's part of why the movie IS both credited AND blamed for having a big effect on the public view of autism. It was the only game in town for decades. And that wasn't the movie's own fault.

While “Run Wild, Run Free” did not mention Autism, reviews of the film at the time did. Refrigerator mother cause was implied. Refrigerator mother cause is strongly implied in another 1969 movie “Change of Habit” noted for Elvis in a serious acting role. Mary Tylor More diagnosis a young girl. and Elvis cures her via the popular “rage” therapy of the time. A 1969 episode of “Marcus Welby” also centered around an autistic child. The 1968 movie “Charlie” centered around an adult character that could be autistic.