Before my son was diagnosed, I talked about him to my pediatrician. Afterward, he said, "Go see 'Shine', it's what he had."

He was never officially diagnosed, but if the movie is accurate, it could be about my son !(just subsitute Legos for the piano). Well, up until the shock treatments. Poor guy.

Naapoleon Dynamite. Oh god, I thought I was the only one who found that movie painful to watch. Memories of high school just came flooding back in spades! I also found it hard to find the comedy in it.

Amelia Bedelia! Remember her? Big goofy girl who was taking things completely literally? She seemed pretty off.

Mr. Rodgers maybe? I just watched him this morning.

I need to try to read Pipi Longstocking again. It has been a long long time.

I didn't think about that when I saw it ... but it would totally make sense! Obviously, her dad had some issues, too.

For Aspie characters, how about:

Susan Sarandon's character, Annie Savoy, in Bull Durham.
Hermoine Granger in the Harry Potter books and stories.
The main character in the Station Agent.
The three main characters in Ghost World.
Cyrano de Bergerac.

Vince D'Onofrio's character, Robert Goren, on Criminal Intent seems to have been intentionally patterend as AS, and his idiosyncracies are often commented on within the context of the stories.

Also in the show Bones, the Emily Deschanel's character, Temperance Brennan, based on a real life anthropologist, seems consciously patterned as AS, along with half the cast. Here too, the AS quirks are often at issue in the dialogue and storylines. But neither ever uses the Asperger appellation.

I was just watching a film, "In the Realms of the Unreal" about Henry Darger, a peculiar and impoverished recluse, who after his death, was discoerered to have written a 15,000 page novel accompanied by thousands of drawings and watercolors.

I didn't get through the whole film yet, but there was a discussion of schizophrenia. They describe his advanced early reading skills, fixations on snowflakes, stimming behaviors, social incompetence, and fixed and narrow interest in various topics which are all classic AS.

Even tho the director doesn't seem to go there, and a depiction and analysis of his narratives and contents of his art are central to the films structure, it still is a fascinating study of a severe case of AS.

And I stand by Goren as AS, even if they may have intended to write him as borderline schizophenic, I suspect that Vince D'nofrio may be on the spectrum himself, and is drawing from his own experieces to forge the character. Certianly the Katherine Erbe character's frequent comments trying to excuse or explain his behavior, seem to refer more to the spectrum than a delusional disorder.

what's eating Gilbert Grape- the lil bro played by leo DiCaprio seemed pdd-nos to me.

In the wizard of Oz, the Wizard, hiding behind his curtain....

Chinatown, the uber nerdy librarian (male) w/ the huge zit on his face!

I don't watch a lot of movies, but the TV Drama "House" is kind of like this. In one episode, house is treating an Autistic kid. This has always been my favourite episode. In this episode Dr. House is being extremely difficult, because his carpet was replaced due to a bloodstain. He goes around and works in every room EXCEPT his own. He makes his 'best firend's' (I use that term loosely) life misterable, he akes his boss miserable by using her office, or the board room when she's about to use it. He starts talking about Fecal Smears loudly in the clinic, and even takes over the church area of the hospital.

At one point in the episode, Wilson (the 'friend') tries to convince Dr. Cully (House's boss) that House has Aspergers. I had never heard of Aspergers before this, and he quotse a few things from a medical book about how he's resistant to change or something (I don't remember exactly), and he tries to convince her that putting the old carpet back is probably the best thing for him.

Later on, however, House says "You don't have Autism, you don't even have Aspergers. You wish you did, because then you could avoid society's rules. you envy that kid" (at this point, house is watching the family thank his Aides and get ready to leave the hospital.)

Knowing what I now know about Aspergers, I believe House has several characteristics of it. I think the important difference is that he dosn't 'accidentally' offend people while he means well, he deliberatly goes out of his way to offend people.

Eccentricity is normal- Normalcy is deranged and fuckedup- There's a post I'm going to make on some of that shit soon so you know how I mean that....

A lot of those traits you describe belong to aspies. Not trying to convert you or anything. Maybe you are just wierd (in which case I bow to you and mean that in the highest complimentary way- congratulations for not taking to obnoxious asshole behavior just to fit in- for showing people how much a human being is capable of by going their own way- and for telling people who mistake mtv for reality to go fuck off- i just recently learned how to do those things)...

Of course I was shitty in p.e. I always thought sports were boring. I remember when I was a kid everybody had to run around the track in circles. it was a big ass track- people would do a certain amount of timed laps- i naturally didnt give a fuck and always being too smart for my teachers to reign me in (yes even in college i was smarter and more capable than all my teachers- which is probably why i flunked with flying colors when someone who was a total flake got every other chance in the world- but hey she can bite me end of story) i thought "why the fuck am i doing this? what the hell is the point?" okay not like that but yknow how imagine a seven year old would say it-

Then I remember that I was in a "special" p.e. class but heres the funny part- i was pulled out of academic classes for nothing- the special p.e. coach was so out of shape and fat that i couldnt imagine him being a coach at all- he made hardly any effort to challenge the students and almost NONE of the students were even physically disabled- ONE TIME they had ONE kid in a wheelchair- i mean none of these kids were even physically disabled (except for that one when it was already far into the year)- and they certainly werent mentally disabled- i mean all of the kids just knew there time was being wasted and they werent learning anything by inept assholes... so it was basically a punishment for not being some selfrighteous asshole who would care about stupid shit like finishing all the motherfucking laps....

anyway maybe a certain amount of those people may or may not have been as- i mean physical shit came with my shit too- fuck knows the academic system from preschool to college is fucked!! The whole point is how many asses you gotta kiss and how cool for school you think you are - all you have to do to figure this out is make smalltalk with an adult about basic shit that you mightve learned in non-ld classes when you were a kid- like the most basic shit- or better yet you can go to a community college for a day on your own type of field trip- infiltrate a class posing as a student- and then silently notice how many motherfuckers need their hands held-

and then you will lose faith in future generations and become convinced that the apocalypse already happenned 26 years ago- oh right not you thats me....

Just my personal take on as.... and the "normals" and all that crap...

Peace,
-Mike

but the main character from Punch Drunk Love I'd have to agree with.

Amelie...maybe.

maybe Stéphane from The Science of Sleep too.

Che Gueverea though? No way.

"It seems like some of you are trying to fit some of the most admirably quirky characters of fiction into AS. It smacks of romanticizing."

I was never under the impression that this thread was intended to be serious, academic, or diagnostic in nature. Believe it or not, Aspies have a sense of humor and like to have fun once in a while. ;-) It's just pure fun meaningless speculation, nothing more.

Anyway, now that I've become obsessed with watching anime, I have a new candidate: the character simply known as "L" from Death Note. Also, his successor, known as "N" or Near, so that makes two. L has a notorious lack of concern for his appearance, always wearing a baggy shirt, nondescript jeans, and no shoes or socks. He always sits with his legs hugged against his chest, and when it's pointed out to him that he might be more comfortable sitting with his legs down, he replies "No. This position increases my thinking abilities by 40%". He's so lovable. He has an affinity for playing with odd things like sugar cubes, and seems uninterested in social interaction, preferring to stare off into space while thinking about how to solve the case. Near is very similar except for superficial differences such as a preference for playing with matches instead of food. They're my favorite characters from the series.

"It seems like some of you are trying to fit some of the most admirably quirky characters of fiction into AS. It smacks of romanticizing."

AS, tho originally identified in the late 40's, was mostly unrecognized until fairly recently. Rates of occurence are being cited as high 1 in 166, and this is not likely a new phenomena. This suggests that the vast majority of aspies do not know that they are. I suspect that most of the "quirky" characters from literature and cinema are in fact on the spectrum, and that it is a vast well from which most really original folks have always come.

Tony Atwood talks about scoring points for "spotting the aspie" but says (in good humor) that spotting a non-aspie in a university chemistry library is also worth a point. I know when I toured colleges with my daughter, the majority of professors at elite universities were clearly on the spectrum. I know too that my own social adjustment and subsequent classification as "sub-clinical" came from the wonderful serendipity of ending up on the same block with two other aspie boys who had parents as devoted and involved as mine. We were, with the proxy of each other and our parents, a powerful and accepted social unit in elementary school. Neither of those two boys, still my friends, identifies as AS, and yet they very clearly are.