Over 30 years since Dustin Hoffman twitched his way to an Oscar in Rain Man, our experts give their verdict on a season of portrayals of the neurodiverse, from Sia’s Music to What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?A quick experiment.
Close your eyes, and think of autism in the movies.
I bet you’ve got an image in your head of Dustin Hoffman being driven by Tom Cruise in a Buick Roadmaster Convertible, repeatedly saying: “I’m an excellent driver.” Or Hoffman glancing at a box of scattered toothpicks and announcing there are 246 of them.
Or Hoffman learning the phonebook to “g” off by heart in a couple of minutes.
Or Hoffman doing miraculous mental arithmetic.Rain Man was released in 1988.
Watch it now, and it seems like a throwback to a simpler world where autistic people were geniuses, and no cliche about the idiot savant was left unturned.
Hoffman tic-d,
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