An Autistic Disney Character

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#21

I think the biggest issue that comes with the idea of an autistic character, lead or not, is Disney’s ability to execute creating a character with autism versus an autistic character. One has autism as a characteristic and the other has autism as the identity.

The other thing that becomes a hinderance is the spectrum of disabilities that fall into “autistic” tendencies. Everything from ADHD, OCD, Asperger Syndrome and many more are all considered as different levels of autism. Combine this with the fact that explicitly saying a character is autistic and it invites criticism and over analyzing said character to identify different tropes regardless of how accurate it may be.

On top of this I personally think there are already characters in Disney that have various forms of autism already. For example if we look at Ariel from The Little Mermaid an argument could be made that she seems to have Attention Defecit Hyperactive Disorder or ADHD. Collecting bits and baubles from the human world seems to take up all her focus at the detriment of other responsibilities such as her performing.

We could also look at Quasimodo as his physical deformaties may in fact lead to some developmental disorders that includes his speech impedement and the fact that he is a young adult who is still being taught his alphabet.

There are so many more characters that can be examined as such like Kuzco and his complete ineptitude when it comes to social cues. Dash and his seemingly ADHD tendencies. Even looking at Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy and his lack of understanding sarcasm is very indicitive of someone on the spectrum.

This all obviously is personal interpretation which then gets into semantics of Nature versus Nurture, the question of whether a person’s character and personality is innate or a byproduct of their environment. However the beauty of all of this that could be ruined by an explicitly stated “autistic character” is that kids with or without autism can find similarities of themselves in characters which may very well be taken away if Disney were to say, “Okay this is the character that is like you and all these other character’s are for normal kids.”

Again that is hyperbole but it very well may be what kids or parents of kids with autism interpret such as.

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#22

Autism can be established as quickly as dory’s short term memory loss:

“I have/suffer from autism.”

Having them introduced as a second protagonist, could be quite intresting but as a primary character?Idk…

#23

i like this idea since i volunteer for a program that helps kids with disabilities but Disney would have to be very careful when creating the character so they don’t receive harsh criticism. they could possibly start with minor characters then a story with it being the focus. they could make it so that the autism is not as severe in terms of the spectrum

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#24

But Dory got her own movie and became the main protagonist thereof and everybody loved her.

For the record, “suffer” is such a strong word and puts stuff like autism and short-term memory loss in such a negative light.

#25

I have autism and I completely agree

#26

Then what is the point of this, you admitted there already was a main protagonist so what is the point of this now

#27

i think he means someone who is announced to be on the spectrum, not “could be”

#28

Now you see why he says what he does.

#29

I mean I’m autistic and if there was one in Disney I would agree that it would just make it not Disney at all

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#30

A little disclaimer this post may offend people.

So it could work if Pixar made it. But Disney does not have the right stuff to do it. And with Pixar wouldn’t the story be hard to carry? Half the reason Marlin was important in finding nemo. Was because if dory tried she would get distracted. Remember in the beginning of the movie when dory was showing Marlin to the boat? And she got confused. Want a whole movie around a character get confused?

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#31

Not all people with autism have it that bad also dory had short term memory loss not autism.

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#32

the thing that frustrates me the most about this conversation is that we are criticizing someone’s idea for being unrealistic and that is not okay to me

#33

@Mister_Toon
keep being creative and doing amazing things. do not listen to these people that are criticizing your ideas. i love this idea

#34

Nobody’s criticizing.

People are just sharing their opinions, as they were asked to do.

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#35

No one has been criticizing him and what does this have to do with the game, also, criticism is what judging the faults in something, I don’t think you know what criticism is

#36

No one said it was unrealistic, you just said we were. As my dad says “don’t put words in people’s mouth’s” which is what you are doing

#37

Are you sure nobody in this forum will go and steal my ideas? Because, deleated them because i realized that idea.

#38

If you mean your original characters then it is possible but you didn’t give an extensive description so it’s not very likely to happen

#39

I said Have as well, the slash was there, because I was altering the quote Dory said. She said she suffers, it may be harsh, unless it causes suffering for the person.

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#40

exactly this, its just a thing, why does it matter if a character has it or not? There’s no need for them to explicitly state it and shout about it just to sound trendy or accepting or whatever it seems people want them to do. Maybe some character has it or maybe not. Does it change how people think about them? :thinking:

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