Alex Lowery’s review of ‘Amazing Things Happen’
Written on 9th May 2017 by Alex Lowery
There is a cartoon video called ‘Amazing Things Happen’ that took two years to make. It intends to educate young people about autism. This film has had a lot of extremely positive feedback, but I thought it would good to read a review of it from someone who’s on the autistic spectrum himself so today I’m going to be reviewing it. I’m going to be including what I like and what I don’t like about it.
Firstly, I really like the drawing style and how it explains autism to kids in a reasonably positive way. It describes how there are some obvious differences that people have such as hair colours, etc. and others that aren’t so noticeable like people’s different taste in food. It then slowly goes on to explain autism. I think that is a good way of demonstrating how autism is a hidden disability so you can’t instantly know someone’s autistic by looking at him or her. I also like the example it gave at the end with “Just because a Play Station can’t read an X-BOX game, it doesn’t mean it’s not working.” I feel like this shows how there isn’t anything wrong with being autistic. It is simply that autistic people see the world in a different way. I also all round like how its big ambition is to raise understanding of autism among the younger generations. It’s also done in a very simple and effective way!
Now lets get onto what I don’t like about it. Since, I am writing a review, while I do want to give credit where credit is due, I also have to be honest and talk about the things I’m not so keen on. My main problem with the film is that it’ quite stereotypical. Many of the traits it brings up are not applicable to all autistic people. I’m not awfully fond of the part where it says, “An autistic brain can sometimes make a person good at tasks at we all find difficult”. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t disagree with that sentence in the slightest. It is true that autism often has its advantages and it can often mean that there is something that an autistic person is particularly good at. And I do 100% appreciate the fact that they’re trying to include something positive in the video. But my problem is with the examples they give of ‘autistic people being good at things that other people struggle with’. They say that autistics can be very good at maths, art and music. The problem here is that the three examples they brought up are among the stereotypes of autism. There are so many people who think you have to be good at maths or science or something in order to be autistic. And what they brought up in the video does reinforce this stereotype. I for one am neither good at Maths, (I guess you could say I’m artistic since I do Photography and filmmaking, but still) nor Music. There are plenty of other people who don’t fit into those stereotypes either. I am still happy to see that they have attempted to add something positive in it though and to be fair; it isn’t like they said, “All autistic people have a special talent”.
Finally, we come to my biggest problem with the film which is when it starts talking about Stimming (the movements that those on the autism spectrum often do). The film makes out that when an autistic person is Stimming, it means he or she is stressed and needs to Stim in order to calm down. It’s true that Stimming can help cope with stress and anxiety, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily means the person who’s doing it is stressed when it’s being done. If anything, I tend to Stim more when I’m getting excited or when I’m just going deep into my own world. I also know of plenty of other autistic people who say the same thing. And that was my biggest problem with the film. I feel like it would have been better if they had got advice from autistic person (or even better a few autistics) when making it (granted I don’t actually know if they did or not, but it doesn’t feel like it when watching). In the end, I’ll say that I like what the film was trying to do, but I think it could have done with more input from autistic people. If I had to give it a rating, I’d give it around 3 starts out of 5.
Pleases do watch it yourself though (you can view it below this text) and let me know what you think of the film.
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