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| Maths and That. Must be Autism... |
There’s an increasing sense that autism has become the primary
condition of the modern day in both a medical sense as it becomes more readily
recognised and diagnosed, and a metaphorical sense. As critic Stuart Murray has
noted autism has become ‘somehow easily apprehended as a metaphor for a version
of the present, as some kind of cultural and social mirroring’ - and while that
makes for a fascinating lens through which to see the world, it also runs the
danger of witnessing the word autism ‘become meaningless.’ (Murray, p.208) It is
the perpetual curse of autism that it has matured through an age of bewildering
globalisation, perverted media and commercialised culture and will always get
mixed up in misrepresentation, appropriation and the millennial anxiety of
identity politics. Perhaps this ‘thinning out’ of the term is just the latest
ideological submerging of a condition which is still so misunderstood.
Meanwhile, Hollywood tries to keep its million fingers in
its million pies and enters The
Accountant into its autism catalogue, with all the attendant giddiness it
spews when it thinks it’s doing something really good for once. And despite the
vehement emphasis on research, the film still peddles an outdated and outmoded
vision of autism in the figure of Ben Affleck’s Chris Wolff who may well be
autistic but DON’T WORRY because he’s really good at maths and jigsaws and that.
Thankfully, the more that real autism spreads its complex wings and flies in tomore neurotypical lives, this good-at-numbers fallacy is losing much of its traction. Which begs the question why The
Accountant decided to tread that path. One suspects the hero was an
accountant first, an autist second.
Of course, he’s not just an accountant he’s also, in a
convoluted way, a sort-of hired assassin Jason Bourne-alike spy who is dead good
at shooting and sneaking and fighting in bathrooms (complete with a
head-to-sink smash finishing move). The film never asks if Wolff’s kindly
and subdued autism may actually make him think twice about ending the lives of
the various nameless grunts, nor does it reconcile the tragedy of the central
message it attempts to make about choice. Wolff’s militant father denies his
child’s autism and devises a series of abusive therapies involving loud sounds
and flashing lights and combat training before concluding that Wolff must make
his choice: stay ‘locked’ in his autism, or fight his way out. The latter
choice made, Wolff is well on his way to becoming Batman (great Affleck joke
there), saving the girl and the world and himself.
And yet this would be entirely the wrong choice for real autism, and this is where
the film confuses itself. An attempt is made to bookend the narrative with
glimpses of a (contained) autistic utopia in the form of a progressive, idyllic
care-home for which Wolff acts as an anonymous beneficiary. But we are asked as spectators to
celebrate the 'supercrip' powers of Wolff, who has only reached his potential through abusive therapy and by succumbing to his father’s oppressive ultimatum. So the
real choice is this: institutionalisation, in whatever form you happen to find it, or a place
in society once your autism has be suppressed to acceptable levels. Get an
accountant to add all that up and it really doesn’t balance the books.
Ultimately, as autistic writer Alexandra Haagaard has noted,
this is a film about an autistic character for non-autistic audiences. We are
shown that Wolff, like many autists, struggles with sensory overload which his
father subsequently attempts to flush out of him by subjecting him to flashing
lights and loud music, a practice Wolff continues in adult life. But, as
Haagaard indicates, depicting this twice on screen ‘has the ironic effect of
making this “honest” film about autism an unsafe experience for autistic
moviegoers.’ (Haagaard, 2016). The medium and the message don't add up either.
The Accountant
fails because it buckles under the weight of its own choice of subject matter.
It seeks simplicity where there is only increasing complexity, it looks for super-heroics
in dusty cliché and it attempts to reconcile an anti-Hollywood condition into
the shiny, neat cargo of its frantic factory. The truth is, unlike a jigsaw piece, autism
doesn’t easily fit. It bewilders, surprises, evolves and resists its own
categories, and it flies in the face of the neurotypicals who try to package and control it. It is the spirit of the neurodiversity rebellion, and that’s what makes it truly fantastic.
References
- Haagaard, Alexandra. ‘How “The Accountant” Victimizes the Autistic Community’ on The Establishment http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/10/17/how-the-accountant-victimizes-the-autistic-community/ (accessed: 19/11/16)
- Murray, Stuart. Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2008)
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