If you’ve gone to see a movie in the last couple of months then it is possible that you have been accosted by the trailer for “The Unbreakable Boy.” The two and a half minute monstrosity is a very special kind of trailer, the kind that feels longer to sit through than the feature length film that follows.
“The Unbreakable Boy” is based on the nonfiction book of the same name, written by Scott Lerette and Susy Flory. The book is about Lerette’s relationship with his son Austin, who was born with brittle bones disease and is autistic. The about page on the book’s website describes the book as “journey of love, fatherhood failure, addiction, and faith.” While no trailer is capable of demonstrating any film’s complexity, it is incredibly disappointing that the trailer’s editors have decided to blame all of Lerette’s problems on Austin’s autism. In the trailers most dramatic moment, Lerette is distraught as he tries to get Austin to go to school but the boy decides to count all of toys before leaving, they have cut this to make it seem like a robot going haywire, as if autism is some malevolent curse that has afflicted this family.
It might seem odd to get this worked up over a two minute advertisement, but “The Unbreakable Boy” trailer is a microcosm of Hollywood’s weird, twisted and condescending view of neurodivergence. Perhaps this is just poor editing, but according to a review from Movies Through the Spectrum the film “promotes the concept that autism is something that needs fixing, divides families and triggers violence.”
“The Unbreakable Boy” is an odd vestige of the “inspiration porn” genre, films about a physically/intellectually disabled individual overcoming their disability and inspiring those around them. It is a shocking genre to see in 2025, like a revenant rising from the grave to torment neurodivergents who just want to watch “The Wild Robot” in peace.
While there were a few films before it, 1988’s “Rain Man” set the standard for what was to come. Not only was it the highest grossing film of the year but it netted four Oscars, one of which went to Dustin Hoffman for best actor for his portrayal of Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant. Success leads to imitation and despite savants making up a fraction of autism cases, films such as “The Wizard” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” copied “Rain Man’s” formula down to the misguided notion of what a savant even is.
In 2008 Ben Stiller directed the scathing satire of Hollywood “Tropic Thunder” in which he plays Tugg Speedman, an actor desperate to revive his acting career after starring in the movie-within-a-movie “Simple Jack” described as “the story of a mentally impaired farm hand who can talk to animals.” Speedman’s co-star Kirk Lazarus, played by Robert Downey Jr., delivers a very memorable lecture on why Simple Jack didn’t work. In about 45 seconds it deconstructs the callous cynicism of films like “Rain Man” and “Forrest Gump.” The thesis is essentially that films like Simple Jack only exist to objectify disabilities so that neurotypical actors can farm awards out of them.
“Tropic Thunder” really should have killed the genre — and it very nearly did — but in 2021 Sia released “Music” which she directed, wrote, produced and contributed music. The film, about an ex-drug dealer struggling to take care of her mute-austic sister named Music, was widely decried, not only for being terrible film, but for just how antediluvian its exploitation of autism seemed. It was exactly the type of shallow award hungry movie “Tropic Thunder” made fun of almost two decades ago.
But now halfway into the 2020s films like the “The Unbreakable Boy” keep rearing their head, a film whose trailer includes a scene where Austin proclaims “Nope, my brain is right here in my head on earth” mirroring Simple Jack’s saying, “I gotta g-g-good b…rain.”
These types of representations may even be tolerable if neurodivergence were allowed to do anything else in film. Currently there are two roles for neurodivergent characters, inspiring neurotypicals and being super detectives.
For close to a decade Shaun Murphy — the main character of David Shore’s medical drama “The Good Doctor” — was the most notable autistic representation on television, showing that even decades after its release, Hollywood is still content copy-pasting “Rain Man’s” vision of what a savant is. People like to excuse “The Good Doctor” because Shaun presents autistic people in a positive light, but negativity has rarely been the issue. There are tons of “positive” autistic characters, but they have always come filtered through a narrow view of a diverse condition.
It is not shocking that many people in the online neurodivergent community have latched onto Gregory House from David Shore’s other medical drama “House” as being better autism representation than Shaun, despite House not even being autistic. The reasoning is simple: Gregory is a fully developed three dimensional character. It is way easier to relate to someone experiencing actual emotions than to relate to a shallow gimmick like Shaun.
While there is a lot wrong in Hollywood’s vision of neurodivergence, there are stand out characters in the mix.
Last year’s “Alien: Romulus” featured the character of Andy Carradine, played by David Jonsson, a defective android who is incredibly socially awkward, a stickler for rules and loves dad jokes. Because of these differences, the crew aboard the Corbelan IV constantly insult and dismiss Andy as lesser than his human crewmates. Halfway through the film Andy implants himself with a new biochip which forcibly overwrites his personality into a bland corporate slave who is far more accepted by his crewmates. A very relatable story for autistic individuals masking as neurotypical in order to be accepted by those around them. However Andy under the biochip ends up causing unnecessary suffering and he removes the hostile biochip from his head, choosing to be his authentic self.
Much like the book series it is based on, the Disney Plus series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” features a cast of demigods all of whom have Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. The series manages to clearly represent its leads Percy and Annabeth as neurodivergent while also managing to avoid writing them as oversimplified checklists of ADHD symptoms. The series expands upon Percy’s struggles in education and how difficult it is for neurodivergents to learn in a system that is not designed for them.
Neither of these is the end all be-all of neurodivergence representation nor should they be. I’ve largely talked about autism because it is the condition most represented — and butchered — by Hollywood productions but neurodivergence also encompasses conditions like ADHD and dyslexia. The community is very diverse, pick any two people with ADHD and some of their symptoms will overlap while other symptoms will demonstrate in wildly different ways. There is a reason why autism is on a spectrum.
It is important for general audiences to have a clear understanding of neurodivergence. During the Elon Musk Nazi salute fiasco, Musk apologists tried the nonsensical defense that it couldn’t be a Nazi salute because of Musk’s Aspergers diagnosis. A similar situation happened weeks later when Kanye West, after proclaiming “I love Hitler,” went on a podcast claiming that his previous bipolar disorder diagnosis was wrong and that he is actually autistic. West then claimed his autism explained his repeated anti-semetic outbursts while explicitly comparing his situation to Rain Man. Defenders of Musk and West will use misconceptions about neurodivergence to excuse away bad behavior.
But it is important to remember that, for how outdated its portrayal may now seem, when “Rain Man” came out in 1988 research for autism skyrocketed and the public was more willing to acknowledge that it is actually okay to be disabled. A 2019 study found that people who watched the “Good Doctor” had more accurate knowledge of autism.
There is a tangible link between how the media presents neurodivergence and how the public perceives it. So more thoughtful portrayals of conditions like autism and ADHD can help to push back against the misinformed and often cruel intentions of bad faith actors who want to demonize those who are different from them.
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