Like I said in my review, Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman work together in an effort that pays off in the end; so I for certain respect the care put into creating such an emotional feature. However, we should understand the dated representation of autism in Rain Man.
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Raymond for the most part accurately depicts the truth about autism, except more to influence Charlie’s story than to give a hopeful view of someone with extra difficulties. Raymond’s dialogue composes mostly of: “Yeah.” “Definitely.” “Uh-oh.” “I’m an excellent driver.” He must keep everything throughout the week at a strict schedule—even when in Vegas, the bed must always be next to the window.

Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic, Lesson #37: They Like to Set a Schedule.

Raymond’s mental development causes a lot of inner confusion, so he always stares into space while swaying on his feet, listening only half the time. Then whenever he senses something awful could happen to him, he erupts into dangerous outbursts and self-abuse.

Click here to read my review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
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When around his beasts, Newt openly understands their needs, laying on them both a gentle hand and a firm discipline. However, when around people, Newt’s speech turns quiet, words and eye contact kept to a minimum. Like Newt, many autistic individuals too obsess over an abnormal strength, unfortunately at the cost of forming easy people relationships.

Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic, Lesson #19: They Have Their Own Exceptional Talents.
Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids, Lesson #21: They Have Delayed Speech and Language.

Newt proved throughout Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that he’s hard to trust because he underestimates the severity of certain situations. Newt most wants to convince the wizarding community that these fantastic beasts aren’t dangerous, and of course, they are certainly dangerous, as the Erumpent and Occamy both cause extreme property damage. Likewise, due to misunderstanding instructions or underestimating situations, some neurotypicals can have trust issues with those on the autism spectrum.

Click here to read my review of Finding Dory.
Click here to see my ranking of all of Pixar's films.

To tell the truth, I originally feared Finding Dory would become the writers taking advantage of nostalgic fan service to exploit the comedy within the famous tang’s short-term memory loss. You know what though? Finding Dory actually showed quite a bit of the tragedy behind her condition.

While the film does at times play off her disability for laughs, Dory’s disability still comes off as a hindrance in the road to her survival. Yet she eventually recalls some memories by other relatable objects or phrases, such as a path of seashells pointed back home.

I too feel deprived of the same conveniences as my peers due to mental drawbacks; it often takes me longer to register a person’s transparent emotions, and I sometimes say something unintentionally offensive to another. As a teenager, you could almost wonder if I had any control at all over my inappropriate verbal comments. My autism especially made it a challenge for me to understand the rules of friendship; today I am still figuring out the science behind it.

Click here to read my review of La La Land.

Everybody has a dream. La La Land tells us about two star-crossed lovers whose contradicting dreams challenged their relationship and their priorities. It makes you wonder, what’s most important? Your loved ones or your dreams?

Various people may abandon family time to get a promotion they always wanted, and others may miss out on grandpa’s birthday party to continue soccer practice motivated by possibly becoming the “world’s greatest soccer player.” While different for everybody, we all pine after one specific title to obtain before we die. Well let me tell you, even anyone with autism have dreams.

In fact, dreams for those on the spectrum can be more vividly realized, including what will happen in the future and when. These dreams could even start when they were very little.

Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids, Lesson #49: What Were Your Strongest School Subjects?

Click here to read my review of Moonlight.

​Moonlight shows us all the troubles that one boy goes through as he grows up feeling like he’s a homosexual. It is always a confusing place to be when you are young, when you feel uncontrollable romantic desires towards someone of the same sex, and yet are not mature enough to know what to make of it, especially when the other kids at school pick on you because they can sense that you are different.

So imagine how much harder it would be if somebody on the autism spectrum grew up thinking that they were gay or a lesbian?

Six-Word Lessons for Autism Friendly Workplaces, Lesson #31: Discrimination Can Surface in Various Forms.

Just like in Moonlight, a boy can become a fast subject of bullying because he’s different in two different ways: skin color and sexual orientation. But in the case of this movie, he’s in an all-Black school, but still has one of these differences from the crowd. Yet imagine if he was in another school of mostly White students, how much more the bullying would get to him? In that same way, anybody who is both autistic and gay would become a walking dartboard for bullies. Yet it’s different in the case of being autistic rather than being Black because those on the spectrum have a harder time putting their concerns into words.

​Click here to read my original review on Zootopia.
Take a look at my ranking of all 55 of Disney's animated classics, and see where Zootopia stacks up with the others!​

We all know about the heavily blunt themes of prejudice and racism in Zootopia, and it’s no secret that the treatment between predators and prey disturbingly parallels our own society. Say whatever you can about the treatment between the police and Blacks, or politicians and immigrants, or virtually any religious group against a much greater body, but the one piece of unfair prejudice I would like to discuss relates to how everybody has some form of unfair opinions about people with autism.

Every day I come across people who look down upon me because they know that I am “different” from everybody else. Even if somebody is trying to be accepting and friendly to me, they still set me aside to give more attention to their other “normal” friends. I will admit, I am not much of a talker, and socializing is relatively difficult for me. You also could call me “not the most fun talker,” not to be self-degrading. But from my experiences out in a crowd, I often feel that although people may feel they’re accepting me and giving me a fair treatment, they really just say a few brief sentences, get uncomfortable, then move on to chat with someone else. Now, this doesn’t happen all the time, but it has still been common with many of my interactions. Despite people’s self-assumptions, they can still unintentionally shun a person with autism because of their blatant differences.

Click here to read my original review on ​Beauty & the Beast.

“This Disney film features their first exclusively gay moment!” “If Emma Watson wants women to have equal choice, freedom, and liberation, why is she wearing barely any clothes in Vanity Fair Magazine?” We all know of the controversy triggered by Disney to get more people talking about this movie, which if you ask me, contributes relatively nothing when you’re the most successful family entertainment industry in the world. So why do so many businesses and companies want to stir up attention based on sexuality?

In today’s age of mobile technology, information can circulate faster than you can take a breath, so talking about something to attract a plethora of mixed heated opinions guarantees greater attention given to the source. However, just because a business can generate revenue a certain way does not mean they should.
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To prove my point, I’ll explain it from the perspective of autism.

Click here to read my original review on Life.

Aliens. Hollywood’s always been obsessed with them. As far back as Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon in 1902, the concept of life on other planets has been meticulously explored. Many film critics have pointed out numerous parallels between aliens and international relations, The Day the Earth Stood Still being a common example, but never pointed out a parallel that makes perfect sense: the similarities between aliens and autism.

Here are some examples:

War of the Worlds (1953)

Martians arrive with the intent of annihilating the human race. From the human’s perspective, they are here to cause chaos and mass hysteria. Think about how people looked at autism back in the 1950’s, as back then it was dismissed as the now unacceptable phrase, “mental retardation.” They too thought at the time that anyone who was mentally handicapped was a recipe for chaos in social order.