“The Accountant” Tries To Be a Unique & Authentic Portrayal of Autism Using By the Numbers Stereotypes and No Actual Autistic People

The Accountant (which stars Ben Affleck & Anna Kendrick) is a film about an Autistic forensic accountant who is also a highly skilled hit man. The people behind the film (which opens on October 14) were featured in a recent LA Times article regarding what they did to make sure that the portrayal of an “Assassin-On-The-Spectrum” honestly.

The writer, director & stars all commented on how they tried to both turn the film narrative of autism on its head and maintain authenticity.

The problem is that based on everything that is revealed about the character in the piece actually sounds pretty much exactly like the same old tired Autism stereotypes that have been done before.

To add insult to injury the stated methods of attempting to ascertain that the film was accurate and inoffensive are deeply problematic and certainly don’t reassure me that due diligence was done.

This film hasn’t been released yet so I can’t actually speak to the full completed product but there is a lot in how those involved in the film are presenting both the autistic character, how they approached portraying him, and who they asked for feedback that is worth unpacking.

Let’s start by looking at the character Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck). They present the character as an edgy, unique autistic character who is different from other autistic characters that people have seen on screen before. This is why he is

A white male, unlike Raymond Babbitt, that kid from Mercury Rising, or Hugh Dancy’s character in Adam… Oh wait.

The vast majority of portrayals of disability not exclusive of autism are of white men. This is problematic in that it erases a visual representation of the huge diversity within the disabled population.

An autistic savant, unlike Raymond Babbitt, that kid from Mercury Rising, or Hugh Dancy’s character in Adam… Oh wait.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only autistic person who wishes that Hollywood would put a moratorium on autistic savant characters. Savantism is rare and does not accurately represent the average lived experience with autism. In film and television the opposite is apparently true. Autistic people who are not savants are basically an endangered species.

Does not achieve a lasting romantic relationship, unlike Raymond Babbitt,  or Hugh Dancy’s character in Adam… Oh wait.

Perhaps one the the most infuriating things said about Wolff’s character in the piece is when Ben Affleck says

“He doesn’t get the girl. … I thought it was so unique and surprising. It almost seemed too good to be true.”

No Ben. This is not unique. This is an insidious overly done stereotype in films in which disabled characters are routinely denied meaningful human relationships.

It’s only unique to actors like Affleck who are used to playing nondisabled leading men who get the girl as a matter of course.

As a disabled viewer of media the thing that would be to good to be true would be a film where the disabled character (who is preferably not a white  dude) actually gets the romantic ending. Not a film where either there is no suggestion of sexuality (Rain Man) or where the romance is destroyed as a direct result of the characters disability (Adam & potentially The Accountant. That remains to be seen).

Basically, the star of the film is excited about an aspect of the film that plays directly to  a harmful stereotype. It’s also so obvious a plot point that apparently it isn’t even a spoiler that should be kept under wraps at least until after the film is released.

*sigh*

The thing that is really supposed to make Christian Wolff different is the fact that he’s an assassin. I mean disabled characters being scary & dangerous is actually a pretty standard film trope (seriously pick a Bond film at random & see what I mean). So beyond the fact  that Wolff is the main character, I’m not sure how this is new or innovative. Dangerously disabled has in fact been done to death.

Then there is the issue of authenticity. The screenwriter Bill Dubuque says

“I’ve always been interested in how the mind works,” Dubuque said on a recent afternoon. “I thought: What if you could structure a story that was a mystery within a mystery? What goes on in this individual’s mind? How does he process information? How does he communicate with the rest of the world?”

How did they test if Dubuque got it right?

They screened it for Autism charities including Autism Speaks

The fact that they screened it for organizations rather than making a point to get the film in front of actual autistic people is already problematic but the fact that they highlight that they screened the film for Autism Speaks and present Autism Speaks as a reliable source of information is doubly problematic.

Autism Speaks has a particularly controversial relationship with actual autistic people. Ignoring that controversy and presenting Autism Speaks as an accurate gauge of the authenticity of autistic portrayal is basically giving Autistic people the finger.

Seriously, it is not hard to find autistic people criticizing Autism Speaks including Autistic People led advocacy organizations. Even mainstream media outlets have covered it.

Anna Kendrick asked the parent of an Autistic child

Anna Kendrick…admits she initially had concerns about whether the film would be able to represent autism in an accurate and nuanced way.

“A friend of mine has an autistic child, and I was so worried about telling her I was going to do a movie with this subject matter and potentially getting it wrong,” she said. “She was like, ‘I’m going to tell you something that somebody told me when my son was diagnosed: When you’ve met one autistic child, you’ve met one autistic child. To have an expectation that he should act this way or you should act that way — don’t even worry about that. Everyone is different.’”

The phrase “When you’ve met one autistic child, you’ve met one autistic child” exists to fight stereotyping of Autism. The fact that it is being used to basically say “do whatever you want, it’ll be fine” is really problematic.

The fact that Kendrick asked a parent rather than an actual autistic person is also problematic. Parents aren’t mind melded with their children and shouldn’t be assumed to be accurate surrogates for the opinions of the disabled community simply because they live in close proximity to disabled people.

Again, it really isn’t difficult to find disabled people criticizing the trend of prioritizing the views of nondisabled parents over the voices of actual disabled people. Heck, it’s not uncommon for disabled people to actively push back against parent rhetoric.

So what they apparently didn’t do,

Ask Autistic People

The Accountant is supposed to be a film about an Autistic character who not only holds down a job which requires him to interact with people but who also plans and carries out assassinations. So it posits that Autistic people can in fact exist in society. It is therefor frustrating that it didn’t seem to occur to the people involved in making of that film to actually talk to Autistic people. Instead preferring third person accounts of Autism from people who are not Autistic.

The only way this makes sense is if Christian Wolff does not turn out to be a character who actually exists in proximity to other people and the events of the film (his job, being an assassin) are in fact all in his head. And I really hope that the movie doesn’t go in that direction.

The failure to actively prioritize the narratives of Autistic people is unfortunate and does not convince me that authentic and honest portrayal were an important aspect of the film.

When people claim that authenticity of disability portrayal can come from organizations and parents rather than the actual people being portrayed I am not convinced that authenticity was the goal. I am convinced that the producers of that film are only interested in creating a veneer of authenticity to fool the primarily nondisabled audience. A veneer maintained so that the film industry can continue to create inaccurate fictions of disability that do not in any way reflect the actual disabled experience.

The LA times piece only makes me wonder if I’ll be able to do the Autism stereotype drinking game with The Accountant.

Take a shot every time they mention

Theory of mind

Autistic’s lack Empathy (is this why he’s such a good assassin? if so Fuck You)

Does some unnaturally talented math thing.

I await a time when authenticity actually requires the active and widespread involvement of the people being portrayed. Preferably both behind and in front of the camera.