What Have You Got Against Rainman?
a personal view by Anna Hayward

"Rain Man" was an otherwise excellent movie, about a playboy (Tom Cruise) and his autistic older brother (Dustin Hoffman), who Tom Cruise's character "rescues" from an institution and consequently learns a lot about love and acceptance and how life isn't just about money. It is probably the most well known movie with an autistic character, and for many, the first time they ever heard about a condition called "Autism".

Dustin Hoffman's character, Raymond, "Rain Man" was supposed to be an autistic savant, that is, someone who is quite low-functioning in most areas of life, but with a couple of truly remarkable abilities, such as the ability to do mental arithmetic faster than an electronic calculator. He also memorised TV shows and had to watch certain shows at certains times of day, regardless what else was happening in his life (Cruise buys him a portable TV set) and will only wear K-Mart clothes.

Hoffman's portrayal was believeable in many ways (he had obviously spent some time with autistics in order to copy their body language etc.) but "believable" is not the same as "accurate". The problem is, the character was based on one or two real people with autism, but autistics like everyone else, are individuals, and a remarkably small number of autistics have mathematical abilities even approaching "Rain Man". But Rain Man has become the stereotype, and unfortunately, to many, if you say a person is autistic, they assume that that person has incredible abilities with maths, is unable to go anywhere without a portable TV set, in case their favourite show comes on, and has to wear clothes from K-Mart!

The movie also showed Tom Cruise's character learning that his autistic brother really couldn't cope in the outside world, and was better inside a closed institution. However, in real life, a person with "Rain Man"s abilities could probably learn to live within the community, albeit with assistance (something known as "Assisted Independent Living"). In many parts of the world, care for people with such disabilities is moving away from the big institutions and more towards small units (such as "group homes"). The unquestioning acceptance that institutional life, and being kept out of society, was best simply because he had a disability, was offensive to many.

An an additional gripe I have with the movie is the definition of "savant". They do not appear to use the definition in common usage today, but seem to be using it in the sense of the obsolete term "idiot savant". It gives the impression that only "low functioning" autistics can have savant skills; and that savant skills are extraordinarily rare, when in fact they may actually be quite common within the autistic community.

Dislike for Rain Man is not universal on the newsgroup - some of our members strongly relate to him (especially his sensory hypersensitivities and difficulty with concepts such as money), but if you do read derogatory remarks about him on a.s.a., or hear people make sarcastic remarks about not being able to count toothpicks thrown on the floor, or instantly calculate 693*575 in their heads, understand that they are simply reacting to the stereotype.

© Anna Hayward

Originally compiled by Anna Hayward on behalf of the alt.support.autism newsgroup, November 2000. Original site design and HTML by Kalen Molton. Please address any general queries to Mike Stanton. Broken links and problems of a technical nature should be addressed to John Muggleton by entering details in the comments box of the form here. Any opinions expressed in this article are personal and should not be construed as medical advice. We are not representatives of any of the companies discussed, nor do we receive any form of commission.

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