Janine and Gregory - the portrayal of Autism in Abbott Elementary
Video made a while back but am trying to get my uploads shared! In this video, we discuss disability representation in media, a lot of issues in how characters explicitly confirmed to be autistic are portrayed (ex. Hero Elementary, the Proud Family reboot, etc.) and how Janine and Gregory give some interesting insights into being Black and autistic.
Some Excerpts:
Disability coding is only a form of subtext. It doesn't substitute hiring disabled people who make about a quarter of the population and are systemically excluded from these roles. Tyler James Williams to my knowledge is not autistic or if he is he's not public about it, though he does have Crohn's disease.
The biggest way I identify with reading Janine as an autistic Black woman is in the amount of hate she gets from many viewers who specifically hone in on her lack of social cues, body language, and personality that they find incredibly annoying because these are the exact ways people talk about real-life autistic people when we unmask for even a second.
Gregory doesn't get the same amount of the pushback or hate that Jacob and Janine get, but it's also important to note that literally his entire characters centers heavily around an autistic Black man made to mask regularly. There's a reason he was so hesitant to share that he didn't like pizza.
Janine gets the load of pushback he doesn't largely because she's a woman who doesn't mask.
Any time you point out the latest thing labeled "cringe" or "annoying" or "chronically online" are overwhelmingly traits associated with disabled people, out come the people saying "well, I wasn't talking about you" and that's kind of the problem because disabled people are so rarely considered in most circumstances.
Chadwick Boseman was treated this way when people were mocking him for his thinner appearance and making all sorts of memes. But then he showed that he had cancer and suddenly then were they sympathetic. Disabled people don't owe you a specific performance of their disability to be treated with respect.
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Harvey ran into Abbott Elementary’s Lisa Ann Walter at the Jinkx and Dela Holiday Show in LA, while sporting his Jiraiya sweater by Massive Goods.
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LISA ANN WALTER, QUINTA BRUNSON
SHERYL LEE RALPH & JANELLE JAMES
📷 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture (July 01, 2023)
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LISTEN; I AM UPSET I NEVER LEARNED HOW TO MAKE GIFS WHEN I WAS 13 AND CHRONICALLY ONLINE IN THIS HELLSITE.
The reason being how selfishly I NEED someone to make a gifset of Lisa saying “Barbara Howard, woman of God. Melissa Schemmenti, angry slut” and Quinta correcting her to “Melissa Schemmenti, angry TEACHER slut”
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Congrats to the Abbott Elementary cast who picked up 4 statues at the HCATV Awards:
Best Broadcast Comedy
Best Actress - Quinta Brunson
Best Supporting Actress - Janelle James
Best Writing
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The flowers Oprah sent Quinta Brunson in celebration of her Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series are understated and modest.
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