Rohr Susanne
University of Hamburg, Institute for English and American Studies, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146, Hamburg, Germany,
J Med Humanit. 2015 Sep;36(3):231-40. doi: 10.1007/s10912-014-9287-3.
This two-step argument first establishes that the majority of recent American films dealing with mental illness draw on a traditional iconography of madness as it has been established over the centuries in Western culture. In this vocabulary of images, the mad are typically seen as wise fools, as dangerous villains or as gifted geniuses. The author then argues that some of these new films add a fourth category in which the mad are defined as normal and the person with autism as the embodiment of this normalcy. A close examination of the films then suggests that high functioning autism has become the embodiment of America's current cultural condition.
这个两步论证首先表明，近期大多数涉及精神疾病的美国电影借鉴了西方文化中几个世纪以来所确立的传统疯狂意象。在这种图像词汇中，疯子通常被视为智慧的傻瓜、危险的恶棍或有天赋的天才。作者接着指出，其中一些新电影增加了第四类，在这类电影中，疯子被定义为正常的，而自闭症患者则是这种正常状态的化身。随后对这些电影的仔细审视表明，高功能自闭症已成为美国当前文化状况的化身。
