Rethinking Autism

There have been many push-backs to Jenny McCarthy and her views on autism. There has been a lot of blogging, including right here on LeftBrainRightBrain. There is a website StopJenny. There is a Jenny McCarthy body count. Now there is a new site, Rethinking Autism. While it doesn’t directly mention Jenny McCarthy, it is pretty clear that she was a prime motivator for that project.

The person who created Rethinking Autism describes herself this way:

I am the mother of an autistic boy. I have had enough of the pseudo-science quackery that certain celebrities are pitching to parents of kids with autism. The media is concentrating on the pseudo-science and there needs to be a forum for more tried and tested information. It is virtually impossible for an individual to deliver a counter-message, but I may have found a way with RethinkingAutism.com.

The main page carries this message:

All too often in the world of autism, celebrity and sex appeal are used to promote pseudo-science that exploits autistic people, their family members and the public. We decided to put those very same factors to work in service of the truth.

What is her method? Videos. Not just videos, but videos that use autism, celebrity and sex appeal. OK, the Rethinking Autism “celebrity” is not as well known as Jenny McCarthy, but you will get the idea with these videos, by Leeann, who:

Leeann is the friend of a family with an autistic child. When asked if she would help, she graciously agreed. She immediately understood the tongue-in-cheek nature of the spots and, as you’ll see, brought her “A” game!

I’m also rather fond of this one…

There are a number of good videos, as well as concise, clear “key concepts”.

I got a good chuckle out of the videos–and I like the message being sent.

Over at Lisa Jo Rudy’s Autism.About.Com blog, there has been some discussion of these videos. Lisa poses this thought:

In my opinion, Commandatore may get a good deal of personal publicity for her arty and provocative style. She’s also likely to get a lot of flack for her anti-feminist, disrespectful approach to autism education. She’s unlikely, however, to make much impact as an educator.

The way I see it, this is as much a satire on the entire “sex sells” advertising culture as the vaccines-cause-autism-gotta-cure culture. As such, I didn’t see it as anti-feminist. However, I am a heterosexual male and a product of the “sex sells” culture, so I may be biased.

There is also discussion in the comments there about whether Jenny McCarthy was in any way an inspiration for the Rethinking Autism website. Commenter Lynne states:

Jenny isn’t posing seductively to tell the story of her son or otherwise leveraging her sexuality to share her experience with autism with other families. It’s a HUGE leap to say that Jenny McCarthy is responsible in any way for these totally dumb videos.

I find it odd that people who can draw such concrete conclusions from such bad data (i.e. vaccines caused an epidemic of autism, or Jenny McCarthy has a cure for autism) can’t see what is a much more simple connection. I’d bet good money that Rethinking Autism wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Jenny McCarthy. And, what’s with that “…or otherwise leveraging her sexuality…”. Please. Jenny McCarthy has been leveraging her sexuality for about 20 years now. Do you really think that Jenny McCarthy would be on Larry King Live or Oprah without her career selling her sexuality? Come on.

Consider this. Before Jenny McCarthy telling about vaccines causing autism and recovered kids there was Stan Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is quite good at self promotion too. But, this is Stan Kurtz:

Stan Kurtz

Not a bad looking guy, but no potential male model either. Not a celebrity. No autism national exposure pre-Jenny McCarthy either. Yes, correlation is not causation. But, really, does anyone think he was going to be invited onto, say, The Doctors, without Jenny McCarthy?

Sorry, there is a very clear reason why Jenny McCarthy gets camera time. It isn’t because she is such a good writer (I’m not impressed). It isn’t because her message is new (it isn’t). I welcome Rethinking Autism’s approach to both the Jenny McCarthy message and the “Sex Sells” culture.