On the offensive

“Retarded kids in the back wearing helmets.”

That was a phrase Morgan Spurlock, filmmaker of Super Size Me (in which he ate an all-McDonald’s diet for a month and chronicled the attendant decline in his health), was said to have used in a speech at Hatboro-Horsham High School’s (Pennsylvania) health fair. Spurlock also mocked the intelligence of McDonald’s workers and, on being criticized by Superintendant William Lessa, defended his right to free speech. (The high schoolers gave Spurlock a stand ovation.)

As an autism parent I ought to be offended. As the mother of Charlie, who tested in the “lowest percentile” on a psychological evaluation administered by our school district, and who has self-injurious behaviors including head-banging, I ought to be throwing the greasey, ketchupy contents of Micky D’s trash bins at filmmaker Spurlock. Just who does he think he’s offending?

But the McDonald’s behemoth can take Spurlock’s jabs; 50 or whatever billion are still being served. I’m already steamed at the Golden Arches for several years of lying about the gluten-free casein-free content of their French fries.

I object to Spurlock’s references to the low intelligence of fast-food workers and of kids who have to sit in the back and wear helmets. (Charlie, when he attended public school, usually sat in the front, the better for him to pay attention.) Au contraire, we–Spurlock and those cheering high school students—make the gravest error in presuming the lack of understanding and intellectual ability in kids like Charlie. Spurlock & co. presume incompetence in kids like Charlie and thereby reveal a stunning lack of imagination.

So I’m not offended. But you, Morgan Spurlock, ought to be, for such a total show of ignorance and Super-Mini-Me-Size thinking.