Scary Movie for the Normal Set
April 23, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Autistic teenager Taylor Cross and his mother, Keri Bowers, have made a 90-minute autism documentary, Normal People Scare Me. An article in HYH (Have Ya Heard) Online Magazine notes:
Cross asks his subjects [who are from 9 to 57 years old] such questions as “What does autism look like from your perspective? Do you like or not like being autistic?; What do you want to be when you grow up?; Have you ever been teased?………“It doesn’t matter that I have a disability, I just want to be a film director,” notes Taylor. “I made this documentary to help parents of kids with autism, and to show other people that kids like me can do a lot of things – just like normal people.”
The film has sparked discussion among some in the autism community, and not only for its teenage ASD director and subject matter. Normal People Scare Me’s producer is Joey Travolta, brother of the actor John Travolta, whose son Jett may have autism. According to Hollywood, Interrupted, “The Scientology couple [Travolta and Kelly Preston, his wife] cannot even publicly admit that their son is afflicted with a neurological disorder.”
And that’s something that should scare all of us.
In the meantime, I’m looking forward to learning how to be less scary myself after watching Normal People Scare Me.
Check out the interview with Travolta on WrongPlanet.net (link to the article is put in the website field).
‘Thought you might be interested in what one of the alumni from the film is doing these days,
Candidate wears her difference with pride
Evan Delaney Rodgers runs for Carlsbad City Council
“…No stranger to the limelight, Rodgers was one of 65 young people with varying forms of autism interviewed a few years ago by teen film director Taylor Cross, who also has autism…The award-winning documentary, “Normal People Scare Me”, has been shown at film festivals world-wide and is used by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and many universities, high schools, and middle schools throughout the United States in a variety of classes…”