Today’s Man: A sister’s view of her AS brother
November 5, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Today’s Man is the name of a new documentary about 28-year-old Nicky Gottlieb, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Gottlieb’s sister, New York filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb, made the film. “‘Nicky had been this sort of strange and mysterious child……He was the most interesting, unique, odd person I knew,’” she says in an article in the November 4th New York Daily News.
Nicky Gottlieb was not diagnosed with AS until after his sister had started to film the documentary.
“Physically, I’m a man,” Nicky says as the movie opens with his 21st birthday party. “But mentally and emotionally I’m a boy.”
……..
“I imagine a lot of people feel like Asperger’s is a real disability,” he said. “But at the same time you have some extraordinary abilities – math, foreign languages, dates. I don’t mean to flatter myself, but that seems like real genius.”
Nicky Gottlieb’s parents, former New Yorker magazine editor Robert Gottlieb and actress Maria Tucci, also appear in the film.
Today’s Man premiered at the Nantucket Film Festival and will be shown Friday, November 10, at the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History.
I wonder who taught him that men only feel a certain way and that if he felt another way or reasoned another way then he was still a boy. People don’t come up with that formulation on their own.
Am wondering too about how his diagnosis after the film-making started might have affected things.
I am really excited to have come across the documentary. I help facilitate a parents group (as a volunteer) that meets while young adults with Aspergers are in a series of 8 classes learning social skills and independent living skills. This group is called Aspirations and is at The Ohio State University. We have monthly reunion meetings where I will share this documentary. This film tells so eloquently how we parents worry about what will happen to our young adults. How can we help them to live fulfilling lives and become as independent as possible. What will happen when we are gone? I am going to show this film to as many people as possible who have the means to help our young adults. I know the parents I have shared it with, just love it, as I do! Thank you, Gottlieb family, you are helping many people by telling your story so well!!