How Will Ransom Notes Go Down in History?
December 18, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Books, College, Disability Rights, History, Media, Money, Psychiatry
I just got off the phone with a TV producer who wants to do a segment on the by-now-beyond infamous “Ransom Notes” ad campaign that the New York York University Child Study Center has created to raise what it deems “public awareness” about six childhood psychiatric disorders” that are (it says) “one of America’s last remaining silent public health epidemics.” The producer wished to interview someone who is critical of the campaign in northern New Jersey (that more or less describes me) and also to film an autistic child at home with his or her family.
That won’t be us.
I obviously write a lot about Charlie here, but, aside from a very occasional photo, my son is represented here through words alone. I especially like to describe our adventures (like this weekend’s BBDO extravaganza on the subway, PATH, and train) because that’s what life feels like for us: It’s an unexpected journey that we’ve found ourselves on, courtesy of our son Charlie. It’s not a desperate quest to find a lost shell of a child, or a “normal” child who’d been kidnapped away and replaced with…….one who has autism. But once the camera—a camera held by a complete stranger who is looking for the right personages to fill a story—-is rolling, the representation of my son is quite taken out of my hands. What might the personnel on a local network’s news team make of a few minutes of one autistic child’s day? There are already billboards and ads aplenty all over New York City presenting an image of my son as “kidnapped by autism“—a notion that is simply incorrect, inaccurate, and ultimately harmful.
Iif I had to sum up what troubles me about the NYU Center’s “Ransom Notes” campaign, it is that an educational institution—-a child study center that is part of a major university in New York city—-is behind such such a “public awareness” campaign, which rather smacks of yellow journalism at its most simplistic. I understand that the “Ransom Note” ads were created by a New York-based advertising agency; Fast Company.com (whose initials would be “FC,” ironically to the writer of an autism blog) praises the “Ransom Notes” campaign precisely for its success, however negative and wrong more than a few of us think its message. (I’ve been kind of getting the feeling that the negative response to “Ransom Notes” is being viewed positively by its creators: The public’s attention is attention, after all.)
New York University’s Center for Students with Disabilities notes that it provides services that “are designed to encourage independence and self-advocacy, backed by a comprehensive system of supports.” New York University Press has published a number of books in the field of disability studies, including Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone by Syracuse University professor Douglas Biklen; Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by English professor Robert McRuer; and a series on the history of disability edited by historians Paul Longmore and Lauri Umansky. In the wake of the “Ransom Notes” campaign and the response to it, an interesting chapter in the “marketing of disability” and what TAAP founder Estee Klar-Wolfond calls the economy of pity could certainly be written. If the only aim of the “Ransom Notes” campaign is to “raise public awareness,” why, when one clicks on the “make a difference” button on the NYU Child Study Center’s website, does one come to a webpage soliciting online donations, rather than further instruction from this academic center about how to understand and support those with disabilities?
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
That is what so irritating. Why must there be an autistic child and a mom? It would be great if you were interviewed But what about Ari????
He is immediately discounted ’cause he is on the spectrum. It is such BS.
Yeah, why NOT an autistic adult for a change? Nothing against you, of course, Kristina. But it’s US they’re talking about this way.
Indeed, why not an autistic adult. Current and future autistic adults would benefit immensely from having autistic adults in the public eye. This kid, kids, kids thing is just plain weird.
I see no reason why you would need to have your child filmed. Anyone can criticize this campaign, with or without a relationship to someone that is on the spectrum.
It is an interesting outgrowth of this new media where the former subjects of old media now have their own voice and do not have to capitulate in order to have themselves heard.
Boy do I have a lot to say about all this. But not for public consumption, not just yet.
Send your TV guy to my house. He can film Sam biting himself so they have a true picture of autism.
I referred the reporter to Ari and they had spoken to him, too. But they did want to the “family and child at home” angle too.
Maybe they could film Kassiane being spanked and discuss the underlying reasons why she enjoys that.
I don’t think I could deal with it. It is bad enough to hear the sympathetic tone people use when they find out my daughter is autistic, even though she is on the high functioning end of the spectrum. All I get is “Will she outgrow it?”, like ‘it’ is a dirty thing she caught as a child.
These were my thoughts exactly: Talk to some adults with autism and show exactly how “kidnapped” they are…….not. It’s the best possible way to get the message across. People with autism are people, inside and out, not empty shells or kidnapped personalities trying to escape. They are who they are, just like everyone else.
The news is about entertainment and ratings. Period.
Thus blood, fires, arguments, kids, and puppy dogs rule the editing suite. Pretty much in that order. Any communication of real information to the public is completely secondary.
Joe
That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do the piece. Just realize what they’re really looking for.
Joe
I kind of laughed when I read this, in a way. Autism has always been portrayed as a childhood disorder; frankly, I don’t exist in the American psyche. But the alternative is funny; imagine people filming our family gatherings (we’d come off more like “The View” than a desperation story)! Perhaps we could keep silent on who was kidnapped, and award prizes for those who guessed correctly (2/5 is a pretty good chance, with others who probably should be in various categories).
That aside, I am frustrated with the “attention is attention” edge. So typical of a media campaign, but what happened to ethics? It’s like being inflammatory is a goal for the sake of being inflammatory, because in terms of spreading actual awareness this has done nothing (other scare people and increase stigma).
Cliff
Awareness is the lowest form of comprehension. Hasn’t autism gone beyond simple awareness? A more appropriate goal would result in more approriate billboards. I am hearing impaired, my son is blind and on the spectrum, and frankly, “awareness” doesn’t cut it anymore.
I can understand not wanting Charlie filmed. I am glad they called you about representing everyone. Good luck!
Dogs and car accidents.
I agree wholeheartedly with your not wanting Charlie filmed, Kristina. The media has their own agenda & once they have the film, they’re in control & can portray things any way they want to (not unlike the so-called reality shows so popular these days…). You are an excellent communicator, so there’s no need to put your family in this sort of situation in order to get your position publicised- thank goodness!
I’ve thrown together a series of questions that I was hoping might be helpful to thoughtful people who find themselves “on the fence” regarding this kind of “awareness.” Having brooded over it for too long, as usual, I find I have little perspective for how others might see it. It certainly needs to be reworked, but at the moment, I’m not sure how.
The thing I always find most wanting in discussions of such stuff is a solid sense of the pervasiveness and relentlessness of the prejudice that is created and exacerbated by “edgy” rhetoric like that of the “Ransom Notes” campaign, and how that prejudice destroys quality of life day-by-day, year after year, without end. For those of us who have been made the target of it, the sense of its harmfulness is visceral, burned into our flesh — words are not necessary. But for those who have never been the target of pervasive prejudice, it’s as if no amount of explanation or description can possibly get through the shell of naïveté and/or resistance. Just as it is with racial and ethnic relations. Same problem. How to convey the depth and magnitude of damage done? I dunno…
Anyway, here’s my most recent (and tentative) installment in the discussion. Hopefully it’s not too awfully redundant:
NYU’s “Ransom Notes” campaign: How Will It Work?
Conspicuously absent is any mention of Koplewicz’s co-authorship of the highly unethical Paxil Study 329, and the highly profitable web of influence shared by the key players in this campaign … I’m not at all sure how to work that in without conveying even more bias to readers. Maybe the most useful thing would be to develop a more coherent thesis, and then stick to it. We’ll see.
Kristina, while I am sure that the newsroom wants to have a child with autism on TV, the experience that we have had is that unless you can obtain approval before it goes on the air, you really don’t know what is going to go out, or how it is edited…or at least that is the experience that I and a couple of families have had locally. I would not do it again unless I had prior review.
I still do not like the “Ransom Notes” campaign for many of the same reasons that many in addition to myself have stated, and because I think that they have misgauged the public effect. But to be somewhat fair to NYU, besides the donations (I found the example of $5000 *interesting*), there is also an option to volunteer at the center, depending on what opportunities exist (more of administrative, but some assistant positions as well).
Browsing the site, I found this video and I wondered if it might have had an influence on the current campaign, based on some overlap of wording. I had not seen this film before:
“Childhood: Lost and Found, a short film produced exclusively for the Child Study Center by Nathaniel Kahn, Academy Award-nominated director of My Architect (2004), premiered at the 9th Annual Child Advocacy Award Dinner on December 4, 2006. The film featured a series of short vignettes with patients and families treated at the NYU Child Study Center. It tells the emotional story of children and families impacted by autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, selective mutism, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder and how they have found a path to wellness through the NYU Child Study Center. ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXUUHihgMM8
Thanks for finding the film, Regan—-I suspect that prior review may not have been offered in this case. Thanks for noting that.
dkm, you wrote “pervasiveness and relentlessness”—–I still feel a twinge when certain now “outdated” terms are used to refer to Asians and Asian American. (I won’t go into depictions of women in ad campaigns or I will go off on a tangent……..) For all the “awareness” that has supposedly been in place, “Ransom Notes” seems very much a throwback to an earlier, less “enlightened” time.
“I’ve been kind of getting the feeling that the negative response to “Ransom Notes” is being viewed positively by its creators: The public’s attention is attention, after all.”
The campaign was meant to outrage and it doesn’t take much talent to outrage. I’m living proof of that
Kristina: “For all the “awareness” that has supposedly been in place…”
Indeed, Harold’s dubious laments notwithstanding, “political correctness” stands sorely charged. The opiate of the masses’ conscience, as it were.
Once I (finally) learned of the spectrum, and began to understand how it defined my relationship with society (such as it is), it didn’t take me long to see the commonalities shared by all “out-groups” — and why my steadfast LACK of faith in both authority and “good intentions,” contrary to what I have been endlessly told, is about as “maladaptive” as using lungs for breathing.
Just as the male “experts” who “studied women’s issues” in the 1800’s and beyond lent impunity to abusive husbands and all aspects of patriarchy; just as the “experts” who “proved” that blacks were “inherently less intelligent” than whites lent impunity to lynchmobs and legislators alike; just as the “model minority” perception has lent impunity to the pervasive societal ignorance and dismissal of the needs of the Asian-American community; so, the “awareness” rhetoric as exemplified by Koplewicz’s ill-fated campaign threatened to lend even more impunity to the ongoing wholesale dehumanization and abuse of the entirety of the disability and neurodiversity communities — impunity for the forgivably clueless “PCers” who populate our lives, and impunity for abusers ranging from those who genuinely mean well to those who openly hate and kill, from bullies on the playground to the systematic horrors such as are practiced at the Judge Rotenburg Center and so many other institutions…
And they just can’t understand why we would be so ungrateful. After all, they’re only trying to help.
Oh, I keep forgetting: rebellion against abuse is conclusive evidence of pathology.
:-p
Too little too late?
It took Harold Koplewicz too long to realize that hurting people you want to “help” is not acceptable collateral damage. We should write these officials to thank them for pulling the ads and request that they WATCH THE KOP to make sure he doesn’t try anything this dirty again to drum up business in the name of public awareness:
Kenneth Langone, Board Chairman
New York University Medical Center
ken@invemed.com
Martin Lipton, Board of Trustee Chairman
New York University
mlipton@wlrk.com
John Sexton, President
New York University
john.sexton@nyu.edu