We Are the Cure

Without a doubt, X2 was the best of the X-men movies. There were memorable characters, a strong story, and even the most insignificant characters (in this incarnation of the X-men continuity) like Iceman, Rogue and the lizard tongued kid who only got two major scenes total got some modicum of development.

You know what, I loved X-men Origins: Wolverine too. Liev Schriber's Sabertooth could bend Tyler Mane's character over a table and make the latter feel greatful for the experience. And I don't care what anyone says, I think they gave us just enough Gambit to satisfy my love for seeing my two favorite X-men mutants in one movie.

It's this "I don't care what anyone says, I like X" mentality that irritates so many people. It's the idea that no matter what fault your favorite movie, show, book or political party possesses you will gleefully overlook it out of blind love.

There are many explanations people choose for this. You're "brainwashed", you're "stupid, retarted, etc." None of them are any better reasoned than your reasons for liking something that so many people hate. So it comes to that point where you have to just decide what is more important: Enjoying what you love and taking a bullet for it, or pleasing the crowd and renouncing your faith in it, convincing yourself that this is your opinion and not theirs.

God knows I've been in that situation time and again. When I was a kid I would outright declare my love for shows like Dinosaurs and Power Rangers, because it was true. I loved these shows. But if a group of kids I was trying to look cool for decided those shows sucked, I would immediately berate them just to get accepted into that group.

This was back when I was desperate to fit in, or when grown ups were more concerned with my fitting in than my having any individuality at all. The fact that I was fourteen and was in love with shows like Samurai Cyber Squad wasn't acceptable to them, so naturally I had something wrong with them.

It was that mentality more than anything that lead to the whole Asperger's diagnosis. It wasn't me feeling bad about myself and not understanding why I couldn't fit in. It wasn't like most stories I read about online where the kid always felt like he was different. I knew I was different and I just truly didn't care what anyone thought of me. The reason I wanted to fit in had nothing to do with liking anyone, it had to do with not wanting to get the crap kicked out of me on the way home from school. I figured if I had friends then maybe people wouldn't mess with me so much.

In high school this guy would give me a hard time, not for liking Star Trek, but for talking about it. In the mind of this pasty-faced emaciated child of a broken family, it was perfectly acceptable for him to threaten me, to follow me home and intimdate me, and to harrass me every second he could get. (Mind you he never actually attacked me. To this day I wish I had tested my theory of him being a weak little putz, but that was then and now I could go to prison for acting on the urge. Take note kids, if you think there's a chance in hell you could beat up your bully, do it and feel better for the effort rather than let him walk all over you.)

What made it worse, wasn't the bullying itself, but the fact that teachers and people who should have been punishing this awful behavior kept making excuses for it. There is no justification for bullying, ever. There's no justification for making someone's life a living hell just because you don't like them or what they have to say, but my own fucking high school principal continuously chose to look the other way instead of acting on her responsibility to keep her students safe.

I was being punished for...being who I was. There is no other way to say it.

And maybe when you read this entry, you will see why I obect to the reasoning that lead to my diagnosis. It wasn't out of some need to identify what was "wrong" with me. The diagnosis was forced on me by those very people who were supposed to protect me. It was a label that gave them a convenient out. Instead of addressing the problem of bullying, they blamed me, the victim and the bullies had carte blanche to treat me like shit because they knew there would be no consequence.

Asperger's Syndrome was not and still is not the answer to all of my trials and tribulations. It doesn't foster a desire in me to change and be more like others. All it does is remind me of yet another instance of feeling like I was being blamed for who I was.

This is what kind of prompts the title of the blog entry and the intro explaining my love of certain chapters of the X-men franchise. The quote comes from Magneto's speech in X-men Last Stand, a movie that most people agree was pretty crappy. That is also one that I can say I didn't find to be the best of the series. Although the Iceman/Pyro battle was worth waiting for.

Still, Magento's speech stands in my mind as kind of a pseudo-mission statement of sorts in response to certain events in the media.

Autism Speaks, for example, is gungho for a "cure" for Autism. Like the politicians in X-men who can only see the negative aspects of having a unique genetic mutation, the people who work for this organization suffer from a case of tunnel vision.  They can only see Autism and autistic spectrum disorders as a problem and the people who are afflicted are, in their minds, broken somehow. 

Jodi Piccoult, the author of House Rules doesn't do much better. Jacob, the main character is a character suffering from high functioning autism person with a love for forensic science who winds up in trial for murder. And the entire time, no one listens to him or his side of the story. The so called "neurotypical" people never once ask him if he committed the murder. They take everything at face value and weep for the poor sick, innocent boy who is only one "You don't got legs Lieutenant Dan" away from being the stereotype mentally disabled character.

Funny, I thought it was only us Aspies who were supposed to take everything literally and not be able to read beyond what we're shown. And the funny thing is, that like the lobbyists for Autism Speaks, and the fictional-yet-all-too-familiar behavior of the characters in House Rules, nobody is asking us if we want a cure or feel like there is something that needs to be cured.

Similarly, if I enjoy a movie, or anything really, what right is it of the average person to judge me based on that? I won't go so far as to say that there are some crappy movies out there. I've known people who are quite idiotic and yes, these are the people who call movies like Eragon "original and phenomenol", but my judgment against them is more or less based on what I all ready know about them. I know people who like Eragon but still manage to be decent people inspite of it.

What it comes right down to is this. The majority of Aspies I have met, the ones like Alex Plank who only try to foster understanding, would never try to force our beliefs on someone.

We love what we love certainly. At the drop of a hat, I could go on and on about what I love about Babylon 5, but I don't because I realize that not everyone wants to hear about it. That is a skill I have honed. Respect for another person's space and not using them as a thin occupying space is something that everyone should learn, not just Aspies. But the fact that I love Babylon 5 and am obsessed with it is not a symptom or a thing that needs to be removed to make me a better person. Toned down, certainly, but not removed.