I'm no expert but I've never heard of autistic adults -- even high-functioning ones -- becoming parents. The level of bonding and empathy involved would seem to be very challenging and, I would guess, not very appealing. Am I wrong? How realistic is this?

Saying Sigourney's performance as an autistic performance plays like "a stunt"? Hmm! Eerily reminiscent of...EXACTLY what Pauline Kael said about Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man!

I know many people with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism--we have mild autism but are of average or above intelligence. Most of us are not cold ice buckets nor incapable of relating to others; in general, our trouble perceiving the nonverbal messages of others doesn't mean we don't understand or care about how others feel and what their unique personal needs are.

I'm not a parent myself but many of the aspies and HFA's I know do have children and are deeply bonded with them and are both responsible and loving parents. Some of those children are themselves on the autism spectrum (anywhere from mildly to severely autistic), and it can be easier for parents who are themselves autistic to understand what makes their autistic children tick.

Perhaps some aspie/HFA parents will come on this board and elaborate further!

...but the person above who remembers the exact word that Pauline Kael used to describe Dustin Hoffman's performance in a movie that is now almost twenty years old surely qualifies as some sort of cinematic savant.

Sorry, friend, but a single common word cannot a plagiarism make.

"In the movies, sex is so often presented as just a young person's game, while "older" actors are shuffled off to play parents and granddads."

Ahem. Let's be accurate, sex is presented as a YOUNG WOMAN'S GAME, because older men always have and apparently always will be able to have sexual relationships, but only with much younger women. MUCH younger. I mean, Rickman has to be well into his 60s, and Carrie Anne Moss maybe 38 or 40? He's old enough by far to be her dad.

As most films are made BY older white males, and aimed to appeal to only other male viewers, the general feeling is that older women don't exist (except as moms, and barely even then, since they can easily be replaced by dad, or pets, or robots, or aliens, as needed), and if they did exist, men would be turned to stone by their Medusa-like hideousness.

In this worldview, women AGE but men get "distinguished". Women get fat, men "fill out". Women "let themselves go" -- men "mature". The gray hair, wrinkles and natural signs of age make a man into a "silver fox".....women get "matronly".

Mostly though, we disappear....literally we disappear. How many movies (and TV shows) have you seen where there is not one single woman over 40, or if any actresses are that old, they are so thin and buff and plastic-surgeried that they LOOK 30.

Over-50 for women is limited to a tiny handful of already highly-esteemed, well established "stars" like Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, and then only in "character parts" that are entirely sexless. It is quite predictable and tiresome (even if this is a fine film) that a gorgeous, talented lady like Sigourney Weaver is reduced to the part of a mentally challenged person with lots of "tics" and strange behaviors, because obviously she couldn't still be playing beautiful, sexual, confident roles....with partners her own age or younger. Like Alan Rickman can, apparently without comment.

And they wonder why women don't go to the movies as much as teenaged boys! Most adult women I know feel a sense of disgust and abandonment about films, that they have nothing to say to us (no wonder, since we don't even APPEAR in them) and instead find their stories to be more satisfyingly told in books. Going to the movies anymore is an exercise in a sort of age-related apartheid.

Maybe if they don't have to see us, then we really will just dematerialize.

I appreciate that your question was well-intentioned and I hope no one is rude in responding. I am a mother of an 11 year old son who is mildly autistic. My son is very clear that he wants to be married and have kids and I really have no doubt that he can do it. He's wonderfully patient with young children. He has mentioned that he would like to be a preschool teacher and I see no reason why he shouldn't!

Now that I am well-educated about the spectrum disorders(a more descriptive term than "autism") I can see autistic traits in the parents of some of my son's classmates and definitely in my own dear spouse. (he works in computers and relishes consistency in our family schedule. Works for me, too) Definitely a person with autism can parent. Depends on the severity of the condition.

I understand exactly what you're talking about, but I think that times are changing. I really don't think that old fart men are dating young women frequently enough anymore to make the Hollywood portrayals realistic. Men are dyeing their hair and doing other regular physical maintenance much more than they used to. The word slut is gender-neutral now. I really think that men will be objectified for women's pleasure much more in coming years, which, even if that wouldn't exactly elevate our entertainment, at least it would make things fair.

Yes, movies are made mostly by old white men. Who want to make as much money as possible. So these movies are not all made for the pleasure of old white men.

But maybe I'm wrong. Either way, I think that the solution is to make sure that these unrealistic portrayals lose some of their unconscious power by reminding yourself that they're not realistic, and by making a concerted effort to judge males by tough female standards as much as you can. Look at Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. By female standards, they are waaaay over the hill. They have not taken the time to maintain their formerly good looks, and given that I've never considered them very entertaining in a cerebral sense, I just don't go to any movies they star in. In contrast, Will Smith has kept up his looks. I will watch his movies. Unless a movie seems compelling, I simply won't go if there's a nasty old guy as a romantic lead.

This isn't difficult for me because I find old women to be much, much more watchable than old men. They look better, they don't induce nausea. I really thought that I would lose the contents of my stomach when I saw Something's Gotta Give and that other movie with Helen Hunt and Jack playing some clueless old guy.

You're right, nobody has said anything about the article's claim that Alan is sexy in this movie. Look, I haven't seen the movie. But unless they're using a body double, the author really needs to get out more.

In any case, I don't know any women, no matter what age, who are ready to dematerialize. Especially not because of what's in the movies. Please, keep looking ahead.