Autism in Film and Television
On the Island
Edited by Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer
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Book Presentation:
Global awareness of autism has skyrocketed since the 1980s, and popular culture has caught on, with film and television producers developing ever more material featuring autistic characters. Autism in Film and Television brings together more than a dozen essays on depictions of autism, exploring how autistic characters are signified in media and how the reception of these characters informs societal understandings of autism.
Editors Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer have assembled a pioneering examination of autism’s portrayal in film and television. Contributors consider the various means by which autism has been expressed in films such as Phantom Thread, Mercury Rising, and Life Animated and in television and streaming programs including Atypical, Stranger Things, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Community. Across media, the figure of the brilliant, accomplished, and “quirky” autist has proven especially appealing. Film and television have thus staked out a progressive position on neurodiversity by insisting on screen time for autism but have done so while frequently ignoring the true diversity of autistic experience. As a result, this volume is a welcome celebration of nonjudgmental approaches to disability, albeit one that is still freighted with stereotypes and elisions.
About the authors:
Murray Pomerance is an adjunct professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, and author or editor of dozens of books, including Virtuoso: Film Performance and the Actor’s Magic and The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz.
R. Barton Palmer is an independent scholar and formerly Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University, where he was the founding director of the World Cinema program. He has coedited multiple volumes, including Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television.
> From the same authors:
Mervyn LeRoy Comes to Town (2025)
Dir. Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > Mervyn LeRoy
The Literary Films of Richard Brooks (2024)
Dir. R. Barton Palmer and Homer B. Pettey
Subject: Director > Richard Brooks
Alfred Hitchcock and Film Noir (2024)
The Darker Side
Dir. R. Barton Palmer and Homer B. Pettey
Subject: Director > Alfred Hitchcock
The Biggest Thing in Show Business (2024)
Living It Up with Martin & Lewis
by Murray Pomerance and Matthew Solomon
Subject: Actor > Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin
The Other Hollywood Renaissance (2020)
Dir. Dominic Lennard, R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance
Subject: Countries > United States
Rule, Britannia! (2019)
The Biopic and British National Identity
Dir. Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
French Literature on Screen (2019)
Dir. Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Technique > Adaptation
The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz (2018)
Dir. R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance
Subject: Director > Michael Curtiz
Close-Up (2018)
Great Cinematic Performances Volume 2: International
Dir. Murray Pomerance and Kyle Stevens
Hitchcock's Moral Gaze (2018)
Dir. R. Barton Palmer, Homer B. Pettey and Steven M. Sanders
Subject: Director > Alfred Hitchcock
Hamlet Lives in Hollywood (2017)
John Barrymore and the Acting Tradition Onscreen
Dir. Murray Pomerance and Steven Rybin
Subject: Actor > John Barrymore
Invented Lives, Imagined Communities (2017)
The Biopic and American National Identity
Dir. William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Countries > United States
Moment of Action (2016)
Riddles of Cinematic Performance
Cycles, Sequels, Spin-Offs, Remakes, and Reboots (2016)
Multiplicities in Film and Television
Dir. Amanda Ann Klein and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Economics
Shot on Location (2016)
Postwar American Cinema and the Exploration of Real Place
Subject: Technique > Set Design
Thinking in the Dark (2015)
Cinema, Theory, Practice
Dir. Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Theory
George Cukor (2015)
Hollywood Master
Dir. Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > George Cukor
Michael Mann - Cinema and Television (2014)
Interviews, 1980-2012
by Steven Sanders and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > Michael Mann
The Philosophy of Michael Mann (2014)
Dir. Steven Sanders, Aeon J. Skoble and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > Michael Mann
Hollywood's Chosen People (2012)
The Jewish Experience in American Cinema
Dir. Daniel Bernardi, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Murray Pomerance
Subject: Countries > United States
Shining in Shadows (2011)
Movie Stars of the 2000s
Dir. Murray Pomerance
Subject: On Films > Per period
Hitchcock at the Source (2011)
The Auteur as Adapter
Dir. R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd
Subject: Director > Alfred Hitchcock
A Little Solitaire (2011)
John Frankenheimer and American Film
Dir. Murray Pomerance
Subject: Director > John Frankenheimer
Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue (2011)
Eight Reflections on Cinema
Subject: Director > Michelangelo Antonioni
The Philosophy of Steven Soderbergh (2011)
Dir. R. Barton Palmer and Steven Sanders
Subject: Director > Steven Soderbergh
Hollywood's Tennessee (2009)
The Williams Films and Postwar America
by R. Barton Palmer and William Robert Bray
Subject: Others persons > Tennessee Williams
After Hitchcock (2006)
Influence, Imitation, And Intertextuality
Dir. David Boyd and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > Alfred Hitchcock
Traditions in World Cinema (2006)
Dir. Linda Badley, R. Barton Palmer and Steven Jay Schneider
Traditions in World Cinema (2005)
Dir. Linda Badley, R. Barton Palmer and Steven Jay Schneider
American Cinema of the 1950s (2005)
Themes and Variations
Dir. Murray Pomerance
Subject: On Films > Per period
Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice (2001)
Cinemas of Girlhood
Dir. Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance
Subject: Sociology
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (2001)
Critical Essays and Guide to Resources With Annotated Bibliography and Filmography
by Cheryl Bray Lower and R. Barton Palmer
Subject: Director > Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls (2001)
Gender in Film at the End of the Twentieth Century
Dir. Murray Pomerance
Subject: Sociology
> On a related topic:
Post-Yugoslav Cinema and the Shadows of War (2025)
A Study of Non-Representation in Film
Subject: Sociology
Down Syndrome Culture (2024)
Life Writing, Documentary, and Fiction Film in Iberian and Latin American Contexts
Subject: Sociology
Affirmative Aesthetics and Wilful Women (2021)
Gender, Space and Mobility in Contemporary Cinema
Subject: Sociology
Killing Off the Lesbians (2017)
A Symbolic Annihilation on Film and Television
by Liz Millward, Janice G. Dodd and Irene Fubara-Manuel
Subject: Sociology
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