How ‘The Accountant’ Victimizes The Autistic Community
By Alexandra Haagaard
Content warning: ableist slurs, ableist violence, sexual abuse
If nothing else, The Accountant’s marketing team deserves an award of some kind. In the run-up to the October 14 release of Ben Affleck’s thriller about an autistic savant who does accounting work for the criminal elite, media coverage spun the film as a brave venture into risky territory, with an honest depiction of an autistic central character. Much was made of the “months” that Affleck, director Gavin O’Connor, and screenwriter Bill Dubuque spent researching autism and consulting with experts and members of the autistic community. Early reviews of the film praised the authenticity of Affleck’s character, Chris Wolff. Appealing to his own background as an aide for special needs children, YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann commended the film for realistically capturing experiences that he is familiar with, in a way that many other Hollywood portrayals fail to.
As I entered the theater for my screening, I felt momentarily apprehensive. Working off of the film’s trailers and the fact that Affleck and O’Connor had received positive feedback from Autism Speaks, a notoriously reviled organization within the autistic community, I had pitched a piece on the harm done by inaccurate portrayals such as this one to autistic…
