Society | The Guardian: “I like being flamboyant,” says pioneering performance poet, writer and actor Cian Binchy. “There’s not enough of that these days – everything’s so dull and conservative.”
These are not adjectives you would associate with Binchy, autism consultant on award-winning play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which will be touring the UK and Ireland for a third time from the autumn.
2 comments:
I thought this article was very interesting, and allowed me to examine my own experience in the theater world by hearing someone else talk about theirs. He talked about his struggles, but nevertheless his successes - which is what he means to be defined by. Binchy talked about how people mean well, but this “meaning well” is very condescending and instead belittles the individual. This article was mainly Binchy speaking about how he wanted to be taken seriously and make a living doing what he loves. I didn’t realize how many assumptions people make about him just from one label - “autisitic.” It really makes me think about how I treat people like my brother who are on the spectrum. Am I actually being helpful, or am I making it more difficult for him to feel like an individual? Binchy is very successful and is very outspoken about who he is and how he feels. It will be people like him that empower others to join the community and do what they are passionate about.
Binchy brings up numerous issues faced by neurodiverse individuals in the industry and in life in this article. Lifting these people up and encouraging them to achieve their goals and have meaningful careers does nothing but good for our society. The fact that people are so quick to be condescending and infantilizing of these people is gross and counterproductive. Binchy points out how these people mean well, but it is rude and not useful. Hopefully as there is more exposure for success stories of people like Binchy, the general public will have a better understanding of the wide spectrum of disabilities and assume less. Growing up, I certainly did not have an understanding of the spectrum, probably because it was not even considered much of a spectrum until recently. Thanks to the research that has gone into it, neurodiverse people can get the support they need while still being able to pursue whatever they can. Balancing both of those things did not used to be possible. You were either disabled and completely dependent on others or you weren’t, but now that has changed, and everyone needs to get caught up on that memo.
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