Fishy Feels - How "Finding Dory" Does Disability Right

A few weeks ago, I wrote about disability in the media (or rather how disability is portrayed as a tragedy by media). In it, I said that stories about disability are mostly about how a disabled person affects others, and how all involved parties "struggle" with it and have to "persevere". And I wrote that the remedy to this is to tell stories from the disabled character's perspective and promote it like whoa.

I honestly didn't think that I'd see that kind of story would be done so soon. Nor would that story be hugely successful. And nor that that story would come from, of all places, Pixar.

My first thought upon hearing "Finding Nemo" would spawn a sequel called "Finding Dory" was the same as everyone else's - "Really? A sequel? Can't Hollywood come up with anything original?" It doesn't help that most sequels to movies tend to do nothing but spout the same story as the original without the original's magic and with nothing new to say. Even Pixar isn't immune to this rule: the sequels for "Cars" and "Monsters Inc." fell flat in comparison to their predecessors. And whenever a sequel happens to be good, it's because it expands on the first film and has its own story to tell.

"Finding Dory" succeeds for those reasons indeed, but it does something more. It tells of living with a disability and all the complications and strengths within it. And it did something that very few movies do - it made me profoundly relate to it and sob by the closing credits.

Why? To explain, there will be spoilers from here on out.

How Do You Handle Autism, Anxiety, and Depression?

Earlier this week, one of my favorite actors Kristen Bell revealed that she suffers from depression and anxiety. In an interview with "Off Camera with Sam Jones", she talked about how her mother told her at a young age about a hereditary serotonin imbalance in her family and taking medication to help ease the hormone. You can watch the interview here:



It was shocking to me to hear this from Bell. She's known for being a very bubbly and positive personality, which makes her one of the most likable personalities in Hollywood. To hear she apparently has purposely worked to cultivate this to compensate for her mental illness is something I would've never expected. But it ultimately made me love her more for her honesty and willingness to be open about herself.

And it particularly hit home for me because aside from being autistic, I too suffer from chronic depression and anxiety.

Those Overwhelming Feels of Being Autistic

If one of the biggest characteristics of being human is having many emotional states, there seems to be this weird idea that autistic people have an innate inability to understand or express emotions. This would in turn lead autistic people to become hard to connect to, let alone engage with other people. It's kinda like Spock from the original Star Trek series - a purely logical creature who has to constantly ask his crew-mates why human beings interact the ways that they do. Spock isn't a cold-hearted Vulcan with no regard to people's feelings, he just doesn't understand humanity and its workings on a fundamental level.

I find this to be a completely unfair  assumption. It assumes autistic people don't have feelings nor can express them, and that we're cold people at best if not downright heartless. Having trouble processing feelings and understanding others' emotional expressions doesn't make us cruel, unfeeling people that can't connect to others. It simply means that we need understanding as to how things are the way they are so we can bond better with others. No one on Star Trek shuns Spock for his lack of understanding emotions - they help him by answering his inquiries to the point where Spock is accepted and forms deep attachments to his crew, especially Captain Kirk.

And as for me personally? I'm not emotionless. If anything, my emotions have dictated my entire life.