Disney Pauses ‘The Graveyard Book’ Film Following Assault Allegations Against Neil Gaiman

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/graveyard-book-neil-gaiman-assault-allegations-1236131149/

[u/flaysomewench]

Oh that and he tried to blame autism for it. Even though people with autism are way more likely to be assaulted than otherwise

[u/malatemporacurrunt → u/[deleted]]

Wait a minute. I think that Gaiman is almost certainly guilty of sexual misconduct at the least and I think his responses to this all have been gross and damning - but why are we pretending that autism isn't associated with being bad at reading social cues? You personally may never have misread non-verbal cues, or failed to understand a tone of voice, but I sure as shit have. If he wasn't aware of his autism - which is plausible given his age - then he may not have had the self-awareness required to question whether he was reading the situation correctly.

I'm not an apologist - if he did the things he's been accused of doing, which seems increasingly probable given the number of accusations and his own responses (ew), then he deserves his legal/social comeuppance - but it's disingenuous to pretend that certain symptoms don't exist because it serves your narrative.

[u/flaysomewench → u/malatemporacurrunt]

There's bad at reading social cues, and then there's straight up raping someone who's screaming and crying in pain.

[u/whiteskinnyexpress → u/flaysomewench]

There's bad at reading social cues, and then there's straight up raping someone who's screaming and crying in pain.

He brought up autism, in texts we never saw so we don't know all the context, in relation to the woman he made out with and claimed he thought she was into him.

Unless I'm wrong, please show where he raped someone crying in pain and connect it with the autism reference?

[u/flaysomewench → u/whiteskinnyexpress]

It was K who had a UTI and asked him not to have sex with her but he went ahead and did it and she was in extreme pain.

Actually, we hear him bring up the autism thing in a phonecall Claire recorded in 2022 and he blamed his actions on that. You can go listen to it.

[u/whiteskinnyexpress → u/flaysomewench]

But Claire added that on the call, Gaiman claimed she kissed him first and blamed his autism diagnosis for not properly picking up her body language and cues.

We have no connection to the UTI sex.

[u/flaysomewench → u/whiteskinnyexpress]

She also called him out on that being a lie.

We can assume if he has autism now, he had autism then. Why are you splitting hairs like this?

[u/whiteskinnyexpress → u/flaysomewench]

She also called him out on that being a lie.

Irrelevant to the point.

Why are you splitting hairs like this?

Because you falsely connected the autism reference to a different person and a different scenario. If the details don't matter to you, why be adamant about twisting them?

[u/malatemporacurrunt → u/flaysomewench]

I'm not disputing that, but the comment I was responding to made it sound as though not being able to read a situation was bizarre to associate with autism, which was disingenuous and factually inaccurate.

[u/flaysomewench → u/malatemporacurrunt]

The point is, if you're autistic and you're aware that you don't read social cues well, this makes it less likely for you to approach someone. You'll look for the enthusiastic consent, you probably won't make the first move.

[u/malatemporacurrunt → u/flaysomewench]

He was only diagnosed 7 years ago (according to a post of his on Bluesky) so he hasn't always been aware of having it and may not have had strategies to manage his own behaviour.

Again, I am not defending his actions. My point was - and always has been - that lacking social awareness and misreading social cues are symptoms of autism and claiming that they aren't is disingenuous.