Mary Tyler Moore only had one thing to say about this scene, many years later. She said Elvis was gentle with the girl. Probably true. Zaslow, the consultant on Rage Reduction for the movie, probably wanted realistic demonstration of Rage Reduction which is truly terrifying.
Training tapes for Rage Reduction (aka Attachment Therapy, Holding Therapy, Rebirthing, Compression Therapy, etc.) show how violent and cruel this practice is. The aim is to cause the child to struggle until the becomes a "whimpering little puddle," as one observer described it. While restrained for hours, the child is pinched, suffocated, tickled relentless, threatened with abandonment, painfully knuckled on the sternum, and ordered to kick legs up and down until exhausted. This torture has been around for over four decades.
Some child behavior experts believe that the girl in the Elvis movie is not acting; she is really struggling and distraught.
Zaslow was later stripped of his license after a day-long "Holding Therapy" session resulted in injuries for the adult patient.
OMFG, was that a piece of work! I wanted to see it because it also starred Mary Tyler Moore, but even as a young teen I could smell the reek of garbage from it. I WILL give it a little credit for highlighting autism which nobody else in movies or on television was doing at the time, even if the portrayal was right down there with "marijuana addiction". (You point out how their treatment was based on a debunked theory—but it was also based on what they knew then.)
Elvis's "Dr. John Carpenter" (I thought of the horror/SF auteur, myself!) was kind of jaw-dropping even to me back then, though more for his commenting on things like rape and making it sound kind of cool (which the movie seemed to agree with given the way they presented the attempted rape of MTM's out-of-uniform nun as...something she was kind of into? 🙀) than knowing just how retrograde his opinions on nearly everything were.
Best/worst part of all this? I saw the movie with my Sunday Night Youth Church group, because it was about Christianity and how you can serve God even in a lay capacity(!). (The US Army Chaplain Corps wasn't having of that anti-Papal stuff in This Man's Army!) The big stink MY parents raised was my going to see a M-rated (that's what it was in those days, not "GP" or later "PG") movie with a Church Group(!!!).
I'm certainly not defending this film, but it is a product of its times. Elvis was losing his mojo and audience as the baby boomers grew and this was one of his many desperate attempts to relate to the culture du jour of the time. See also "In the Ghetto" another attempt from him to remain relevant that has not aged well.
So she’s… nundercover.
That's nun ya business
She’s nun in a million.
Elvis really was a pioneer. He made an insulting inaccurate movie about autism DECADES before Sia!
Mary Tyler Moore only had one thing to say about this scene, many years later. She said Elvis was gentle with the girl. Probably true. Zaslow, the consultant on Rage Reduction for the movie, probably wanted realistic demonstration of Rage Reduction which is truly terrifying.
Training tapes for Rage Reduction (aka Attachment Therapy, Holding Therapy, Rebirthing, Compression Therapy, etc.) show how violent and cruel this practice is. The aim is to cause the child to struggle until the becomes a "whimpering little puddle," as one observer described it. While restrained for hours, the child is pinched, suffocated, tickled relentless, threatened with abandonment, painfully knuckled on the sternum, and ordered to kick legs up and down until exhausted. This torture has been around for over four decades.
Some child behavior experts believe that the girl in the Elvis movie is not acting; she is really struggling and distraught.
Zaslow was later stripped of his license after a day-long "Holding Therapy" session resulted in injuries for the adult patient.
Advocates for Children in Therapy is an organization still trying to close down Rage Reduction and its brutal parenting. www.childrenintherapy.org
You saw CHANGE OF HABIT? 😂
OMFG, was that a piece of work! I wanted to see it because it also starred Mary Tyler Moore, but even as a young teen I could smell the reek of garbage from it. I WILL give it a little credit for highlighting autism which nobody else in movies or on television was doing at the time, even if the portrayal was right down there with "marijuana addiction". (You point out how their treatment was based on a debunked theory—but it was also based on what they knew then.)
Elvis's "Dr. John Carpenter" (I thought of the horror/SF auteur, myself!) was kind of jaw-dropping even to me back then, though more for his commenting on things like rape and making it sound kind of cool (which the movie seemed to agree with given the way they presented the attempted rape of MTM's out-of-uniform nun as...something she was kind of into? 🙀) than knowing just how retrograde his opinions on nearly everything were.
Best/worst part of all this? I saw the movie with my Sunday Night Youth Church group, because it was about Christianity and how you can serve God even in a lay capacity(!). (The US Army Chaplain Corps wasn't having of that anti-Papal stuff in This Man's Army!) The big stink MY parents raised was my going to see a M-rated (that's what it was in those days, not "GP" or later "PG") movie with a Church Group(!!!).
I'm certainly not defending this film, but it is a product of its times. Elvis was losing his mojo and audience as the baby boomers grew and this was one of his many desperate attempts to relate to the culture du jour of the time. See also "In the Ghetto" another attempt from him to remain relevant that has not aged well.