The Films That Make Us: Temple Grandin
Jack and Their Mom
Interviewer: Jack Hayes
Interviewee: Carrie Hosmer
My mom, Carrie Hosmer, was born on March 13th, 1960 in Brighton, Massachusetts. She got a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from Clark University. Eventually, she moved out here to Missouri with her college roommate, and in 2000, she and my dad (J. Hayes) had a little bundle of evil, me. She’s a smart, funny, loving woman.
My mom and I have always been close. Since I was pretty young, it was just the two of us living together. We moved around a couple times, I grew up, but I never went through that teenage resentment phase of being angry at her for no reason. She’s always been my best friend, and she’s always been understanding of whatever was going on in my life.
Early on in high school, I was diagnosed with autism. It was a scary time for me. I felt like something was wrong with me- I remember that my first thoughts were wondering what that meant for my relationships with other people. Could I really have friends? Could I love? My experiences with autism up until that point were limited. I’d been diagnosed with ADD in elementary school, but that was different, treatable.
But my mom was there. Even on difficult days and when I’m being difficult. I never felt for a second like I wasn’t supported. I know it wasn’t easy for her, especially before I was diagnosed, but she never made me feel like a burden or an annoyance. I’m so grateful to have her as my mom.
Jack: Mom, what is the movie you have selected for this interview- the movie that you feel has impacted your life in some way?
Carrie: Okay, so, the movie I picked was Temple Grandin. It wasn’t easy to pick a movie, it’s like I’ve said, I could give you a dozen books, I could give you lots of songs, but a movie that impacted my life was hard. And even though I only saw this movie recently, this is the only one that I could think of that impacted my life in any appreciable way.
Jack: Okay, do you wanna expand on that?
Promotional Poster for Temple Grandin (2010)
Carrie: Well, Temple Grandin is about an autistic woman who is now a professor, she has her doctorate, and she basically redesigned how slaughterhouses work, to make them more humane, more efficient, more cost-effective and stuff like that. But throughout her life, when she was diagnosed with autism, y’know, they called it “infantile schizophrenia” back then, and institutionalization was recommended. And her mom was like, “Um, no.” But it was a long, hard struggle for her, just feeling her way through, for her mom, and I’m also sure for Temple. And I think that her mom made really good choices without realizing she made really good choices. And really helped her and gave her some structure in a world that was very unstructured in a lot of ways. So, I feel that, for me, having a child that’s autistic- and, granted, Temple is… not sure, I wouldn’t use low-fuctioning/high-functioning, ‘cause you don’t use those terms, but she’s farther along the spectrum or whatever, how you would put that. But, there are those qualities that everybody on the spectrum shares, and just the degree to which you share them in general or on any given day, are the ones that present the most difficulties for each individual person. But I felt like seeing- even though I saw it after you were diagnosed- it kinda helped a lot of things click for me, even more, and kinda made me understand things more, and kinda put maybe this part of the journey- of your journey and my journey- together. That’s a big thing. I think one of the biggest things in my life, aside from having a child, is having a child with autism. I suppose any parent, if they have a child that has a developmental disability, or anything on the spectrum, or a physical disability or whatever, I think that’s a whole different journey for a parent than just a parent with a neurotypical kid. And, although the word autism didn’t come into play until you were in high school, I always knew, and I read about aspergers and autism and things when you were younger, and when you finally got that diagnosis it was like, “Yes. Yes. It’s not me, it’s not her, it’s not something I did wrong, or I didn’t do, and it’s not something that she’s lacking, and it’s not all those things that other people say and other people judge. This is just who she is, and now that I know that, we can move forward.”
Jack: So the movie reminded you of me?
Carrie: So, I feel like there were moments in that movie, and the one biggest thing that I felt was- she invented this thing she called a squeeze machine, or a squeeze box, because when she would get really upset, or maybe when she just had a day when she had to deal with a lot of people, and she got teased a lot in school and things like that, and to be able to center herself and calm herself, she built this machine. She saw this being done to a cow- when they inoculate them, they put them into the chute, and their head goes in, and these bars close on either side of their head, and the sides come in, and they squeeze them. And it calms them down- the cow immediately calms down. And to the cowboy, she asked, “Why is that?” and he goes, “Well, I don’t know. We don’t know. It just seems to gentle them, and we need them to be calm so we can give them the shot.” So, she built one of those, basically, for herself. She built this machine- and she would crawl into it, she put a place for her chin, and she would close this thing, like, on her neck, gently, and she would pull this cord, and it came in and it squeezed her. And for me, that was such an epiphany, because you were always such- unlike some autistic kids, or [Temple], who didn’t like to be touched, you always wanted very physical touching. And especially when you were wanting to be wrapped up tight in bed, and you slept in a sleeping bag for a long time, because you needed to be tight, you needed something up against you, you needed that whole kinda- touch, physical thing. And when I saw that, I was like, “That’s part of that, too. That’s where that came from.” … So, it was things like that that just really clicked and really made things make sense to me.
Jack: You said that you saw the film semi-recently, but were you familiar with [Temple Grandin] before, did you know anything about her before that?
Carrie: No, I think I’d maybe heard of the movie, but I think when you had to read that book in school- The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships-
The Cover to the Book that Made Carrie want to Watch Temple Grandin
Jack: I don’t think I ever finished that.
Carrie: Whatever it’s called- I think that’s what made me really wanna see the movie. I’ve also gone to see her speak. My friend got tickets.
Jack: When was that?
Carrie: Donna.
Jack: No, when was that?
Carrie: I don’t know, I’m really bad with dates- some years back, probably at least five years ago or more, she spoke at UMSL. I mean, she does tour and she does speak. That was- the end of the movie was interesting, too, because they went to this autism thing, and this guy was gonna give a talk, this scientist was up there talking about autism, and there was a little girl standing, just spinning in a circle in the front, and her mom keeps saying, “Honey, stop. Honey, stop. Honey, stop.” And Temple just stood up and said, “That’s okay, let her do that, she needs to do that. It’s not hurting anything, she needs to do that to calm down. There’s a lot of noise, there’s a lot of people in here.” And she just started talking and [the audience members] go, “How old is your child?” And she goes, “I don’t have any kids, I have autism!” And the entire room just ignored the guy on the stage and all these parents kept firing all these questions at her. Because here was somebody, she’s like, “I went to school, I’m working on my PHD, I do this, I do that.” And they’re like, “How did you do that?” It was really interesting.
Jack: Have you watched or shared with anyone else?
Carrie: I haven’t, but I’ve recommended it to other people, or asked other people if they’ve seen it, and talked to them about it. But it’s not just your average movie. So even though it’s a great movie, and Claire Danes does a great job, and I think everybody in it does a great job, it’s not necessarily- people might look at it and think it’s interesting, it’s not necessarily, maybe, subject matter that- you wouldn’t say, “Hey, this is a great movie, it’s an action movie, it’s a romcom,” or whatever… maybe not everybody would find it as interesting, or really understand it. So it’s not an easy movie to say, “I’m gonna come over and we’re gonna sit down and watch this movie.”
Jack: “Come over, we’re gonna watch Temple Grandin, get ready, get the popcorn out.”
Carrie: And although people might like it- I think you can like it and appreciate it on one level, but I think anybody who has a child, or knows a child, or knows someone in their life that’s on the spectrum, would appreciate it on a whole different level, I think.
Jack: Are there any other movies that you’ve watched that are like this one?
Carrie: Movies… I don’t know. Like, subject matter-wise?
Jack: Yeah, I guess so.
Promotional Image for The Good Doctor (2017)
Carrie: Well, there’s a TV show now. The Good Doctor.
Jack: Yeah, I’m familiar.
Carrie: I’d never seen it before, but I did see some episodes just recently, when I was with [your godmother]. They watch it, I guess, and I watched a couple. And I think it was okay, but, I mean, a lot of the things that you see- I think they create characters and they’re “quirky” characters, and they’re actually representing, basically, spectrum qualities, but they just don’t use that terminology. So, I think I’ve probably seen a lot of things that have characters that are like that. Even cartoons, even some of the kid’s cartoons, where you have that nerdy kid that’s not good with other people, but he’s really good at science, or he’s really good with a computer, but he’s just not good at talking to other kids… In movies or television, I think there’s always been those characters.