TVs Extraordinary Talents!

by bugaboo628 on Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:49 pm

The Chicago Tribune has a bit on TVs Extraordinary Talents. Our very own Temperance Brennan is mentioned.

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Who does she think she is? A forensic anthropologist in Washington, D.C. "We get the grossest bodies," Deschanel says. "We get called in when a body is badly decomposed or burned, just unrecognizable. She can even tell you if the person grew up in the U.S. on the West or East Coast."

Special qualifications: Thanks to a touch of Asperger's disorder, she's got terrible social skills, which makes her a very fine companion for skeletons but not so much live people. She also writes crime novels and is "an expert in martial arts," Deschanel says.

by RGPageantqueen on Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:22 pm

I don't think Temperance has aspergers.

by bugaboo628 on Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:29 pm

RGPageantqueen wrote:I don't think Temperance has aspergers.

I think Hart Hanson has said that she does. I am not sure though.

by RGPageantqueen on Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:37 pm

I thought he was reffering to Zack. I would believe that Zack does. I only think she doesn't because people who have it don't know how to change. Tempe's changed A LOT in her social world. I just think she has a lot of psychological issues. Which may be why she hates psychology. Not because it's a soft science, but because it's what will tell her whats truly wrong with her.

I mean thats just what I think. Smile

by THX1138 on Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:48 pm

Now I can see how that all sort of sounds like our Temperance but it's really not when you look at it. You see Aspergers isn't something you can unlearn and it's not something you can acquire. You are either born with it or you don't. From what we know of Brennan, she was always a shy child, highly intelligent, naturally reserved and introspective yet what's revealed of her life as a child on the show also indicates that she was just shy. She didn't socialize as much because she preferred her books and academics, those are a sign of an introspective personality, not Aspergers. Her parents, and later Russ's, abandonment, her being placed in the system, all that simply served to exacerbate her already shy and reserved nature. When we first meet her she's confident, even arrogant, and though not up on pop culture or the more common aspects of social interaction, she's perfectly capable of functioning in society, she has friends, she has lovers, when we see her interact with them in intimate settings she handles herself like any other intelligent, assertive woman.

She shows no signs of OCD, stress related or otherwise. She's not clumsy (one of the only physiological indicators of Aspergers), and she has made incredibly improvement in her socialization skills. And regarding those, when you observe her behavior with the public she's no different from anyone else, it's only in intimate social settings where she feels pressured to say or do the right thing that she becomes awkward. That's not the way Aspergers works. It's always on, not a situational affect. What Brennan has done since her abandonment, is learn to avoid personal attachments to avoid the sting of rejection and the hurt of loss. She's not awkward and cold because she's got a form of autism, it's a learned behavior that she's cultivated as a defense mechanism. She can't get hurt if she pushes people away before she can get attached to them, right? So that's what she does.

We can see that all the more clearly with Angela and Booth. They've changed her immensely, pulled her out of her shell in social settings, made her more open to forming attachments. She's still awkward but in time she'll outgrow it. You don't outgrow Aspergers. That's how we know she's not afflicted with it.

king