Go-ish Power Rangers: Failures in Schools, Mixed Successes in Representation

Megazord: An Analysis of Billy Cranston

It is surprising to say that a movie featuring the topical character charging through the streets in a mechanized triceratops to do battle with a winged demon made of liquid gold might have some valuable insights into the experiences of students with autism in the United States, but it holds true. Billy Cranston, one of the five main characters in the 2017 Power Rangers reboot, is not a perfect representation of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, but as the first explicitly autistic superhero appearing in a blockbuster film (Green, 2018) he stands as a major step in expressing the value of neurodiversity in mainstream media. I will be discussing three key aspects of Billy’s character in this section: his abilities, his relationships, and his status as a student.

As a superhero Billy is portrayed with super strength, speed, reaction time, and endurance. These abilities enable him both to conquer his bullies at school and to do battle with the evil ex-Ranger, Rita Repulsa. Yeah, that really is her name. However, his competencies go beyond the supernatural abilities he gains from his power coin. Yeah, that really is how they get their powers. Billy is portrayed with two other primary skills: he is an explosives expert and an excellent investigator. His interest in explosives is tied into the plot twice: the heroes meet in detention (Billy is there for accidently setting off an explosive lunch box in his locker), and the power coins are discovered from Billy purposefully setting off explosives at a mine (where an ancient alien spaceship happens to be buried). In both cases he is portrayed as skilled, but not supernaturally a “savant.” His knowledge is impressive, but the harmful and unrealistic stereotype of the super-genius-autistic-kid (Gambacurta, 2020) gets averted as he also makes mistakes, such as the accidental explosion. As an investigator he manages to discover the location of the source of all life on Earth underneath a Krispy Kreme. Yeah, that really is where the magic crystal is buried. It is one of the most important moments in the plot in terms of moving the story forward, and he manages to do it solo. Dr. Marissa Diener has said that communicating the efficacy of autistic individuals to the public is a central issue in her work (Week 2); Billy strikes a balance between unrealistically genius and helpless victim, he is a smart and competent individual who makes mistakes.

Early on in our class we discussed the concept of “normal” as it pertains to individual humans. Power Ranger’s thesis on normality is that nobody is normal and that is a flawed concept. Billy is autistic. Other characters are queer, poor, dealing with social marginalization and depression, or otherwise feel like they do not fit in to their small town. This rings of what we read from Lennard Davis, “If we rethink our assumptions about the universality of the concept of the norm, what we might arrive at is the concept that preceded it: that of the ‘ideal,’” (2013, p. 2) Each character in the film is struggling with ideals from their expectations or the expectations of others. Each wants to be “normal” and cannot admit they are not until they open up and talk to each other. Billy takes a central role in creating an atmosphere where vulnerable communication is possible through his heroic actions and sacrifices; the characters accept each other for their diversity, neurological or not, and come together as a team which benefits from the uniqueness of each participant. The Rangers take on a neurodiversity model for teamwork in the face of a society which refuses them.

Billy’s time in detention, where he meets the other Rangers, exemplifies what makes the Rangers special in the face of a broken society. In a world more educated, more big-picture oriented, and more compassionate none of these kids would be in a grungy basement with a teacher who is only there for the extra pay and because he has got nothing better going on in his life. This is especially true for Billy. While the “lunch box explosion” is a silly and exaggerated case, there are many real-world students with autism who struggle meeting “normal” expectations and end up getting marginalized. Instead of investing the necessary resources to help these students they end up getting tossed in with the problem kids. Billy lives in a small, isolated, fishing town that does not have a big enough population to support a major initiative like the Spectrum Academy in Utah, which offers extensive programming to students who are struggling academically and to high function students like Billy (Guevara, Week 6), but an effective plan from the school’s administration could better guide Billy towards a safe application of his talents. Billy might not be eligible for an Individualized Education Program (IEP) because his educational performance does not seem to be negatively impacted by his disability. However, a 504 plan would be possible because his communication and thinking skills are explicitly impacted by his disability (The Understand Team, n.d.). While the movie does not say this outright, there is a subtext in the film that the way Billy is being treated is unjust, and if this situation happened in real life a 504 plan would involve his mom, school administration, and teachers to work together and find a way to accommodate Billy and help guide him towards safer expressions of his interests (instead of sneaking into a mine and blowing up a wall).

From Big Budget Blockbuster to Low Budget Education Program

A recent piece in The City online newspaper (Zimmerman, 2021) highlighted the lack of resources and training being dedicated to special education and how problematic it can become in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The story focuses on the struggles parents and their children with ASD have ran into while trying to enroll into Learning Bridges, an educational program tasked with helping working parents with childcare and education needs as they deal with changes to lifestyle and work during the pandemic:

“The root of the problem, according to some advocates and providers, is the system was not designed to accommodate all students. City officials leaned on community-based nonprofit organizations to quickly create tens of thousands of seats for Learning Bridges, an enormous task that will cost at least $93 million from the education department’s budget, city officials said.

But unlike traditional schools, those community providers may have limited experience working with students with special needs. The centers are often staffed by people without any specialized training, making some of them nervous about enrolling students with more complicated needs.”

In the midst of a global pandemic little effort was dedicated to supporting students with ASD nor their parents who lost jobs. Paraprofessional support was refused, leaving parents with the choice of tossing their kids into a program which was not prepared to suit their needs and low-level educational facilitators being left in the awkward position of being asked to care for students they have no training to help.

The article highlights the difficulties in implementing the neurodiversity model. If we are going to create interactive environments which serve all or most kids, despite their needs, we must figure out ways to fulfill those needs. The story covers the backlash against Learning Bridges for not giving the needed support and how the local government took six months to appropriately respond by requiring centers to work to make arrangements with the state education department to bring in a paraprofessional educator, though it should be noted that research has shown this method is not always the most effective (Waddington et al, 2016).

The article, though, slightly loses the thread as it begins to tackle big systematic issues. I could not tell you about what happened with the two neurodiverse children, one with autism and one with ADHD, highlighted in the story. It is mentioned that some parents are still frustrated and that others have lost trust, but it is not clear if the accommodations made by the state made it possible for either child to enter the much-needed programming. This is a concern I have about the way the neurodiversity model can be applied: focusing on the big picture and losing sight of the actual human beings involved. In my personal life I have seen similar issues pop up in other arenas of equity, such as a person concerned with “solving racism” but being dismissive of the actual people of color in their professional circles. While these abstract models and frameworks are important, we cannot lose the trees for the forest. The article ends with a zoomed-out perspective, with the only specific person mentioned being a politician who has not accomplished anything in this field.

A Tale of Two Failures

Billy Cranston could be one of the kids discussed in the news article. Stuck in a school which cannot provide for their needs, his mom, alone since his father’s death, is required to fill in every gap. His mother is put under undue stress and ends up relieved when Billy finds friends and confidants in his neurodiverse group.

Power Rangers covers the topic quite differently, though. In the film the story is focused on the Rangers, with Billy as one of the main five characters. He has a story arc and personal growth. The film does not focus in on his mother or on his school, but instead they act as pieces that fit into the puzzle that is his life. The City’s article zooms out from the individuals involved, showing a cute photo but never providing a name. To me the piece commits a cardinal sin of covering marginalized people: it takes on the viewpoint of the people impacted by their ASD rather than focusing on how they themselves are impacted. This makes it seem as if they are a problem to be solved, rather than a life to be specifically valued. Neurodiversity as a model must think of the big picture, sure, but at the end of the day a neurodiverse group of people is made up of people, not abstract ideas. I cannot believe I am writing these words: Power Rangers is a work that forefronts the humanity of someone with ASD, the news article does not and is part of a cacophony of media which fails in this area as well.

Make It A Good Movie, Though

The intention of this assignment was to leverage my criticisms and ask for changes at the end of the essay, but it was impossible to summarize the article without mentioning its failures because its failures are intrinsic to the questions we are asking in this class. Because I do not want to repeat myself by giving the same criticisms for the article, I do want to mention some potential issues in Power Rangers and how it could improve. This should be done in an important context, however, which is that the film seems to have been generally celebrated by the autistic community (Magro, 2017) (Bergado, 2017).

The primary improvement I would make would be for a wider inclusion or thoughtfulness about neurodiversity both in the context of autism and beyond. The film really drops the ball on its other neurodiverse character, Zack Taylor. Maybe. I say “maybe” because I do not know what Zack’s deal is. He comes from a poor family, he has got a sick mom, and he describes himself as “crazy.” It is hard to know if the film wants us to think he is merely overcompensating for his struggles by acting erratically, or if he has an actual disorder which he needs help with. There is a scene in this movie where he repeatedly smashed a rock wall with a hammer while everyone around him is screaming and telling him to stop because he might damage a valuable archaeological find.

Zack is more over-the-top than any person I have met in the real world, and he likely meets all the requirements for a diagnosis for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) with his irrational refusal to comply with the wants of others, his active desire to annoy or upset others, and his easily lost temper (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2017). If neurodiversity is the belief that most, if not all, neurological differences are the result of normal and natural variation in the expression of the human genome (Robison, 2013), those with ODD deserve the same respect the film gives to those with ASD. I have worked with kids with ODD and they do have a unique and important contribution to make with the world, just like those with autism; their boldness shakes up the status quo, their rebellion forces those in power to adapt, and their expressiveness prevents problems from stagnating. I wish Zack had been taken as seriously as Billy.

The secondary improvement I would make would be to make Power Rangers an actually good movie. Seriously, I have been quite about this the whole time, but it is not a good film. The CGI looks ugly and aged. They criminally underuse Elizabeth Banks and Bryan Cranston as two ancient aliens fighting over the fate of life on earth. Sometimes the dialogue gets clunky and unrealistic, but not because of a stylistic choice, but because the writers seem to be struggling to accomplish their artistic goals. Joking and complaining aside, with a Metacritic score of 44% (2017) and with six potential sequels canceled (Mendelson, 2017), it is a bummer that the first superhero movie to prominently portray and autistic hero had to have been so poorly received for almost everything other than its portrayal of autism.

Despite my negativity on both the film and the article, both represent something good: forward steps. Power Rangers stands as the potential that we can have more movies reflecting the neurodiversity model in mainstream media. Zimmerman et al’s article represents a push to ensure the government takes on a neurodiverse approach in their educational programming, even when it is not as easy as they would like it to be. Power Rangers also represents a second point of positivity, the creation of a charming character who will always be in my memory for his bold desire to do good and for his love of explosives.

References

Bergado, G. (2017, March 29). The 'Power Rangers' Autistic Superhero Is So Important. Teen Vogue. Retrieved from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/power-rangers-autistic-billy-blue-superhero

Davis, L. J. (2013). The Disability Studies Reader (4th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Diener, M. (2021). Week Two, Module One. Introduction to autism and neurodiversity: Neurodiversity.

Gambacurta, C. (2020, January 6). Autism Representation in the Media. Organization for Autism Research.

Green, D. (2018, April 2). Opinion: Why Accurate Representation of Autism is so Important in Film, TV [Editorial]. Middle Tennessee State University Sidelines.

Guevara, C. (2021). Week Six, Module Three. Autism in Middle Childhood and Adolescence: Schools.

Magro, K. (2017, March 29). I Have Autism And This Is My Review Of The Power Ranger Who Has Autism [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://kerrymagro.com/i-have-autism-and-this-is-my-review-of-the-power-ranger-who-has-autism/

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018, January 25). Oppositional defiant disorder (odd). Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/oppositional-defiant-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20375831

Mendelson, Scott. (2017, March 12). "Box Office: We're (Probably) Not Getting A 'Power Rangers' Sequel". Forbes.

Metacritic. (2017, March 24). Saban's power Rangers. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.metacritic.com/movie/sabans-power-rangers

Robison, J. E. (2013). What is Neurodiversity? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/201310/what-is-neurodiversity

The Understand Team. (n.d.) The Difference Between IEPs and 504 Plans (A. Lee, Ed.). Understood.org.

Waddington, E. M., & Reed, P. (2016). Comparison of the effects of mainstream and special school on National Curriculum outcomes in children with autism spectrum disorder: An archive-based analysis. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 17(2), 132-142. doi:10.1111/1471-3802.12368

Zimmerman, A., Antonios, C., Chalkbeat (2021, February 25). Students with Disabilities Turned Away From NYC’s Free Pandemic Child Care Program. The City.