Disney Films Helped a Boy Find His Voice

Disney films generally bring joy to a lot of families, but one family in particular is extremely grateful for the films as they held the key to conversation with their boy. Owen Suskind was born a normal, healthy boy; but, at age two, he just stopped talking. His father, Ron, describes the situation as if his son had just vanished within himself. At age three, Owen was diagnosed with regressive autism, which helped to explain his son’s behavior, but it didn’t offer any answers on how to better communicate with him.

Dealing with a child with autism is tough business for any parent. For the Suskinds, they knew that animated Disney films brought their son comfort, and he was allowed to watch many of them. After a period of time, Ron and his wife, Corneilia, noticed that Owen started speaking in gibberish. Then, one day, something changed. Owen began saying “juicervose.” Ron and his wife thought that Owen was asking for some juice, but as it turns out, what he was saying was a mumbled form of “just your voice,” a line from the Disney film, The Little Mermaid.

“And it’s the first time he’s looked at me in a year. It’s the first time he looked right at me,” Ron Suskind told Amy Goodwin in an interview for Democracy Now. “And we knew something was going on.” Ron realized that his son had memorized many of the lines from 50 or so Disney films. “If you throw him a line, he throws you back the next line.” The lines to communicating with his son had begun to open up again, but this journey had just started.

Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, started to take notes about this journey which in turn became the best-selling book Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. More recently, these life events have been turned into the documentary Life, Animated which was directed by Academy Award-winning director, Roger Ross Williams. Life, Animated premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, earning rave reviews and a standing ovation for Owen that lasted over five minutes.

“How does it feel to have a film about your life?” Goodman asked Owen.

“Feels wonderful, actually.”

Owen’s dad added, “Are you surprised at how good it feels?”

“Yeah,” said Owen.

In the documentary, Ron shares how one day he sees his son flipping through pages of a Disney book and he spots a parrot puppet on the floor. The parrot is replica of Iago from the Disney movie, Aladdin. Knowing that Owen loves this puppet, Ron snatches the puppet, covers himself up with sheet and begins to talk to his son as Iago.

“Owen, how does it feel to be you?” the puppet asked.

“Not good, because I don’t have any friends.” said Owen.

Trying not to lose the momentum, Ron then asked through the puppet, “Okay, okay Owen – when did you and I become such good friends?”

“When watched Aladdin, you made me laugh.”

“And then we talk, Owen and Iago, for a minute, minute and a half. It’s the first conversation we’ve ever had,” remembered Ron.

The documentary continues beyond the early years to the most recent events in Owen’s life. He is now 23-years-old and is in the beginning stages of learning how to live somewhat independently. He is learning how to hold a job and how to date a girl.

One of the highlights of the documentary, and an obvious highlight for Owen personally, is a clip from a Comedy Central special from last February featuring Gilbert Gottfried who voiced Iago in the Disney film. Gottfried had Owen come on stage with him and asked Owen, knowingly, “You like doing scenes from Aladdin, right? You want to do one with me right now?”

Of course, Owen said “yes.” Gottfried then said, “OK, let me see if I remember any of this,” and then he began saying his old line from the film, “I can’t believe it! I just don’t believe it! We’re never going to get a hold of that stupid plan! Just forget it! Look at this! I’m so ticked off, I’m molting!”

Owen was over the moon with excitement but then, without any hesitation, Owen said the next line, verbatim, and in the voice of Jafar, “Patience, Iago, patience. Gazeem was obviously less than worthy.” And the crowd went wild.

Goodman asked Owen what it means to be autistic and Owens shared about some of his abilities, including being a good artist.

And what an artist he is. His room is full of his artwork from various Disney films. All his work is framed and it looks like an art gallery.

At the end of the interview, Ron Suskind told Goodman, “You know, for many years, we had a kind of a double life, where we didn’t talk to folks about this private life we had … eventually I said people should know that that’s really what was happening. And interestingly, what people are finding in the story is even a bigger theme … which is about all the left-behind people in this world … How do we get them to a place where their voices are heard?”

It’s possible that Ron telling us his journey just did.

[Photo by Mike Coppola and Cindy Ord/Getty Images]