The “Token” Allergy Guy

I’m an avid movie watcher and I must say that there’s a lot of stereotyping of people with allergies in not only just movies, but pop culture in general. People are always talking about how “such and such” groups are under-represented in the movies, video games, television, books, etc. Well, that’s not our (“Allergy people”) problem at all. We’re represented. We’re miss-represented, and quite often. Here’s short list of the characteristics of allergy people in popular culture based on a random sampling of books and movies and such.

Allergy people are:

• Overly intelligent or “dorky” in appearance and conversation
• Small and/or sickly looking
• Sneeze-prone with runny noses galore and other various snot and phlegm issues ALL THE TIME
• Annoying
• Boring
• Comical

Let’s take a look at a few examples

(WARNING: I may give away a few spoilers, so read at your own risk)

The TV Show “The Cosby Show”

Bill Cosby (aka Heathcliff Huxtable) takes Rudy and a group of her elementary-aged friends during an episode called “Planning Parenthood” (on YouTube, it’s part 2, about 1:15 into it. After they eat the first course (salad), one of the little girls informs Cliff that she’s allergic to something she just ate. It’s quite funny. You have to see it. She’s so cute.

The Movie “Pure Luck”

A comedy that stars Martin Short as Eugene Proctor. He wears lots of button down shirts, looks goofy in any casual clothing, and get’s bit by some bug and blows up like a balloon at the end, literally. Sorry to ruin it for you. It’s such an intellectually stimulating slap-stick comedy. Wink wink.

The Video Game “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker”

On the first “island” location, your avatar bumps into a little neighborhood boy that likes to follow you around, sucking on this glob of snot that’s hanging out his nose. He doesn’t provide any clues for your main quest in the game and, for the most part, he’s awfully funny and cute.

The Movie “The Diary of Anne Frank”

A Movie based on the book with actress Shelly Winters who plays Mrs. Van Daan. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read the book, and I’m a much more visual person so I tend to remember scenes in movies, so I can’t say that the comments that follow are comments on the “real” Anne Frank’s experiences. So please don’t take offense. Mrs. Van Daan is allergic to cats and her sneeze almost gives the two families away while in hiding. She also happens to be one, if not the most annoying characters in the movie, next to her husband that is.

The Movie “Signs”

Rory Culkin plays Morgan Hess, who has asthma (often related to allergies in the movies). Morgan’s pretty small, takes to reading books quite a bit, wears tin foil on his head to keep the aliens from reading his mind, and has an extreme asthma attack which almost kills him.

The Movie “My Girl”

Co-star Macaulay Culkin (real life brother of Rory Culkin). He’s small, wears glasses, annoys Vada a bit because he likes her, and he doesn’t always like to do adventurous things with Vada, if I can recall. He also gets stung by bees at the end and dies. It’s quite sad.

The Movie “Sleepless in Seattle”

Walter, played by actor Bill Pullman, is allergic to white bread and not wheat, sleeps with a humidifier every night, blows his nose before bed (Kleenex everywhere), has no personality and is evidently boring (i.e. the picking of plates) enough to run off Meg Ryan.

The Book “Pride and Prejudice”

Now I believe that allergies weren’t discovered scientifically until 1902, so Jane Austen probably had no knowledge of the subject. However, I would argue that the hanky toten,’ sad lookin’ face of Miss Anne de Bourgh, the “intended” for Mr. Darcy, has quite a bit of the same stereotypical characteristics of all the other characters I’ve mentioned above. This one might be a reach, I fully understand that. Maybe I just wanted to type Miss Anne de Bourgh in an English accent. What? Didn’t you notice the accent?!?

I’m sure if you can find more examples, so I’ll stop here.

Now, I’m not suggesting a revolution here or a call for political change. This is just a pause for reflection. I totally agree that if you were to take the allergies out of some of these books and movies, they might be just a little less funny or interesting. Some movies obviously portray elements of allergy truths. I get runny noses sometimes and there are obviously people who have extreme life-threatening allergies that require extreme measures.

What’s important here is that allergies aren’t cool, they aren’t sexy according to pop culture, and that gives people with allergies a bad rap. How many of you with food, pollen, or asthma problems have told people that you “just can’t tolerate something” or that you’re “trying to stay away from something” rather than state that you’re “allergic.” I know I’ve done it a few times. And this was just an exercise in understanding one possible reason why.

On the lighter side of things, I want to say that do know that I should never feel guilty about having allergies. This is just how God made me, and to think of all of the cool things that I’ve learned from the experience is pretty amazing. Too bad Hollywood can’t portray the beauty beyond the joke. I wonder what it would look like if they tried.