Three of my favorite TV characters are children (well one’s a teenager, but you get the idea) who are, well, different.
Luke Dunphy (Modern Family) is, well, dumb. One of my favorite scenes involves him talking to an old man:
LUKE: What’s that?
OLD MAN: My oxygen tank.
LUKE: Oh. We have oxygen at my house, too. But we don’t need tanks. Takes a deep breath and walks into house.
Jake Harper (Two and a Half Men) is also a dim bulb.
Manny Delgado (Modern Family) isn’t dumb like his nephew Luke, but he’s definitely not your prototypical adolescent. He wears a burgundy dinner jacket. He reads Hemingway. He likes French Press coffee. He plays the pan flute.
In real life, I know only one child who is really all that unusual, and that is my flambouyantly gay nephew, who is nine. How do you know that he’s gay, at nine, you may ask? Imagine Jack from Will & Grace at nine, and you’ve got my nephew. And no, I’m not kidding. The kid has to be talked out of going to school in drag.
Now, for some disclaimers. I am not saying that being gay is weird. I am not making fun of my nephew, or gays in general, for being gay. I love and support my nephew. I know that many (most?) gays will tell you that they knew they were “different” well before adolescence. It’s just that, in my nephew’s case, he exemplifies just about every gay stereotype there is AT AGE NINE.
Do you know any really weird (or … dumb …) children?