I'm torn if I'm honest. I think we run the risk of sanitising the reality of Tourettes with censorship especially given the situation and the purpose of the film. Part of me does think that rather than normalising censorship of Tourettes tics that we just have to ignore it no matter how awful it is. BUT it also upset him as much as it's upsetting others so it's clearly wasn't the answer in this situation.
Plus I do think one of the issues with the whole scenario which I mentioned up thread is that you are only hearing the audio, which in itself lacks context.
If we could see and hear him, you have a much better understanding that it's a Tourettes tic. That makes you process the situation differently because your own response is different because you have more context from which to feed back what is happening and what the intention is.
One of my friend tics turns out to be constantly touching my arm. It's extremely irritating but I also knew immediately the first time she did it she was finding me calming somehow from reading the situation. So you kind of put up with it through gritted teeth. She later explained that touching things can help because it gives her brain an alternative stimulation which helps distracts it from the intrusive thoughts which made a lot of sense. Her brain was essentially reassuring itself and she'd focused on me as a 'safe individual'. I have no idea why she did this. There were others there who know her much better than I do. I perhaps understand anxiety issues better because of my own issues. I don't know. She explained it as form of grounding which is a technique for dealing with anxiety which I've heard of before. She was also using fidget spinners for the same reason.
To me just putting up with it and just getting on and ignoring it was very instinctive. It was not just merely being polite. It seemed to be what she was needing in that moment so I went with it. As I say I didn't know she had Tourettes before this occasion until I was in a situation where she couldn't exactly hide it. And even then she didn't immediately explain it.
It's a case of getting all the visual, verbal and other social cues that help you understand the situation. When you remove just one element of that you don't necessarily appreciate what's happening in full. Communication is a whole range of things. How we understand others isn't just from what they say, its how they say it, the context of what they say, their body language etc etc.
I guess it's probably a reasonable adjustment for all concerned especially because he requested it. It makes sense to edit vocal without all that behind that too.
I don't know. I don't know how you would live with it on a day to day basis. I don't know how you get people to understand that it's effectively someone acting out their worst nightmare in public and having no control of it and help them to understand there's very little that we can do to mitigate the situation apart from explaining and just carry on. I don't know how you manage an unmanageable situation.