Dan Harmon talks about Asperger's syndrome - Why Abed is a shaman [SubEng] [SubIta]

let's talk about as we jump all over the damn place your sudden realization as you sort of crafted Jeff a certain way at some point during the run and people are writing to you that Ovid is he's got Asperger's clearly you find yourself somehow taking an Asperger's test on on the interwebs and finding out that maybe you're you're closer to bed then yeah yeah that's a good way of putting it a bad way of putting it would be that I get because I it's such a hip hip illness like I did I'd mean to diagnose myself with Asperger's it's a terrible thing to do autism yeah it's the new gay it's the new black it's uh yeah I got Asperger's I think that's a very accurate way of saying it is that what happened was the character of Abed was being well responded to by the kind of to call it the spectrum community the the audience I was curious about it and I was sort of googling around and I would find these forums and chat rooms and things were people with the so called affliction were really responding to this character and I say so-called affliction because I think one of the most interesting things about it is that with with spectrum disorders is that you know there's a there's a lot of of people out there who don't consider it an affliction because the definition of an affliction should be that it's somehow inhibits you whereas actually the inhibition is on the part of other people and that that's why the these are these are people who they're different and they they're they're they they have a what's called a disorder by a by a you know a mob of doctors who are basing their standard of perfection on a you know bell curve and they're in the pockets of the pharmaceuticals anyway sure those guys yeah I mean a little bit let's get real yeah um but the that so I was like okay these are cool people these are my kind of people because they're nerdy and there they they traditionally they of them some Spock and some r2d2 and some Mork from ork and any any any character that you come up with that Terra has one foot in and one foot out and it's on that is weird and people are trying to tell them you need to be more like normal people and there's then they're like I wish I could but I can't data from Star Trek The Next Generation the they what I what I noticed is that they they really liked the sahabat character and they considered him a refreshing portrayal of someone with their so-called disorder because he one of the most important things about him to them was that he wasn't he didn't have Pinocchio syndrome he didn't wish you know he wasn't like I really love only I could have an emotion chip and be like all the normal boys and girls he was he was what he was and he was okay with it and it was up to other people to to figure out how to deal with him and they they really liked that a lot something about it just rang with me and I was I I don't want to let these people down ever they they don't get a lot of of role models on TV and I know how important that is what happened is alongside of that the interesting personal thing that happened I think is that yeah I didn't want to disappoint these aspies who were responding so well to this character so I just just as ooh I didn't also didn't want to diagnose him on camera I I don't mean it's incredibly difficult to diagnose adult Asperger's it's a it's a it's not it can take forever it can take a decade because you can recognize it in children but what happens is this is a disorder that that it's a functional thing like like those people aren't handicapped they're they're just different and they learn to blend they they the same way you if you there's something wrong with your leg and you kind of like you start walking differently like they just become like these weird like like like personalities that cope in all these different ways you can't tell one from it there's no similarity among some of the they're that just you know it's and so it becomes like this thing or it's like well is it a is it a disorder at all is it just we just diagnosing being weird of being exceptional a lot of a lot of that happened about that in their communities on the internet and I as I said I just I just didn't want to do wrong by these people and so I researched this thing just to make sure I never did something like stab abend say he loves pickles and then it's like everybody knows that nobody with any form of mild autism spectrum disorder okay you can't stand any briney food or cucumber based product I and now he blew it I have snow no I'm I just oh that was the impulse so it's like just make sure you got this right you got a handle on what this is and so I I researched it and and then and then it just started sounding awful familiar but I do think that we've all done this before if you google bump on my neck cancer right yeah because you got a bump on your neck you're going to find out the bump on your neck is cancer whether it is or isn't the Internet is real good for that so I I know I'm not normal but IIIi I think the important thing is that I as you put it I think it's the best way to put it I started to discover that I had a lot more in common with this with Abed than I did with Jeff Jeff was a Jeff was originally me the idea that the sexy version of me there's the idea that as I said before like if I talk long enough I can make anything right or wrong I have this like Hulk mouth that I guess activate and I was like mesmerized people and I have to learn how to even though that makes me not believe in God or not believe in right or wrong and not believe in love I'm going to learn all these things because I'm with these knuckleheads and that as its you can see the transition happening in the chicken fingers episode in the first season it's a conversation between Jeff and Hobbit in the kitchen at the end of the episode and they're talking and they make a deal that Jeff characterizes as let's be like Knight Rider you know I'll you know like meaning that Abbott could be the car and he can be the yeah David Hasselhoff it's like let's help each other like eubie eubie eubie smart and weird and be I'll be human like you help me like point me in the right direction and I'll do the talking it I and I would misinterpret it and it's it's it's it's a real hoot but it's in that moment in that conversation that the the transition happens right it's a because I'm not I don't walk away from that scene identifying with the with the sexy Irish guy anymore it's I am now the weird Indian kid after that episode so and then second season started and I was kind of like him the whole time but Abed sort of represented a lot of what you were describing in terms of where you were at when you met Rob what your interests were that part of you that's that has evolved and he represented the Trojan horse of getting you inside the network sitcom world that part of this story is absolutely fan tastic no truly it is it allowed you to thrive creatively and also to sort of transition away from the fantasy of being Han Solo to celebrating being all dirty - no no but I mean being being the far more complex good and and also by the way I crazy charming in his way where of course yeah everybody wants to yeah I mean he said he doesn't have self-esteem issues like that's the interesting thing about him is that he likes being the way he is he's just frustrated with his alienation he just he loves people every that this is the thing that I think is the most important profound thing and please somebody tweet in or call or correct me if I'm wrong but but out of there there are there are disorders afflictions whatever you call them head injuries that can cause people to like eating poop there are there are people who sleep with corpses there are people who get turned on by women stepping on their face there are people who want to teddy bears there are people who eat dirt there are people who murder children there is no such thing there's no twisting of the mind possible that has ever resulted in any person wanting to be alone they're the liking solitude you take a hardcore racists serial killers a homicidal maniacs and you put them in solitary confinement and they and they immediately start losing their mind lately they beg and cry to be to be put around other people they'll rape and kill them but they want the company that P we are social mammal like like to take into such extremes that there's nothing like it on earth so you can kind of see similarities and chimps and things but even they don't get along quite as well they don't have this sort of natural instinct for cooperation compassion the thing things that we think are fake conceits their genetic like their in us we we are different because we want each other to succeed and we don't do it all the time but we we are known to sacrifice ourselves for each other and it's it's um it's amazing so you take a character like hobbit you go you know what's really cool about this is that he's not just some dick like like every single character on that show they're the one thing they have in common is that they they'd rather be with each other them than be alone and Abed is his condition is he's just afraid kids that grow up with Asperger's they they're they're the the most common link we can find with them as frustration the the the an alien fear of alienation the like fear of being outcast because we all feel that they grow up with it they are they their personalities are formed in this crucible of constantly they just have everyday five times a day somebody points at them and says what are you doing and they find out that their pants are around their ankles and you're not supposed to do that when you pee you're supposed to only pull them down enough to put your wiener out and it's at some social custom that they didn't pick up on our understand and they were the last person to realize that they've been doing it wrong the whole time and it's they feel humiliation they feel terror because there's nothing worse you can do to a human being than threaten them with out kicking them out actually the question of what are you doing you're doing it wrong mm-hmm those sort of messages have been sent by family members either patreon major or siblings as a way to either judge or compete so I think there's this inherent social disorder that is in all of us because of that upbringing of someone along the ways of alleged authoritative plateaus well we all have what's the you do yeah we all had to not step in traffic and not touch hot stoves we all have to learn that you can't call a door an elephant but otherwise people won't know what the you're talking about so we we often characterize being told what to do as a bad thing and and and but we we want our parents to approve of us and they're the agents of like they're all of us Asperger's or not we all experience that primal like humiliation of somebody going what the man what not just doing something incorrectly you know what I mean I think there's something now inherent not now but always inherent in the social environment where somewhere along the way someone in your life or several people either Competitiveness at school now it's a huge bully movement or acknowledgement of a forever lasting bully move someone in a position of alleged power or self imposed power saying you're an idiot yeah usually a mob if it's if it's an individual person it's just somebody who's been vested with the authority of the mob right you know it's a popular kid or a bully that that everyone fears so I have the backing how many people you know that do better walking into a social situation after a drink or some something that relaxes their crack yeah how many people yeah what is how high is that yeah it's so there's a form of human instinct you say these the Asperger's come up with frustration basically every day about about being accepted mm-hmm so I think I'm venturing into that's in human nature already yeah definitely that's the there's there are people that we call kleptomaniacs but we all know what it feels like to want to steal something there are people that we that we call stutterers but we've all been tongue-tied so the character like hobbit or you don't like yeah we the thing that they represent is the part of us all of us feel like weirdos we all are kept in line by our terror of being outcasts it's the it's the it's the force that pushes us together we don't want to be that last person like left out in the rain like well we know we'll die

Channel: Fabio Prandi

Views: 530,592

Rating: 4.8874178 out of 5

Keywords: Dan Harmon (TV Program Creator), Asperger Syndrome (Disease Or Medical Condition), Community (TV Program), Subtitled, Sub Eng, SubEng, Kevin Pollak Chat Show, Sixseasonsandamovie, Aspie, SubIta, Sub Ita

Id: Emo-OT3RzQc

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 14 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/PerryDigital]

That was excellent. There's a link to the whole two hour interview under the video for anyone interested in more.