the infantilised spectacle of autistic representation

I am I am a surgeon I am a surgeon Dr H I am a surgeon this one dramatic memeable sentence thrust the state of autistic representation into the mainstream discourse this clip is from a show called the good doctor a medical drama about Dr Shawn Murphy played by Freddy hore who is an autistic surgeon the short snippet was posted online and quickly became meme fodder with parodies use of the sound going viral on Tik Tok and many people questioning if this show was good autistic representation judging by this scene I decided to look into it and ended up going on a deep dive that took me from the legacy of Nazi doctors during the second world war to the worrying consequences of the svant genius myth in this video we'll be looking at characters from Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory to Raymond in Rainman and shows like love on the Spectrum all the way to heartbreak high as well as autistic head canons and theories to break down the state of autistic representation to today because although there are difficulties in assessing accurate representation of autism due to the wide array of experiences of autistic people there are commonalities in this representation that I think are worth pulling out especially in the ways they connect with existing stereotypes and misconceptions and in this video we're going to begin by investigating three of them spectacle infantilization and exceptionalism spectacle let's start with the good doctor so spectacle autistic representation is essentially a highlighting of difference a focus on the alien nature of autism emphasizing the outward evidence rather than the internal experience or processing or thoughts and feelings that that person might be going through showing an audience an autistic character through analistic or non-autistic lens of the people who are on the outside watching what is visible to the World At Large like for example a seemingly random sudden meltdown in public the potential concerns with hore's character in the good doctor were discussed online even before the pilot had aired with one analysis of the trailer by journalist Kayla hail Stern accurately predicting the debate that still rages around the show today Dr Shawn Murphy is the hero of the good doctor and this is a good thing I guess I just don't want him to be a weekly spectacle denounced and gawked out by naysayers before he saves the day whether intended or not the performance of the I am a surgeon scene became a spectacle outside of the show as TV journalist Michelle Cara Chan skaya explained in collider sha experiences a meltdown an experience defined as an intense response to an overwhelming situation often involving being overstimulated by one's current environment during this clip Shawn who is provoked by his ablest colleague who wants to limit Sha's working abilities shouts I am a surgeon repeatedly while looking emotionally overwhelmed many online criticized hore's portrayal itself and users began remixing the sound recreating the scene to mock the acting choices and generally res sharing it using every meme format popular at the time but the question of how far this was a community of autistic people poking fun at a neurotypical actor's attempt at faking a meltdown or a mixed group with alistic users just finding the idea of someone having a meltdown itself as a source of entertainment is impossible to know kir Chan Sky expanded on this in her article saying while the accuracy of this scene depicting an actual autistic meltdown is questionable the response to it is indicative of a larger system of how a society sees neurod Divergent people making fun of an autistic character having a meltdown and not the actor's exaggerated attempt at playing one is making fun of the idea of neurod Divergence itself distress over having a meltdown in public isn't helped when a non- neurod Divergent accommodating society makes fun of these moments only adding to the stigma surrounding neurod Divergence and the questionable accuracy is something that has been well questioned since the show began with critics quick to point out that himo himself seems to have drawn on a relationship with the organization Autism Speaks for his performance even doing a PSA for them Autism Speaks is controversial to say the least with reputation for speaking for autistic people focusing on parents of autistic children as a target audience and supporting applied behavioral analysis as a way of treating autism they were originally set up to find a cure for autism which they conceptualized as a disease they removed the goal of finding a cure from their mission statement in 2016 there are a bunch of Articles and collections of the many specific instances with autism speak that you can check out if you so wish by looking online many cated by autistic people who have personal testimonials of the damage that things like ABA can inflict and because that information is out there and readily available with a Google search many argue that working with such an organization at such an involved level suggests a lack of preparation for the role on the part of writers and maybe the actor himself after this SE went viral other moments from the show began to pop up online as well in one he repeatedly accused it a Muslim woman of being a terrorist and in another he continues to misgender a transp patient the latter is particularly bizarre to me for a couple of reasons his misgendering seems to be because of his logical autistic brain but surely as a brilliant genius doctor he would know about the breadth of sex and gender diversity but also from the point of view of how this portrays autism to a wider audience because for the sake of giving sha another episode Arc about how he needs to learn about people's differences in bedside manner it misses engaging with a bunch of studies and data on the higher rates of queer identity and gender dysphoria in autistic people like you have a trans patient an autistic doctor and an understudied field linking them together this is all the makings of some really interesting discussions and posos for the show but no they go the other route I guess and the thing is the show seems to link behaviors like islamophobia or transphobia to his autism as if it's an unavoidable side effect of it like it's his natural state that he has to you learn to grow out of with guidance from the neurotypicals around him Lydia Brown senior advisor at autistic women and non-binary network called out this element of the show directly as reported in the Washington Post the good doctor reinforces false stereotypes that autistic people can't form meaningful relationships understand boundaries or treat others respectfully it feels like this is the kind of conclusion that you might come to from engaging with stereotypical attitudes and portrayals or outside observation without talking to someone who is autistic because respect consideration and politeness are often malleable and socially constructed and assigning negative intentions to autistic people simply because you observe a behavior that you don't think is respectful enough is all too common observation of bluntness without an understanding of where it comes from can then be extrapolated by a screenwriter into extreme forms of rudess including bigoted beliefs because of the false connection between the two a genre West spectacle is part of its very appeal is reality TV and autistic dating show love on the spectrum is no exception these shows thrive on a high concept premise that being a premise that you can describe in one or two sentences love island is a group of singles try to find love in a stunning tropical Villa but anyone who isn't paired up voting time is kicked out the traitors is participants undertake group challenges to earn money for a final prize pot but amongst them are traitors who have the power to kill their fellow contestants love on the spectrum is a concept that relies on autism as it's very premise a reality show following the dating lives of members of the public but they are autistic the but here holds a lot of potential weight the idea that the fact that these people have autism is a big enough twist to be a concept in and of itself the question for many then becomes is this a genuine documentary about an underrepresented group of people who are often infantilized being shown as fully capable of relationships if they want them or is it played as a Gable gimmick emphasizing how different these people are to normal people on on these types of dating shows the answer to that question seems to be in the eyes of the beholder journalist Allison Foreman described it as an affecting show that paints telling portraits of human connection that are so lovely so moving and so wholly satisfying it's hard to imagine reality dating being done any other way this clearly demonstrates the positive attributes that she sees in the show but also betrays the fact that the show is fundamentally different from other dating shows Foreman perceives this as a good thing with a wholesome nature being desirable in this space of real it TV but it's clearly not in line with the typical hot singles element of many dating shows which actively emphasizes the desirability of the subjects in question whether this was a case of the show producers not seeing autistic subjects as inherently hot and desirable or if they are fundamentally against the typical dating show format for anyone is unclear the production company Northern pictures doesn't focus on dating shows at all their output has been a mix of environmental projects social investigations on things like consent methal Health institutions and sexism in the Arts and programming about disability and neurod Divergence including unemployable me which follows people with neurodiverse conditions such as autism OCD and Tourette Syndrome as they search for Meaningful employment so we can't directly contrast their output on Love on the Spectrum with another dating show that they have produced to see if there are any differences in style and tone because they have been people critical of the show pointing out the element of spectacle which itself can combine with other aspects of stereotypical autistic representation including infantilization disability policies and cultural reporter Sara Litman wrote in 2020 about the original series the show is also riddled with bad advice and is frequently infantilizing there are more interviews with parents than with the people the show is ostensively about the musical cues would be more appropriate for a documentary about clumsy baby giraffes than for a reality series about adult humans there are discussions about sex on the show that are euphemistically broached by The Producers behind the camera asking grown adults who are moving in together and share a bed if they have consummated their relationship the idea that this would be a surprising thing considering they're about to live together and share a bed seems to be tied to an assumption based on their autism itself the advice lamman refers to is a key part of the show where relationship therapist Jody Rogers who specializes in coaching disabled and neurodivergent clients offers her insights in one episode she walks a young man Kelvin through a date scenario correcting him when he doesn't immediately introduce himself but also criticizing him for following that up with his interests he knows to pull out a chair for her but does it too soon for her liking when they repeat it again he introduces himself just by name no interest and then forgets to pull out the chair the lesson seem to be in many ways imposing objectively nonsensical Norms of dating onto his natural inclination of connecting with the girl he's on a date with her version of dating advice here seems to amount to mimicking neurotypical dating Norms which have been adopted by Society because they are the way things are rather than because they would necessarily be the most natural or successful way to have a date where the goal after all is to engage with someone get to know them and have fun the spectacle here is the enforced repetition of the practice scenario instead of pulling out her own chair when he forgets like most people would do even if they expected a man to do that for them she just stands there awkwardly emphasizing to the audience his supposed failures as such a simple task journalist Sarah kek wrote a nuanced piece for Time Magazine about the show that ask questions about the editing the score and cinematography and whether the same choices would have been made for non-autistic subjects the plinky cutesy musical accompaniment gives a very specific impression of the people on screen and it isn't necessarily that they are capable adults ready for a romantic relationship she also describes her hesitance around the lack of diversity on the show missing an opportunity to give representation to people across multiple autistic experiences and identities however she also points out that it's not like reality unscripted programming about non-autistic love is a Bastion of accuracy and perfectly Fair depictions even the more Earnest and straightforward ones aren't perfect there's always a risk of misrepresentation and misinterpretation perhaps accepting that autistic reality show Stars will be subject to the same hazards as non-autistic ones and respecting the autonomy of those who choose to participate is its own awkward step towards equality in a subsequent piece on medium she talked about the response to that article her initial piece had been written with the intention of discussing all supposed sign of the discourse around the show but while many saw this complexity for what it was she grew concerned about how people who enjoyed the show were treating my story as some kind of get out of being problematic free card if this one autistic person liked it they seem to reason then they were free to enjoy this reality show without any further soul searching or feeling any need to listen to more than one autistic perspective on it this to me is a key part of any discussion about representation as I talked about earlier in this video there can be a tendency for people to want a black and white answer to a question of good and bad representation I did a whole video essay about the false dichotomy of that binary and quer representation last year in fact any representation in this video will have those who love and hate it including amongst autistic viewers but representation does have power especially when we're talking about marginalized communities and those who have not had the opportunity to tell their own stories it means that representation can also be informed whether consciously or Not by stereotypes in Prior represent ation made by non-marginalized people and then those stereotypes will be absorbed by new audiences in this kind of cycle and although some may relate to these portrayals of autism when they take up the majority of representation it leaves A diversity nuance and contradictions in that community on The Cutting Room floor one woman kin who was rejected from the new series of Love on the Spectrum for example recently made a Tik Tok about her experiences on the show from her point of view they took her out of the running because she didn't fit the specific boxes that they wanted to put their subjects in her issues with communication would not be as visible on screen in a way that could be emphasized as a spectacle and she was interested in dating alistic or non-autistic men after a number of experiences with autistic men pushing her boundaries and treating her badly by blaming it on their autism and not taking accountability a show like love on the Spectrum with its cutesy wholesome image feels like one that would absolutely not want to deal with conversations about autistic people having the capacity for abuse or mistreatment of others she was told that they weren't filming in her area so it wouldn't work out but she later found out that that had been a lie when some of the production team from the previous season invited her out for drinks in her hometown we see this element of spectacle in autistic coded characters too take Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory who is a walking list of coded attributes from his quirky and obsessive behaviors to his genius level scientific knowledge the show writers have denied he's autistic and in the show itself he mentions that his mother had him tested but it didn't end in a diagnosis for many this is seen as a sort of attempted a get up jail free card that if they say he's an autistic they don't need to be held to any kind of representational Standards indeed the actor who plays Sheldon himself has admitted very early on I was asked by a reporter whether Sheldon had Aspergers I wasn't sure what that meant I asked the writers and they said no he has Asperger traits but they're saying that took away a social responsibility the intention for there to be some kind of neurodiversity in the the show is clear for many whether they intended for him to be autistic and Orit name or if they just saw these traits as a clear and classic nerd archetype they could tap into is still up for debate the actress who played Sheldon's eventual love interest in the show said in an interview in 2015 all of our characters are in theory on the neuros psychiatric Spectrum I would say Sheldon often gets talked about in terms of asperges or OCD I think what's interesting and kind of sweet and what should not be lost on people is we don't pathologize our characters we don't talk about medicating them or even really changing them and I think that's what's interesting for those of us who are unconventional people or who know and love people who are on any sort of spectrum we often find ways to work around that it doesn't always need to be solved and medicated and labeled the idea that labeling is an inherently bad thing is itself a strange way of looking at it to me suggesting a kind of wholesome show where obes and misfits find love and friendship but that people should find a kind of representation there without actually getting explicit representation itself that they can connect for these characters quirky weirdness but that that's sort of on them it also allows the show to use many of Sheldon's attributes and behaviors as jokes in and of themselves while denying that they are laughing at autistic traits when the audience waits for a classic Sheldon Cooper joke they're waiting to laugh at his misunderstanding of a social situation or his frustration with someone messing with his routine or his exasperation with those who don't have his Sant like skills okay back up what exactly is autism so how come we have a character like Sheldon Cooper that people AR AR sure if they're Autistic or not surely characters are Autistic or they aren't at this point I feel like it's time to ask the question what specifically is autism not just because it's good for us all to be on the same page but because the answer isn't exactly simple the characters we've seen so far have been wildly different even within the same Arena of spectacle and that is indicative of the vast and varied experience of autism I collaborated with my friend and very talented autistic writer Nikki watkinson to break this down for this video as soon as I mentioned thinking about writing about this she was like okay but can I work on it with you so the Deep dive research in this section is credit and thanks to her so both the word autism and the condition it refers to have a complex history and that context May well shed light on some of the reasons behind these themes myths and issues that we see in autistic representation and that we're covering in this video so autism is a neurological condition which affects how the brain processes information but immediately this is where we run into difficult ulties although it's evident that autism exists no one quite knows like where autistic people and scientific researchers Alik agree that it is a distinct and observable condition but as soon as we try to Define it precisely it becomes complicated the national autistic Society describes it as a lifelong developmental disability which affects how people communicate and interact with the world which you know may well be true but is also vague as all hell this is in part because autism isn't located in only one one area of the body or brain it's a neurological condition that seems to have genetic factors there have been studies that show potential differences in some autistic brain structures but none that show some Universal or testable bodily or brain characteristic that is shared by all autistic people there are some common experiences and certain areas like executive function sensory processing and social communication skills where autistic people are likely to experience some level of differences from neurotypical or alistic people but there will also be a huge range of differences between the experiences of different autistic people issues with executive function can affect your ability to organize to complete tasks from everyday activities to new experiences this might look like great difficulty with seemingly simple tasks like cleaning your room for example in the way it affects your working memory flexibility time management attention span and more sensory processing differences might manifest as being over or under sensitive to sensory stimulus and lead to mental or physical withdrawal overwhelm or meltdowns and even within the same autistic person these might look different on different days in different environments and with different stimuli ultimately there is no one single thing that all autistic people experience or feel entirely in common as the saying goes if you've met one autistic person you have in fact met one autistic person autism is shown to affect many systems in the human body including the neurological metabolic gast intestinal and mitochondrial systems but there is no one neuron or Gene that is responsible for it and crucially for this video there is not just one presentation of autism it manifests in extraordinarily different ways from person to person and it's common to find two autistic people with diametrically opposed needs internal experiences and output presentations despite them having the same condition there are multiple Reddit threads about all of the characters that I talk about in this video where the original post will call out a show for like seemingly being ableist or inaccurate and half the comments are agreeing but the other half will talk about how actually they relate to this character there is a lot of subjectivity and individuality here autism is what's called a spectrum condition which means that there is a wide variety in type and intensity of symptoms experienced by different autistic people it does not mean that autism is a blind from not autistic to very autistic although this idea is very common these these days it's often conceptualized by autistic people and autistic affirming researchers and psychiatrists as more of a circle as in these examples by Matt Lori and ANUK at autism sketches this idea of there being a vast array of individual experiences is also true of other conditions of course and especially neurological and mental health conditions where diagnosis relies on being able to understand someone's internal experiences often these diagnoses demand that either a professional is able to observe certain behaviors which correspond with symptoms or that the person with a condition is able to identify and articulate what feels wrong but many autistic people have specific challenges identifying and articulating their internal experiences and differentiating their experiences from those of other people around them meaning that they may be less likely to be able to identify that something feels wrong in the first place or to communicate it and seek support autism has existed since long before the 20th century but the condition was first identified by two different scientists at almost the same time Leo caner in 1943 and Hans Asperger in 1944 named after Asperger and these specific presentations that he often observed Asperger syndrome became an official diagnosis in 1992 distinct from autism and was then folded back into the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in the 2010s until recently people still use the term Asperger syndrome whether formally or informally to refer to a specific autism presentation that usually involved high intelligence and lower support needs but in 2018 a medical historian published a paper claiming that Asperger had collaborated with the Nazi regime to institutionalize and euthanize children who he deemed unworthy to live and so many people now feel uncomfortable using the term perhaps because of this complex history there are major differences in the Frameworks research methods and even the diagnostic procedures used by different researchers and doctors and there is a huge amount of discussion currently within the community around the limits of the diagnostic process especially with people whose presentation is less typical and we can see how this can create a kind of feedback loop right people who aren't being diagnosed because their profile doesn't match the typical presentation of autism might then be excluded from research and the research then fails to expand to accommodate these different kinds of presentation not to mention that autistic people in science have a pretty rough history in general historically scientists researching a ISM were often focused on eliminating it by curing autistic people and preventing future autistic people from being born at all because to the perception of autistic people as incompetent and infantilized scientific research has long been dominated by caregivers and doctors and led by neurotypical feelings about autistic people distrust pity even disgust it's another kind of feedback loop it's been widely observed in studies in the UK for example that there is a distrust of these researchers from autis IC people here who then don't participate in the research so the research being conducted fails to take their needs into consideration and privileges neurotypical perspectives which leads perfectly into the next aspect of autistic representation that I want to look at in this video infantilization infantilization is an unfortunately common treatment for many neurod Divergent and disabled people including those who are autistic this attitude and often outright treatment often comes from the underestimation of autistic people the assumption that their processing of the world their being nonverbal their diagnosis itself makes them automatically incapable I think that this is in part because of the narrow view of what proper adult Behavior looks like especially in Western culture that is linked with a state of Independence and the ability to fit seamlessly into a capitalist workplace and structure with normative unassuming behaviors and communication which fits the assumed cultural norms it's also exacerbated by the traditional image of an autistic person as a child as shown in research such as the 2011 work from Jennifer L Stevenson Bev harp and Morton and gbur who found that media representation of autism was overwhelmingly that of children across everything from books and films to the websites of autism Charities and support organizations and even news articles they concluded that this was a cyclical relationship again a lack of representation meaning a hesitance for alistic Gatekeepers to allow autistic adults to self- Advocate or join conversations about their Community especially in the era of the time being about autism awareness and the public perception of it as a new phenomenon this can bleed into the idea that all autistic adults are childlike naive and nonsexual full of innocent wonder it assumes a universal lack of understanding and comprehension that might involve being spoken down to or condescended to infantilization might look like an autistic person being seen as controllable in the worst cases it can lead to imposing a lack of agency over that person's life and body when we talk about the media whether fictional portrayals or reality and documentary content infantilization looks like the tools of representation being used to emphasize those supposed qualities this might be the editing the music the scripting the formatting the camera angles and more this paternalistic lens through which the filmmaker will show an audience and autistic character might historically have been from a place of utter ignorance but in recent years we see this idea that an alistic or non-autistic person who decides to shine a light on autistic life is doing so as a morally good act almost that their decision to highlight this poor underrepresented group is a gift and that showing them as sweet and innocent and pure is positive representation that should be appreciated if we look at maybe the most notorious example of canonical autistic representation in film from the past few years we can't not talk about Sea's Movie music I think a lot of things about this movie the fact that it pulled in stars like Kate Hudson and Maddie Seer and came on the back of se's most successful commercial years as a musical artist probably probably boosted the confidence of her and her team that this would be a popular and well-received film the film essentially follows Hudson's character Zoo after she quits drug dealing and becomes sober and gains custody of her non-verbal autistic half-sister music it's a musical drama about a bunch of other plots that involve like a well-meaning neighbor manslaughter and Zoo maybe getting ready to dump music at an adoption center even before the film was released there were criticisms of the casting of Zigler in the titular role once the movie was out the reviews were equally es scathing with the movie currently at 7% on Rotten Tomatoes many autistic critics have pointed out the aspects of infantilization that the movie manages to impart on their TI character even though she is herself already a child which feels like Quite a feat writer Clen bastau pointed out in her analysis of the movie music is gifted an AAC device to Aid her communication but it seems to only have two phrases installed I'm happy and I'm sad for context popular AAC Prolo quota go has a default setting of 4,750 unique words music manages to both underestimate autistic people and infantilize them the backlash to the film was exacerbated by the response from SIA herself who railed against the criticism tweeting I cast 13 neuroatypical people three trans folk and not as [ __ ] prostitutes or drug addicts but as doctors nurses and singers [ __ ] sad nobody's even seen the dang movie my heart has always been in the right place she also talks about her conception of the character music I've never referred to music as disabled special abilities is what I've always said and casting someone at her level of functioning was cruel not kind so I made the executive decision that we would do our best to lovingly represent the community this response itself received criticism from people in the community who question these special abilities framing of autism and pointed out that the intention of having your heart in the right place doesn't necessarily make up for potential damage or actions might cause the idea of autism being a magical superpower may have started as a well-meaning attempt to change people's perceptions of atis autism as something that makes you fundamentally lacking but for many it's just as dehumanizing painting autistic people with this one-dimensional inspiration por brush interestingly CA herself has since been diagnosed as autistic however this new understanding of herself doesn't take away from the criticisms of the movie or the way it was handled especially as the character of Music doesn't seem to share Sea's experiences the autistic Community is not a monolith and hand waving any concerns about representation because an autistic person is involved is I think a little too reductive especially when it comes to someone ping a character whose autism affects their ability to communicate there's also an element of infantilization in a number of autistic coded characters both by their writers and also the audiences that react to them when I mentioned that I was making this video One autistic friend of mine immediately for me a voice note asking if I was going to talk about the fandom reaction to intor from Shira and the princesses of power the Shira reboot in question is an animated show about a bunch of young adult characters navigating life in a magical fantasy world including the lead character and her personal antagonist being raised as child soldiers interruptor is one of the aforementioned princesses of power specializing in technology that she develops herself she is highly intelligent with a bright and bubbly personality and hyperactive Tendencies while not specifically mentioned in the series itself the showrunner has confirmed that she was written as an autistic character in their voice note my friend explained that there are chunks of the fandom who object to people shipping in tror with anyone in fanfic or fan art arguing that she is basically a child this show has a romance as one of its Central plots it's not devoid of this as a concept at all this isn't a criticism leveled at the other characters due to the nature of the show or their actual ages it seems to be fully focused on the idea that this character is too naive and childlike to be able to consent to a relationship in trapa I feel the need to specify at this point is canonically 30 years old in the show Moss from The IT Crowd is another character who was clearly written as autistic coded at the very least you just have to type his name into YouTube and you'll find dozens of like moss from The IT Crowd being very autistic for 5 minutes 37 seconds type compilation videos The IT Crowd is a sitcom about two antisocial Geeks that run an IT department in a very boring office and the woman who ends up being sent down to supervise them the show aired in the mid 2000s and the characterization of moss was I think meant to play into one version of the nerd archetype the autistic coded character who is too into uncool things doesn't understand social situations and uses a nerdy voice and intonation when Moss misunderstands someone during a conversation like when a woman tries flirting with him by complimenting his glasses and he replies very seriously they're not for sale we see how these social misunderstandings are part of what's supposed to make the character funny the audience is encouraged to laugh at his confusion the it crowd's two other main characters Jen and Roy frequently have dating mishaps and storylines but Moss doesn't get the same treatment in fact his incompatibility with romance and sex is played as the series one final joke where we see Jen wake up in bed after a work party panicking about potentially having slept with Roy but instead Moss emerges from the bathroom in a skimpy pink robe whipping off his glasses and proclaiming good morning Jen proceeds to scream as the credits role this is never mentioned again in the show I think there's a combination of tropes going on here that compound into the desexing of autistic coded adults in much of the idea of the Virgin nerd the uncool autistic the unattractive geek the attitude that caring passionately about things is weird or too much that it's unattractive to be outside of the norm in some way all combined to associate autistic coded characters with a kind of default asexuality for many writers that you start with the idea of an uncalled nerd and then attach autistic coding to emphasize this idea or that you start with an autistic coded character and what follows is an assumption that relationship are just not part of their story exceptionalism this leads nicely into the third and final pattern in autistic Cannon coded representation the myth of the autistic Savant the existence of savant syndrome is rare in reality but overplayed in onscreen representation these characters will be Autistic or coded that way but with some superhuman ability or element of Genius added on in a specific area contrasting with their apparent deficits others if we look at this from a skeptical lens then there is this potential idea that someone with autism can justify their worth by excelling in one specific area to a superhuman level that it sends a message that autistic people's particular brand of inspiration porn is that they overcome their deficits with this novel and alien talent that might be useful to the world around them we've seen elements of this already in the example of the good doctor where sha is allowed to work in the hospital as an autistic surgeon only because of his Sant likee abilities that his autism alone would disqualify him but the added level of Genius is what gives people pause probably the most well-known of these betrayals is the 1988 film Rayman which stars Dustin Hoffman as an autistic Sant named Raymond who's been living for years in an institution before his brother finds out about his existence Raymond has incredible memory recall and can perform complex mathematical Feats in an instant with ease he also has discomfort with eye contact extreme sensitivity to touch verbal and physical stems and a specific list of routine rituals that have to be in place the film was based on Mega Sant Kim Peak as well as screenwriter Barry marrow's friend Bill SAA while alive Kim was believed to be autistic but it's now suggested that he had FG syndrome instead similarly SAA was not thought to be autistic either the original script didn't include the word autism at all according to the book neurotribes The Legacy of autism by Steve Silberman the decision to make Raymond autistic came from two psychologists one with an autistic son who read over The Script Hoffman subsequently met with a number of autistic people both in formal settings and more informal ones like going bowling together the film is generally regarded as a key stepping stone in autistic representation with many people's association with autism itself calling up memories of watching this very movie it was one of the first films to center around an autistic protagonist and arguably set the scene for the image of the exceptional Savant autistic character across Decades of Cinema that followed perhaps it's unfair to judge a movie on its unintended Legacy but I do think it's worth considering the way language from the film like high functioning is considered outdated by many today yet the preservation of this movie as a classic means that many will continue to watch it and without new and diverse representation available alongside it see the portrayal as the be and end all of what autism is Raymond at the end of the film is judged not capable of living independently and returns to the institution the idea that this is the highest level of autonomy an autistic person can hope to achieve as high fun functioning as Raymond is labeled to be has surely had an impact on the lives of autistic people and subsequent years maybe doubting their own autism or preventing those around them like parents or teachers from connecting autism with their behavior processing and communication Styles if they seem to be more high functioning than Raymond was or contributing to this idea of infantilization that there is only so much we can expect from someone who is autistic at all a friend of mine Ellen who is herself a disability Advocate went viral recently for a video on a train where another autistic person asks her if she is autistic Ellen asks wait how did you know I'm autistic before pausing and concluding oh the ways I am and the things that I do the other passenger tells her with knowing humor you were playing stard Valley when I got on and they both laugh it was a fun interaction between two people on a train that lasted less than a minute but the comments she received were truly wild so many people attacking her for the gal of claiming to be autistic because the real autistic person wouldn't be capable of traveling by themselves when writers base autistic characters on people they might have met once or twice or who are public figures or honestly even people that they consider friends there's always a danger of a surface level interpretation especially when we take into account masking which might indeed be in place with even people they consider to be close friends the writers aren't seeing who that person is when they're alone they might never have thought about the burnout consequences of that period of intense one-on-one interaction all the consequences of sensory overload which manifest Ed after they left a gathering early the autistic Savant got another piece of representation recently in Korean TV show extraordinary attorney woo about an autistic lawyer newly hired a big Law Firm who also has a photographic memory the show is a clear example of how canonical autistic representation including those that engage with common themes like Savant exceptionalism that have been critiqued don't necessarily lead to a univers or feeling from autistic viewers as to whether a portrayal is good or not polygon writer Jeffrey bunting interviewed an autistic attorney Haley Moss who said I felt extremely represented people typically are very nice to me but a lot of the time they offer me unwanted and unneeded assistance and it ends up looking like special treatment that makes me and everyone else sort of uncomfortable other interviewees pointed out these stimming in the show using headphones to combat potentially overwhelming sensory stimuli the negative reactions from colleagues to accommodations engaging with a Calia being in a relationship with someone who isn't autistic and more as examples of aspects that made them feel represented there's also the wider case similar to that of Rainman for the show being positive just by existing as a piece of accessible representation in a place and time when autism is overlooked reportedly in South Korea only 22% of autistic adults are employed and those that are earn an average of just $800 a month these elements of workplace discrimination are reflected by the various ways people underestimate and mistrust the character and her abilities in the show bunting's article also points out out reports from Korean news sources and creators who Describe the impact of this representation on them Korean school children are reportedly insulting each other by asking are you woo young woo autistic content creators filled comments expressing disappointment that they're not like y woo while receiving abuse for their criticisms of the series this expectation of all autistic people sharing Woo's characterization and personality is obviously ridiculous but the idea that they would be expected to also have Sant abilities is even more so woo is a so-called pricious Savant with her degree of sant genius being exceptionally rare many sources quoting the stat that only 75 people in the world would be considered at this level although I couldn't find the original source of this claim but the combination of this Show's success and previous focus on exceptional autistic Sant characters no doubt had an effect on the reception from an audience that might consider this to be the autistic Norm interestingly one interview with the creators of the show seems to demonstrate a level of understanding of the potential pitfalls that this singular representation can have the interview has been translated online with series director you and sick writing I sympathize with and feel regret for the relative deprivation that autistic people feel the sense that they must have some kind of special talent to have value or to be worthy of being the main character writer Moon xian's answer went even deeper into the response of the show when asked about audiences with developmental disabilities themselves to be honest if I was Autistic or if my family or acquaintances were autistic I would have been uncomfortable watching the drama woo young woo I can't easily call it fun I'd probably be conflicted about whether to watch it or not and no matter how much the drama is full of Goodwill and good intentions I can imagine the complicated feelings to hear a writers say that they expect their show to be uncomfortable watching for an audience of people that the show intends to represent feels um icky to some people I guess if it was an autistic writer saying the same thing about a show that they had written that autistic audiences might not want to watch you could understand it to be more about the experience of watching ableism or the like play out on screen if the piece is meant to confront non-autistic people with the realities of sensory overload or meltdowns or discrimination that that might well not be pleasant viewing for an autistic audience but the fact that it's being said by a writer writing about a community in a show that isn't meant to be gritty or hard-hitting feels strange he went on to say in the same interview I didn't try to avoid the difficulties caused by autism I tried to show them as much as I could I worried a lot about the concentration and degree of these hardships because I was afraid of showing them in a way that would hurt autistic people I wanted be able to support and root for the character woo Yang woo not because she is pitiful and they feel sorry for her but because she is lovable courageous and cool we also see this Savant exceptionalism in autistic coded characters perhaps most notably Sherlock Holmes many have theorized about the famed fictional detective over the years including those who suggest the original character written by Doyle May well have been autistic but perhaps the most infamous portrayal today is BBC Sherlock played by Benedict Cumberbatch but before we dive into that it's time for me to thank today's sponsor with a quick ad from Love and pies like every other safic I2 dream of opening a bakery SL Bookshop SLB Game Cafe SL looc cool hangout spot and defying all my friends who know me as the never played a game in my life gay this game that's let me do just that is one of the four whole mobile games that I now have on my phone love and pies is a baking puzzle game following this woman rebuilding her mother's burnout cafe after her mysterious appearance you match ingredients to make recipes and serve customers plus you can repair and decorate the cafe however you want although I always pick the blue option let's be honest essentially it combines together my loves of baking interior decor and unhinged cozy Mysteries because I've been playing this a bunch when I need a break and want to avoid just like Mindless scrolling and my main takeaway is that this town is full of gossips who are honestly not talking about this missing woman enough there's also mini game events released every week currently I am helping this adorable old woman deliver Valentine's letters for example so there's always new stuff to try so if you're looking for a free to download game to play on your phone or tablet where you can get to have a cute kid who is always in a dinosaur onesie and also run your own Cafe you can download love and pies today Sherlock has n Supernatural levels of observational and deductive skills helped by a near Perfect Memory it's a spectacle within the show as we see his Mind's Eye animated across the screen connecting the dots of various seemingly unrelated Clues to jump to correct but outlandish conclusions to even the trickiest of cases the writers outside of the show have never called him autistic but within the show characters have joked about it as if it's an obvious observation ironically it seems likely that Cumberbatch didn't deliberately Play Sherlock as autistic because his own conception and Research into autism is documented for another role he played the creature in Frankenstein on stage and has spoken about using autistic children as inspiration for the role telling greme Norton in one interview it's basically being a Manchild it's being a man infant and then psychologically Danny and Nick Deere who's adapted the Mary shell novel into a brilliant 2 and a half hour play version of it they both have autistic Sons so we went to two extraordinary schools and met some highs Spectrum autistic kids and it was very very humbling and amazing and very upsetting but very very extraordinary as well and inspiring it's really really extraordinary and very upsetting and it was important for them to realize that the creature in their story was not their the monster of old the monster of the gothic horror stories he's very much an innocent he's very much someone who is so different not only because of his appearance but because of these behavioral ticks which are very autistic um both in his understanding of the world psychologically and emotionally but also physically as well how that manifests later in his body and so that was the major part of the preparation Cumberbatch has subsequently said of people calling Sherlock autistic I'm very wary of that because I've met people with those conditions it's a real struggle all the time then these people pop up in my work and they're sort of brilliant and they on some level levels almost offer false hope for the people who are going through the reality of it it feels like a real life example of the hesitation that so many people have with infantilizing or Sant portrayals of autism that people will read into these a universal autistic experience and not be able to engage with the scope of individual experiences an actor who himself engaged with the kind of research that many would praise as doing the work has ended up in a very specific and narrow-minded conclusion about what autism even is and if that's the case then how can we expect the average casual TV or movie Watcher to understand these complexities especially if so many of the narrow portrayals are themselves made by non-autistic people autistic head cannons okay so at this point I think it's time to talk about head cannons a genuinely vital piece of the representation puzzle autistic head cannons are characters that autistic viewers see as autistic even though that isn't confirmed in the show or movie itself this is often because the viewer sees elements of the M themselves in the character or people that they know these are sometimes just the personal belief that a character is autistic but might also include additional ideas about how that character's autism plays out in their life beyond what we see on screen I have a strong belief that true representation is representation that is clear undeniable and explicitly evidenced to its Target demographic so for example claiming a character is gay on a kids show only works if children understand the ways that you reference that in the show itself it doesn't count if you code a character as gay so that parents give each other like knowing smirks as they watch with their kids but the kids themselves have no idea similarly I think the clear undeniable and explicit evidence representation for autism is the only way that you can judge it in the sphere of conversations around representation more widely it demands intentional and impactful representation that doesn't rely on stereotypes and coding however I do think that the importance of head cannons within Community discussions is often overlooked if one of the goals of representation is to make people feel scen then characters that feel so connected with an autistic viewer own experiences that they want to claim them as their own feel significant I don't think they can be used to give credit to writers for pioneering representation in fact the fact that creators of these characters weren't trying to write an autistic character and yet accidentally written a more accurately autistic character than one that relied on TI tropes and stereotypes as telling but you can't deny the importance of these characters to the individuals who see themselves within them there are so many amazing examples but I wanted to mention some of the most talked about here a recent example might be Wednesday Adams from the Netflix show Wednesday in an article for glamour writer Elena no wrote about the elements of her character that resonated with so many autistic viewers in the Netflix spin-off she has a dislike of physical touch struggles to interpret emotions and social cues has minimal facial expression rarely blinks and appears blunt or monotone to her peers in the article they're comfortable with us until they're not autistic coded characters Sara C and neurodiversity adva expanded on these wide observations she shows sensory sensitivities aversion to color touch Etc she abhors physical contact even going so far as to say we don't hug in the first episode when presented with a room full of color from her roommate a popular werewolf by the name of Enid wday rips off all the wallpaper and colorful knickknacks on her side of the room when Enid asks why Wednesday did this she simply replies I break out in hives and then the flesh peels off my bones Wednesday also has obsessive interests a strong sense of social justice and tenacity that many autistics commonly have it's easy to see why autistics gravitate and identify with Wednesday when viewing her through an autistic lens and it isn't just the specifics of behavior or sensitivities or voice that can spark a head Cannon there's also something key for many about characters reactions to them the experience of being shunned or looked down on or even outright bullied for expressing yourself or remaining unmasked is reflected in many of these characters characters who aren't reacted to in a negative way might serve as an appealing source of joy optimism and Escape but those that do suffer for their potentially autistic traits might feel especially significant with a kinship across multiple levels of experience like there Eddie mson a new character introduced in the latest season of stranger things who is loudly and proudly uncool he dresses how he wants is obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons and is tormented by the popular jock crowd that dub him Eddie the freak a balancing act of a character existing in a world that looks down on him but who puts his middle finger up at it anyway some viewers have connected element of the actor's physical performance with stemming or seeing themselves in his obsessive interests and his Hobbies interestingly Eddie is also a character who was often head canalon to be queer and these combined together in a lot of fanfiction to explore his friendship with canonical lesbian and often autistic head Calon character Robin an example that felt obvious to me when I was watching the show Shadow and bone was the character of w and vanc he stims he infodumps about his special interests he seems to struggle with eye contact has sensory issues and experiences overwhelm just a bunch of things that viewers have picked up on to evidence autistic head cannons for him plus his boyfriend canonically has ADHD and the autistic ADHD power couple Dynamic is honestly um so real and iconic I could go on and on but we would truly run out of time so here are some quick fire examples every single one of the belra family in bobsburgers Jack from Czech please Frankie Stein and Draculaura from Monster High catus everine from The Hunger Games zerael and Muriel from goodomens nutes Commander from the series that will remain unnamed Gregory from ABBA Elementary the whole family in Mitchells versus the machines El Woods in Legally Blonde Lilo from Lilo and Stitch and so many more one of the most frustrating elements of coming across head cannons or hearing about them from friends is how they perfectly demonstrate the ease with which autistic characters could be included in quite literally any show or movie with stranger things for example autistic fans have essentially given examples of Way's multiple autistic characters with specific and differing experiences of autism would work in a single show that isn't just about their autism right and it isn't autism that makes them suitable for a Sci-Fi show like they aren't the unfeeling alien character or the screaming monster they are two of the Teen Heroes what has been missing there are elements of autistic experiences that are by definition hard to get across in onscreen media the traditional adage of show don't tell works for outward information and emotions that can be seen on people's faces or with their actions but when you're looking at characters who deal with internal and sensory processing in a different way you're faced with a decision right do you stick with the show don't tell and create an external Behavior to demonstrate this or give room for autistic characters to express their internal feelings so as not to be misinterpreted without an added understanding of stemming might it become to non-autistic audiences just a funny thing that autistic people do for seemingly no reason as someone with pure o OCD I see a similar thing with portrayals of my condition on screen it is I think the reason why contamination OCD is the most commonly used in these scenarios cleaning over and over is a visual expression of an internal process but the overreliance on this means that most people have no idea the level of internal turmoil that leads to the external behavior of cleaning in the first place we're currently experiencing what the tabloids are proclaiming to be some kind of autism epidemic either because of vaccines or Tik Tok there is the vaguest of truths here I mean vaccines have nothing to do with it but more people are being diagnosed seeking diagnosis and self- diagnosing than ever before this is likely due to a Confluence of factors including both an increase in information and online community building and experience sharing but also how much more difficult is becoming to exist under late stage capitalism without accommodations neurod Divergent people who would have gotten by without a diagnosis in previous decades might now be finding themselves so overworked and overstimulated that their everyday experience are becoming much harder to manage I also think this conceptualizing of autism as this like new modern phenomenon has a danger of us erasing some of the quite dark and horrific history of people sending away and confining their family members who were Autistic or noo virgin or disabled in some way into institutions like ignoring them pretending that they didn't exist so suddenly when you have more of an acceptance of autistic people it seems like they've just suddenly popped up out of nowhere many people also argue that a key factor when it comes to late diagnosis in autism is the diagnostic criteria themselves which is skewed towards the demographic that people like Cana and asperg are most often treated middle class white boys the diagnosis and the diagnostic criteria were developed around these children their experiences and the observations of their caregivers and doctors resulting in a diagnostic process which still to this day doesn't necessarily account for varying presentations in Children of color or children assigned fale at Birth for example example or for that matter adults the diagnostic criteria still focuses heavily on childhood symptoms and adult seeking diagnosis today have to evidence the presence of symptoms in childhood this means that autistic people who go undiagnosed into adulthood often miss the window for diagnosis especially if they have to rely on potentially biased misinformed or faulty memories from family members who knew them in childhood but didn't necessarily have an understanding of their internal experiences then these gaps in the diagnostic criteria have consequence es one of which is masking which I've mentioned before in this video an experience is often lacking in autistic representation but is increasingly being discussed as a key component of many autistic people's experiences masking is a concept in sociology and psychology referring to the ways in which we camouflage our individual personality and natural behaviors in order to conform in society it's something that most people do to an extent but is particularly often observed in minority groups as a way of assimilating to the dominant culture fr BR Fannon for example defining masking in 1957 in his book black skin white masks describing how black Americans mimic the behavior of white people when masking autistic person might suppress their stems in public or copy other people's mannerisms in order to pass as neurotypical often these behaviors are undertaken semiconscious the autistic person might be scolded by caregivers or teachers or bullied by their peers and internalize the message that these behaviors need to be suppressed but this creates another one of those feedback loops the autistic person struggles more and more alienated from themselves and their instinctive coping mechanisms but are often unable to describe how they feel or what they need and to others they don't seem to be struggling recently some researchers have proposed including masking within the diagnostic criteria even going so far as to suggest it as a symptom of a female autistic phenotype a type of female specific manifestation of autism which is different from the existing male Focus diagnosis but crucially these camouflaging behaviors aren't an inherent part of autism like other forms of masking they a consequence of societal conditioning of systemic racism and sexism and ableism and of restrictive and stereotypical representations of autism including in popular culture they are in fact a trauma response to a society which privileges the voices of white men and ignores the suffering of women trans and intersex people and people of color we think autism only looks one way so we miss all the other ways that it can look but there are of course writers and actors who aren't relying on flawed research and secondhand tropes to create their autistic characters writers who are autistic themselves representation by autistic writers and actors in recent years we've seen increasing examples of autistic writers and actors getting to tell autistic stories on screen the first show I want to talk about in this section is everything's going to be okay from Australian comic writer and actor Josh Thomas the premise of this show is that his character Nicholas learns that his father is about to die and that he's been tasked with the responsib ability of looking after his two younger half sisters Matilda and geneveve it doesn't sound like the premise for a comedy but I promise it is very good and funny Matilda specifically is a 17-year-old working on her dream of getting into Julia to study music and is autistic and played by autistic actor Kayla chromer the show from the jump Dodges a number of potential pitfalls of representation by having multiple autistic characters with a variety of personalities goals and interests through the series Matilda explores her sexuality her desires and ends up in a non-conventional romantic relationship with another girl Drea who is an asexual lesbian Matilda and Drea agree that Matilda can explore sexual hookups with guys they meet on dating apps in a communicative poly relationship far from the stereotypical idea of autistic people being infantilized and unable to complexly communicate their needs and wants and desires this whole story L is an exploration of the ways that thinking outside of social convention can lead to Ultimate happiness that makes its own rules writer Thomas said in an interview with Awards daily I'm very aware that we don't have a lot of autistic representation on TV only having one autistic character would feel weird we have three autistic characters in our show and there are only two or three other shows with autistic characters and they aren't even played by autistic people so suddenly we have half of all autistic characters on TV I want to make sure that they are all different it was a solid point we wanted to make that was the first time I had ever done that in a conscious way usually I just set out to tell a story that I want to tell the most interesting thing about this show for me however is that in producing the first season Josh Thomas came to realization that he too was autistic as well as having ADHD which he'd already been diagnosed with it was a real life example of the ways that authentic representation can have an impact although much closer to home than many would expect between Seasons he was able to get a diagnosis and Nicholas the character goes through his own Journey with figuring out that he is autistic in the second season of the show as a character who drew a lot from Thomas's own personality and perception of the world in the first place the story line gives us an an example of multiple neurode Divergent people in the same family of someone with both ADHD and autism which is reasonably common of autistic people with very different experiences and presentations and needs as well as another queer autistic character on screen and even with an autistic man at the helm they still bought in autism Consultants including Lilian carrier who plays Dreer in the show who gave input at all stages of the script from initial story ideas to the final script reads also consult ING with the props team on ways to ensure that there were no sensory issues with the different performers with objects they needed to interact with plus ensuring that there were options for specifically needed items so she could choose the best pair of headphones for her character for example which would also make her the most comfortable that easy accommodation baked into the structure of production feels vital to all ways of working on shows or movies that are truly interested in authentic autistic representation but they are also something I think should be vital to all Productions in general to start on the basis of making the environment as accessible and comfortable as possible for everyone another recent popular example of autistic rep by an autistic actor is Khloe Hayden playing Quinny in heartbreak high and Australian teen drama the show had similar methods to ensure that Quinny felt as real as possible including both an external consultant but also writers who were always ready to make changes based on Hayden's feedback from the start I knew that it was special because when I got the casting brief for Quinny she was very bold depicted as a neurod Divergent person and I've never seen that before it's usually like this person is quirky or this person is XY we never actually see this person is definitively neurode divergent This explicit representation was clearly a key part in Hayden trusting the team to tell quinny's story as part of their wide Ensemble of characters quinny's story lines include a new relationship with fellow classmate Sasha and the subsequent breakup as well as her friendship with Darren and special interest in book series Angeline of the underworld critics of praise the ways that her autism is balanced with her personality and circumstances not ignoring it but also not making it the only thing that's unique about her we see the way the nature of her High School environment affects the way she thinks about herself including her autism and her decision to talk about it with other people or not after an argument with Sasha for example she experiences a period of non-verbal shutdown that her friend Darren immediately understands and defends this trus in closeness is played out across the show with both of them helping each other in different ways as a loving equal friendship that defies many of the autistic antisocial emotionless loner images of early stereotypical portrayals in one interview with timeout magazine journalist Chantel lacrosse asked Hayden how did you play a role in making sure that Quinny wasn't some kind of caricature of what an autistic person might look like based on misconceptions and Hayden answered I think when they hired me they knew I wouldn't let that happen I only discovered after getting the role and finishing the series that they actually scouted me on Tik Tok and I don't hold back on there I'm very loud and very vocal particular particularly about the entertainment industry and about media so I think they knew from the get-go this wasn't going to be a very yesman sort of deal for them but they never want to try and make it that way either so many Divergent voices have gone into Quinny to ensure she wasn't some manic pixie dream girl or this false stereotype of autism that we've had far too much of the final example I wanted to mention is the British kids TV show a kind of spark based on the book by autistic writer El McNichol the story follows an 11-year-old autistic girl Addie who starts a campaign for a memorial for the victims of the witch trials in her hometown in Scotland there is a clear parallel made between the Misunderstood witches of the past who seem to act strangely and unnaturally are a punish for it and the experiences of autistic people she learns about the witch trials at school and becomes dedicated to finding a way to have the victims remembered to the idea that she and they are alike and that she can be a voice to speak for them the series was staffed by neurodivergent creatives from crew to writers to actors and Consultants too in an interview with a guardian writer McNichol who also wrote the series explains I said to the BBC it has to be very autistic Le there's this expression diversity is being invited to the party inclusivity is being asked to dance but what if we threw the party what if it was our party it's not a story about being diagnosed with autism or people suffering with autism which I'm very against it's a story about a girl who is on a mission being autistic is an all-encompassing thing it filters into every aspect of your life as is true with Addy but the story is about this Legacy in the show Addy has two older sisters one who is autistic and one who isn't all three sisters however are played by autistic actresses they've spoken about the difficulties on set of acting out emotionally and physically draining moments like sensory overwhelm but also the experience of having to mask as a character who was neurotypical they all seem to agree that the atmosphere and Provisions on set were directly aimed to account for this again this is the kind of thing that feels like it should be happening on sets of all kinds a genuine empathy and understanding of people's needs regardless of who they are why write autistic characters okay so at this point in the scripting process when Nikki and I were talking about what we were going to cover in this video I wondered if there would be anything interesting in finding out why so many non-autistic writers had included these characters what was the reasoning here especially if they were portrayals that ended up being mired in stereotypes or that fed into misinformation or with behind the scenes reason SE Arch which demonstrated the writers only thought to engage with autistic people after deciding to write about them Nikki went away to have a look into this and honestly it was a mess she kept digging and digging and eventually when I asked how it was going she explained that she just couldn't get it to come together into a complete section because it didn't feel complete it felt lacking empty a list of quotes and citations from various interviews but it didn't feel like enough this was clearly frustrating so we moved on and left the notes to come back to later but thinking about it that feeling of incompleteness is surely a symptom of the problem itself of course there won't be a logical and understandable list of reasons for the appeal of writing autistic characters if alistic screenwriters don't themselves really know about autism as a complex and individualized spectrum and because if they then decide to try and engage with and understand autistic people during the writing process they would surely be hesitant to reveal that their initial motivation was an ignorant kind of fascination I think we can Hazard a guess at reasons that like deep down some of these writers were writing these characters like they've seen the autistics ofon character so many times they just assume that it's a fair game archetype they want to write a kind of inspiration porn story for those poor autistics they see it as a useful narrative device they think it will Rainman them into a lofty worthy seeming Story by award season right there is an overarching element here that Nikki summarized as simple laziness to me it's easy to just go along with it these trapes are so encoded in popular imagination that there's a kind of shorthand to autistic representation now this single mother needs to be more sympathetic so we'll give her an autistic kid because we all know that autistic children are difficult and violent and a nightmare for the parents of course what The Stereotype doesn't often acknowledge is how difficult it is to be autistic to be presented as a burden to those around you but what can you do Nikki also pointed out that even with side characters stereotypical autistic coded behaviors and personal ity traits are used as a shorthand for an unpopular or unpleasant Outsider they're layered with a heavy hand and rarely given any Nuance sympathy or redeeming qualities Michael from recent movie saltburn was an example that came to mind for both of us they needed a character to contrast with the cool popular crowd and so they made him unpredictable aggressive cold yet also inappropriately attached to the main character Oliver forcing his friendship on him where it's not wanted and of course he's a Sant likee genius at maths all fragments of coding that pass on through the popular view of what autism is again and again autism and autistic people are a narrative device to engender empathy for a neurotypical character or the subject of patronizing sympathy themselves or a source of inspiration porn so it was particularly interesting to us when we ended up getting a mashup of typical reasonings from a single Source in interviews with atypical Creator Robia Rasheed we found a number of writers who mentioned having autistic people close to them often children in their family for example and rishid was one of those people people I do have personal experience with it yeah I don't want to talk about it too much because I want to protect their privacy but yes I do Sam's story and this person's story are very different but it really helped with me being drawn to this topic and keeping an eye on the family members of people on the Spectrum and how they're affected in the same interview she also talked about the idea of autism being a hook to differentiate the coming of age story in her show you've seen the story of somebody looking for Independence and looking for love before but not from that specific point of view I really was drawn to that I was a little annoyed because it sounded really hard I had to do do a lot of research and of course the idea of being autistic as shorthand for someone abnormal to spread a message of acceptance for me the show is about what it means to be normal and how nobody's normal and that is why the show is relatable it's about everyone and their struggle to be understood and find love and feel like they're not alone when writers say something like we wanted to teach the world about autism I think it then opens them up to potential critique when it turns out that they didn't hire autistic writers or actors it's fair to question I would say why are you the one doing this teaching so I can totally understand many writers and creators simply not saying anything about the wise because to them it might feel in many ways just safer not to address it at all the impact so does all this matter well I would say yes because I have just made an unnecessarily long video essay about it but firstly and most importantly more and better representation of autistic people in media and pop culture allows autistic people to potentially understand themselves better this might be because they can relate to a character's experiences and find similar solutions to challenges that that character faces or it might be bigger than that it might be the reason that they realize they're autistic at all as we mentioned before many autistic people find it particularly challenging to identify their own feelings and internal experiences due to high rates of Alexia for this reason accurate representation and access to external reference points can be super important in helping people to recognize and give voice to their EXP experiences many late diagnosed autistic people described thinking that their experiences were common until diagnosis and knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what accurate explicit representation provides a rote out of this confusion and loneliness towards self- knowledge diagnosis and support autistic representation also helps in the way that all representation does helping the people being represented to feel seen heard and less alone this might be particularly important for autistic people whose experiences of socialization and communication might be complex as Chloe Hayden said you can't be what you can't see growing up never seeing myself represented I grew up thinking I wasn't supposed to be here young people can look at Quinny and go okay if she exists as wholly and beautifully and unapologetically as she does then I can to and it's not just about awareness and understanding although those are vital simply being exposed to betrayals of autistic people in media can make alistic people feel more positively towards them this is thanks to a psychological phenomenon known as the exposure effect but simply people begin to like something purely because of repeated exposure to it and this has been shown to apply to alistic people's perceptions of autism too and finally increased cause for representation can also have positive side effects on the production landscape for autistic creatives as well as creatives in general with there being evidence of increasing neurodiversity increasing the strength and capacity of a team as more attention is paid to getting neurodiversity and autism right on screen and the importance of lived experiences in creating these representations there were more opportunities for autistic writers actors directors and so on to have careers in media in which they are able to identify themselves as autistic and draw on their experiences and skills without having to hide their identities to be accepted you might have noticed that I sort of caveat several of those points by saying media representation should be like accurate or reliable because as soon as it isn't these positive effects can go Ary similarly representations of autism in popular culture need to be explicitly named as such for these impacts to occur otherwise people continue to relate to unlike autistic coded quirky characters who they assume to be neurotypical while stigmatizing and rejecting the actual autistic people in their life who behave the same way because of their unchallenged prejudices and stereotypes and with all representation if we acknowledge the power positive and complex Nuance characters can have we also have to appreciate that the opposite may also be true the representation that is simplistic and accurate and even damaging can be just as impactful particularly if it plays on existing assumptions and stereotypes it's acious cycle again alistic writers influenced by their assumptions and internal biases continue the legacy of these characters which then affects alistic audiences and writers alike and on and on these misconceptions are not just something that might fester in the minds of audiences shaping how they conceive of autistic people but can also affect how they treat them isn't hard to imagine how a narrow view of autistic people could lead to instances of mistreatment disbelief infantilization not to mention undue pressures and expectations placed on autistic people themselves around what an autistic person should be like a lack of diversity within mainstream autistic representation where white middle class straight men seem to be the norm is frustrating for the typical reasons of a lack of diverse representation the way it fails to represent the world as it is but the idea of you can't be what you can't see takes on a more impactful meaning when applied to autistic characters where those outside of this narrow view of autism might be prevented from from accessing resources understanding or even diagnosis and we also have to focus on these exceptional Sant characters giving this one special skill that justifies these characters being allowed to partake in society accommodations are grudgingly granted on account of their gift not seen as something that everyone should be given in the classroom and workplace as standard acceptance is earned and support deserved by skills you can give that make up for your autism we see this in a lot of disability and neurode Divergent based campaigns getting people into work not necessarily as a path to Independence but so they can contribute to the economy in a show of the dystopian world we live in we have the example of programs which specifically Target autistic employees as journalist David kushna explained in an article in Esquire leaders in the Israeli Army developed a program to recruit autistic people for Technical and detail oriented roles soon organizations such as software company sap tech company hulet Packard consulting firm ernston young and many others develop programs of their own AU statistic adults around the world experience High rates of unemployment and underemployment with a range of studies and reviews citing employment figures as low as 18% in the UK for example a report by The Institute of leadership management found that half of the respondents made up of over a thousand managers in the UK would be uncomfortable employing or L managing someone who is neurod Divergent it would be a mistake I think to encourage the view of either superhuman Sant Powers being the positive tradeoff or relying on forcing autistic people to mask and push to overload and burnout to act as similarly to their holistic colleagues as possible rather an understanding of individual skills a comprehensive and inclusive accommodation program and access to equal pay benefits and non-discriminatory support is needed I would also say Universal basic income and an understanding that just because someone can push through a work week and then spends the rest of their free time having to recover from it doesn't mean that they are able to work a full-time job but should still be allowed to have the money funds and resources to live their life maybe too controversial but I feel like it just makes sense a representation that fails to engage with the everyday experiences of actually autistic people whether in work relationships communities or free time passions risk creating symbolic archetypes that can be used to withhold resources and information for those who don't fit this narrow definition of what it is to be autistic at all thank you so much for watching especially if you managed to get all the way to the end shout out to my fellow adhders I see you you have this playing in the background you're listening to it while doing another task like tidying up your room welcome I appreciate you if you would like to help support videos like this one then I have a link to my patreon below along with all of my social media so you can find me all over the Internet and if you have any other examples of autistic representation that you think people should check out including in obviously TV shows and movies like I talked about here but also like Games books podcast stuff like that then please leave them in the comments I'm sure that the kind of people who have watched this video are the kind of people who would very much appreciate it and want to watch more of it including myself and until I see you next time bye

Channel: Rowan Ellis

Views: 594,100

Keywords:

Id: WA9B4_e6sS0

Length: 75min 57sec (4557 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024