Autism, As Seen on TV
Radiya Sharif
Since the rise of television and streaming, people have grown accustomed to fictional characters being portrayed on their screens—and we’ve come to know and love many of them as well. Television characters can in some ways depict real-life experiences we have as humans, no matter if they live in our world or amongst mythical creatures. While they help us make sense of ourselves, they also represent the stories of people who have lived different lives from us. Those with autism spectrum disorder are among the types of representation we see in this medium, showcasing characters such as Sheldon Cooper from Young Sheldon and Julia from Sesame Street. However, even though these characters are helpful in depicting autism to an audience who may be unfamiliar with the concept, they are bound to misrepresent the very community that they are intended to be members of. Whenever a television character is described as having autistic traits, viewers tend to generalize autism as a “one size fits all” experience, and screenwriters breed near-identical copies of the same variation of autistic traits. This can have negative ramifications for the autistic community in real life by imposing stereotypes on them that they may not necessarily adhere to. With how often screenwriters seem to miss the mark on representing autistic people, the question remains as to what is considered the correct approach to creating an autistic character.
Though the addition of autistic characters in mainstream media normalizes the presence of autism in general, the manner in which they are portrayed can spread misinformation about how the disorder manifests. It is important to note that since autism is a spectrum, there is more than one single way for an individual to express that they are autistic. Still, screenwriters tend to recycle textbook signs of it in order to hint that their character might be on the spectrum. One stereotype that is prevalent within well-known autistic characters is the idea that all of them are geniuses with unrealistic levels of intelligence—this phenomenon is referred to by many media critics as savantism. Savant skills are often overrepresented in the media, and seeing so many genius characters “could lead viewers to believe that . . . savantism and autism go hand in hand” (Nordahl-Hansen et al.). For instance, Spencer Reid from the show Criminal Minds profiles criminals as part of his job, and the success of his profiling descriptions is attributed to his high IQ and the disposable knowledge he exhibits throughout the show. The writers of the show never explicitly stated that Reid is autistic, but the actor portraying him, Matthew Gray Gubler, encourages fan theories that suggest he is (Anderson). Gubler states that his character is “24, 25 with three PhDs and one can’t usually achieve that without some form of autism” (Anderson). Through this statement, an incorrect assumption is made about both Reid and autistic people. Given that the character was not written to be autistic, it may definitely be possible that Reid excelled in academics without any neurological explanation other than him being smarter than the average person. As for the second implication, it should not be stated in absolute terms that Reid’s scholarly achievements are a direct result of the presence of autism (Belcher and Maich).
Suggesting that an autistic character has expertise in a certain field is not inherently a problem, however. While television has a habit of glorifying the intelligence and ambition of an autistic character, there can be ways to present this trait in a three-dimensional way. The Korean Netflix drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo tells the fictional story of an autistic lawyer named Woo Young-woo. Without a doubt, she has to display copious amounts of determination in order for her to realistically be an exceptional lawyer—yet one noteworthy aspect of the show is that her headstrong ways are not illustrated as a positive thing all the time. An autistic viewer writes in their review that they found it authentic that Woo Young-woo had flaws, citing that the character “often finds herself hyper-focused on particular topics . . . and ends up overlooking how others feel when she has a goal in mind” (“An Autistic Person’s Review”). The same reviewer adds that they like how Woo Young-woo’s flaws are not condemned, but rather treated as natural. By doing this, Woo Young-woo’s savant traits are treated as human instead of being there to make her look superhuman and larger than life.
Moreover, the accuracy surrounding autism representation in mainstream media is widely debated among autism researchers and viewers who are on the spectrum (Nordahl-Hansen et al.). There is an argument to be made about how there cannot be a perfect way of describing autism to an unfamiliar audience without them generalizing the overall experience of having it. The fact that these characters are made for an allistic (meaning “non-autistic”) audience poses another issue—an allistic person may recognize autistic behaviors, but they lack an understanding of how an autistic mind functions (“An Autistic Person’s Review”). When these characters are made for educational purposes, essentially, it makes sense that autistic people do not feel represented by them. To combat this feeling of missing out on their own stories being told, they project their stories onto characters who weren’t intended to be interpreted as autistic—these characters are known as “autistic-coded” characters. This is prevalent in fandom spaces, where television shows with large fan bases often attract autistic viewers who see portions of themselves being represented in characters who otherwise would not be perceived as autistic by the average viewer. An example of an autistic-coded character is Tina Belcher from the show Bob’s Burgers; she speaks monotonously, struggles in social situations, and engages in self-stimulating behaviors when she is overwhelmed. To many, she is an exemplar of autism representation because she is a girl, whereas many autistic characters are not, and she is depicted as her own person (Dunn). The latter half of that statement echoes a sentiment that follows many autistic-coded characters: when a character isn’t explicitly autistic, it’s easier for them to exist without their whole storyline revolving around their disorder.
A crucial thing to remember is that autistic people coding other characters as autistic is a form of empowerment, whereas an allistic person doing the same thing may be viewed as questionable. Autistic people understand their own experiences, and, to an extent, the experiences of others just like them, thus having the authority to diagnose characters; allistic people lack that understanding. Therefore, allistic people determining a character as autistic has an element of stereotyping to it. Many autistic-coded characters, in fact, were labeled so by people who do not have the disorder, and this is very noticeable in American sitcoms. An infamous example of this would be Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory and its spinoff show Young Sheldon. Sheldon is considered “a brilliant physicist but socially inept,” with social ineptitude being a common stereotype of autistic individuals (Gaeke-Franz). Despite never being confirmed by the writers to be autistic, he has become emblematic of autism representation by a mostly allistic audience. His “poster boy” status, however, reinforces negative stereotypes about autistic people being savant by nature, as well as other tropes such as excellence in sciences and a lack of imagination (Gaeke-Franz). Allistic people constantly fall into the trap of internalizing common tropes associated with autism, and when they try to autistic-code other characters, they do so with a limited and oversimplified perspective. This generalization then translates to prejudice against autistic people who do not meet the requirements for a Hollywood version of their own disorder.
To conclude, autism representation is riddled with stereotypes that have multiple effects on autistic and allistic viewers. Some consequences can include stereotypes that place unrealistic expectations on autistic people, while others have a more positive outcome that spreads awareness about those who live their lives with it. As a result of autistic characters being made for everyone but themselves, the autistic community decided to support television characters who they felt personally represented them, but even that has its drawbacks once stereotypes are involved. Overall, though, there is no true consensus on how to respectfully portray autism on screen, since no two autistic people share an identical experience—if you know one autistic person, you only know one autistic experience.
Works Cited
“An Autistic Person's Review of ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo.’” The Peak, 22 Sept. 2022, https://the-peak.ca/2022/09/an-autistic-persons-review-of-extraordinary-attorney-woo/.
Anderson, Hayley. “Spencer from Criminal Minds: Is Spencer Reid Autistic?” Express, 30 July 2021, www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1469700/spencer-from-criminal-minds-spencer-reid-autistic-cbs-amazon-prime-video.
Belcher, Christina, and Kimberly Maich. “Autism Spectrum Disorder in Popular Media: Storied Reflections of Societal Views.” Brock Education, vol. 23, no. 2, 2014, pp. 97–115.
Dunn, Juliette. “Five Characters Coded as Autistic.” Mythcreants, 8 May 2020, https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-characters-coded-as-autistic/.
Gaeke-Franz, Baden. “Rejection or Celebration? Autistic Representation in Sitcom Television.” Studies in Social Justice, vol. 16, no. 2, 2022, pp. 308–22, https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v16i2.2590.
Nordahl-Hansen, Anders, Roald A. Øien, and Sue Fletcher-Watson. “Pros and Cons of Character Portrayals of Autism on TV and Film.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol. 48, no. 2, 2018, pp. 635–36, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3390-z.