Portrayal of autistic people in films/TV

Ive always thought Sarah from Sarah and duck was a very well portrayed autistic character.
almost all the characters seem neuro diverse in some way or another, they’re all so accepting of each other’s quirks- it’s such a utopian world!

@SENsupportplease

Yes!
Monica audhd
Ross autistic
Joey adhd
Phoebe adhd
Rachel NT
Chandler adhd

In my opinion
Chandler doesn't find himself till He meets Monica and Rachel and Ross just don't understand each other at all

In fact when I ready Matthew perrys autobiography it was blindingly obvious he was adhd. So sad as he self medicated and never felt worthy . I wonder if he ever had a diagnosis. 😢

This. Absolutely this.

I'd like to see more representation of those with severe/ profound/ low functioning autism. Since there she goes (i think it came out on the last episode that she had something else dx) i can't think of any and no adult representation (Rainman didn't have autism - Kim peake had fg syndrome).

I'd quite like to see a character who uses pecs/aac for very basic coms, who flaps and stims, verbalises, requires constant supervision possibly even 2:1 support etc

I really loved the real moments that this show depicted.

yes, this!! so much!!!

no long drawn out months/ years of battling for an EHCP plan , where are these mystical support packages that just appear ?!

It’s not meant to be realistic. It’s entertainment. Very few characters are realistic. They are often exaggerated or simplified or caricatures. Also as we know everyone with autism is different. So it’s therefore impossible to present a character that represents all autistic people. It can only ever represent one, if anything. Plus that character has to be interesting enough to make a show about. It can’t be “here’s a day in the life of an autistic person doing nothing interesting”. No one will watch it. I think it’s great that ND is being represented at all. TV used to just be full of just the most successful type of person - attractive, capable, the best in their field. Now we get quirky, complex, failed, mental health issues, disabled, ND etc etc. I think it’s good. People just need to remember it’s TV, fiction, so is not always going to be accurate or a factual, literal presentation of anyone.

It's quite telling, I think, that in a time when the only maybe-representation of autism was Rain Man...we all picked Data instead (I know a lot of people my age who did).

How about tv shows with actual autistic people then. The documentary love on the spectrum. They aren't acting.

Or the netflix documentary "Can I Tell You a Secret." It's about the uk's most prolific, cyber stalker, who is also autistic.

Someone recently told me that Lilo from Lilo and Stitch is thought to be an autistic character, and i really hadn't considered it before.

Dinosaur came along just as we were learning about our then three year old daughter's autism. Can't tell you how much it helped/meant to me.

Nice point, but only in the books from the 1950's? Try Charles Dickens! (Or basically any author since the rise of the novel as an art form who has included "eccentric" characters!)

Saga Noren in the Swedish-Danish crime drama The Bridge is a pretty good example of a character most people would describe as ND if they met such a person in real life. Over the four series you find out more and more about her, plus she changes too, and the question of nature versus nurture is also addressed via her interactions with her mother. The writers have never confirmed whether they set out to write an ‘ND’ character.

I do think all this ‘Mr Darcy was autistic’ stuff is essentially meaningless though. For a start, he’s a fictional character, and his characteristics and behaviour drive the plot that Jane Austen chose to write. Saying ‘he’s autistic’ implies that he was real at some point, or that she knew of the existence of autism, which she didn’t, because no one had named it then. It also implies that we are always going to view autism in the same way, which of course we aren’t going to do. As a previous poster pointed out, we might even look back at the way we’ve lumped all these characteristics and behaviours into one all-encompassing diagnosis, and wonder what the hell we were doing.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about SEN kids represented on TV/films is that support just seems to rain down from the sky as soon as a diagnosis is given. They don't depict reduced timetables, exclusions or tribunal to get care put in place, or housing issues, battles to get support or medication. I'd really love a true, working class representation of SEN on TV.

Eastenders is particularly bad at glossing over the hard work it is as a parent, but they have been good at having actors with autism with fewer support needs on the show.

My dd refuses to watch any shows or films now, she says they never have depicted women with autism correctly

Yes I have. it's about the only thing on TV close to where my child is at. Even the high pitched noises are spot on.

No, not really, though she does have some issues.
OCPD maybe?
It’s not the same as OCD, but often confused with it I think.

Does anyone think Monica might be Au-DHD?

I also love Sheldon and identify with many of his traits a so to see a character with the same annoying traits as me have a happy life gives me hope, even if it’s fictional.

I have au-dhd and hugely recognise myself in hermione, only I never made friends until Y10. I think to say because she understands feelings means she can’t have autism is again a dangerous miscategorisation. I have enormous emotional understanding and empathy, it just isn’t consistent and it’s far easier when observing others relationships rather than my own.

I like BBT - aren’t most of the main characters different flavours of neurodiverse? (Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, Amy at least) It’s why they find friendship and acceptance in each other. My child is not a genius like they are but I certainly see a lot of similar traits in him that Sheldon has. They take traits to extreme of course and make fun of them (it’s not very ND friendly) but that’s comedy.

I especially liked the episode where they explained why Sheldon was so particular about returning a vhs tape to a rental store that no longer existed, and got Leonard to understand how it felt physically by wearing an itchy sweater, and I REALLY related to that (it’s how I feel when I lose something, like an itch in my brain) and I appreciated they took a whole episode to explain why Sheldon acted the way he does, because he has no choice, it’s who he is.I’m actually surprised that Sheldon’s friends don’t understand his traits better and just go on about how annoying he is, but again it’s US comedy.

That is really interesting. I hadn't thought of that at all.

@AutisticHouseMove I’m watching bones at the moment too. I couldn’t put my finger on quite why I was so uncomfortable about the portrayal of temperance as an (implied but not named) autistic women.

my wife (who is autistic) overheard bits and pieces, and said that she finds it uncomfortable as the show mocks temperance for her lack of social awareness and presents autistic people as only valuable if they are really good at something due to their autism, like temperance is.

like they only ‘put up with her’ because of her skills.

we had a really interesting discussion about it, and agreed that while ADHD coded characters were also really problematic in tv programmes (hyper/annoying/narc’s) it’s not quite the same nor as harmful . (I have ADHD which is why we were mulling this too).

I’m in a largely solitary role that requires high intelligence. I’m known for my brilliance but have a long standing reputation for being off-putting that dates back to childhood. I’m also female. I work with many people who also fit this stereotype as we tend to gravitate to certain careers.

So in many ways I see myself in these stereotypical portrayals. they don’t feel that stereotypical to me in many ways because my peer group is full of this type of person.

Yet often people don’t believe I am autistic at all because I am not outwardly rude, I’m just shy and poor at social cues and people read it as snobbish or cold. That is actually true for most ASD people I know though.

@JLou08 that's an interesting perspective and quite true.