. . . to be appalled at the way a young man with autism is being presented in the Netflix series 'The Good Doctor'?

YABU to comment if you haven't watched it!

We've watched most of this - @The13thFairy context is important and with the bits you've highlighted it is made very very clear to the character that certain things are wildly inappropriate, and why, and that his autism might be the reason he doesn't know that, but they're not an excuse to repeat the behaviour.

Of course its not an accurate representation of anything, it pulls various elements and stereotypes and turns it into an entertaining plot and set of characters. When have enjoyable TV shows ever been an accurate and faithful representation of any human characteristic or job?

I’m autistic and so is my oldest nephew. He is always sending me clips and reels of it making fun of it. It’s a bad portrayal of autism but at the end of the day most medical dramas are hardly accurate, Dr House would have been locked up for all that medical malpractice, Dr Ross would have had his license taken away many times, and the Doctors in Greys Anatomy would be too tired from all the boozing and sexing to get any real medicine done (apart from Dr Bailey she had her head in the game and the vilified her for it).

I had a guy with autism in my halls the first year of uni who was obsessed with sex ( I don't believe he'd ever had it) and telling us about masturbation. It can happen.

Not every autistic character in every show will represent every autistic person in real life. It is impossible

Of course! Context and presentation is paramount, not just a vague description from a stranger.

Given it came out 9 years ago you’re a bit late to the party.

Don't be silly. I do happen to have experience (both personal and professional) but that isn't really relevant to my opinion I don't think.

I don't need to know every autistic person to know that having autism doesn't mean HR policies go out of the window. I don't need to know every autistic person to see that an infantilising "aw he's cute and he can't help it, so nd people will have to help him" narrative is unrealistic and unhelpful. I don't need to know everyone with autism to know that autism doesn't excuse behaving in a way that's harmful to others.

Go on then, explain?

have you watched it? This couldn't be further from the truth.

It's a tv show and you've literally cherry picked those bits out. There's a lot more to it than that. It's a really good watch and none of these programmes are to depict real life. Have you ever watched Grey's Anatomy? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't need to watch a show to know that this character has gross traits. Do you?!

I know. What happened to the innocent days of counting toothpicks in record time?

While I can accept there are people who struggle significantly to stay within social and legal boundaries, and who can be fixated on their own impulsive sexual needs to the point of behaving in an abusive way, I don't believe they are working as a respected medical professional.

Yes, absolutely agree @Stompythedinosaur.

That is an extremely sweeping statement to make. You know all autistic people personally do you??

They can't, but this isn't an interpretation of any autistic person.

While I can accept there are people who struggle significantly to stay within social and legal boundaries, and who can be fixated on their own impulsive sexual needs to the point of behaving in an abusive way, I don't believe they are working as a respected medical professional.

I think that's the key issue - Shaun would never have got through the medical school interview.

I enjoyed the Good Doctor. But I did find it annoying that ineivtably we only saw this ONE version of autism. As is always the case in popular culture, this then becomes the accepted view of what it is. SIL believes that DN cannot possibly have ASD because he can communicate and make eye contact. She is oblivious to his lack of boundaries or understanding of social cues, even as the school have attempted to address it on muliple occassions for many years.

Would you consider watching the show before proclaiming it "gross"?

I think while there are some autistic people who have no filter on what they say, you can safely assume they wouldn’t even pass an interview for medical school, let alone get through it and find work afterwards. There were things I liked about the series but as someone with autistic adult children and lots of medical friends, the flaw in this central premise is tricky to get past.

I watched it recently and thought similar initially but found the views of two people I know with high functioning autism interesting as they didn't agree at all.

One said they thought while it was very reliant on stereotypes, they thought it was balanced in terms of he was presented as very likeable, very capable and able to learn to change things even if difficult.

The other who is much younger said "I love it. He's me and I'm him but the meltdowns are embarrasingly like mine so didn't really like that part. He shouldn't have walked out of surgery. I would try not to because that was life and death. I think he could have done better that time."
She was slighted obessed about the dangers of walking out of a surgery but really enjoyed the show.

If a colleague put a sex toy on my desk I would be straight to HR and would not accept being ND as an excuse

Exactly.

It would be lazy to assume every autistic person has the same traits.

Sounds awful. Seems like they are trying to justify his sexual harassment of colleagues as he has autism. Gross.

I watched a documentary called Superman

It was ridiculous, the guy could fly!