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

[The13thFairy]

Shaun is a surgeon. He gives a running commentary to other surgeons (and some patients) on his relationship, how it's becoming sexual and in what way. Everyone is informed when he first has sex, and that he climaxed and his girlfriend did not ~ we see him reading a book called 'The G spot'. He has sent round a survey ~ only to the other surgeons, not patients this time, ' shower sex, yes or no?' And now it's going to be his girlfriend's birthday. He sees fit to place a sex toy (it buzzes) on a female surgeon's desk and ask her, and a female colleague, if this is something they would like themselves.

This dreadful behaviour is presented as a bit annoying, but cute.

It's a TV programme.

No one would watch it if the scope of his autism stretched to him watching too many pokemon trading card videos on youtube after work.

I haven't got to that bit yet but I agree autism doesn't justify disrespecting privacy or boundaries

Well you're a bit late to complain.
The show ended 2 years ago and ran for several seasons.
I only watched a couple of episodes so can't really comment that much.

I'm autistic btw, and so are my kids. There ARE some people who present that way with autism. Is it pushing some stereotypes, yes. Are stereotypes sometimes stereotypes for a reason? Also yes.

Its entertainment. Not a documentary.

You can always turn the TV off.

I don't understand your complaint, sorry

I agree, it's lazy stereotyping, not based in the reality of the experience of neuro diverse people.

How can they represent the experiences of EVERY ND person in one character?

There has to be ND people that fir his character very well. So maybe he just represents those ones?

It's a TV show. Don't watch it if you don't like it.

You can find TV shows where you can be "appalled" at the way ANYONE is being presented (young, old, white, black, Asian, smart, dumb).

Not everyone will agree with the way Lucifer (Morningstar) (and God and the angels) are being presented. Again, just a TV show.

As long as it's a fictional character.

🗣 I AM A SURGEON

I watched a documentary called Superman

It was ridiculous, the guy could fly!

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

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

Exactly.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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? 🤷🏻‍♀️