Autistic actors

The most common autistic role seems to be that of a genius in recent Tv shows and films which doesn’t help portray the reality for most of us. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t outright say Sheldon is autistic but I mean anyone can see it. There’s also The Good Doctor with the doctor being somewhat of a medical genius also. 

Yes as I said. The actual autistic characters is a totally different debate. I'm not against the Sheldon's of the world being shown on TV. These people do exist, maybe not to the extent of Sheldon but the point of that is to exaggerate it to show the funny side and I'm personally ok with that. But it needs to be balanced with a range of presentations and not always for comedy but we're not there yet.

But what ever your opinion on the character, the presentation of those characters is not down to the actor portraying it. They are portraying the character that was written for them.

Expecto_Patronum said:

it needs to be balanced with a range of presentations and not always for comedy but we're not there yet.

I don't think many of us lead a life that would translate to anything interesting for most audiences though.

Any program will depend on some degree of popularity to get its funding so do have a show with a character with typical autistic traits may not get the views they want.

It is that old supply / demand equation for entertainment.

Add in the fact that many people do not want to see people with mental disorders as it is uncomfortable for them - then you have a real problem selling the idea of the show.

It is a tricky one and I don't have a good solution to offer.

I never said they had to live lives like ours, just be more representative of the average autistic person. E.g. not a super genius. For it to be representative of the average autistic person, you'd have to have multiple presentations. Not every autistic person doesn't talk much. In fact some would say that some of us talk too much. And people actually seem to quite enjoy watching an awkward interaction. They can still have interesting story lines just with autism factored in.

I don't think the issue is that we aren't interesting enough. I think it's that we are massively misunderstood by those making the shows. They think that Sheldon and Rain man are actually what autism looks like. This is why where I don't see it necessary for autistic characters to be played by autistic actors, I do think it would be beneficial to have more autistic people in the creation and production of shows.

There are many more examples of autism on TV than those that you have listed. It hopefully shows that times are turning but it seems it is doing it very slowly. The ones that seem to be most successful at it are actually directed at children. Quite a long time ago now there was an autistic character in a new power rangers movie. And more recently there was a show based on a book, both of which I really enjoyed called A Kind of Spark. This really captured autism in females and there were no geniuses or anything like that. It also showed how we can be unfairly treated and made a brilliant comparison to the days of "witches" being burned at the stake.

Expecto_Patronum said:

why can't an autistic character have faults, interact and have a part in the storyline?

I never said they couldn't. If they were well written then great, but my point is that they were written to have lives like the majority of people in this forum describe of themselves, there would be little talking, awkward interactions, shutdowns, meltdowns of monotone monologues

We make up about 1 in 20 people so there should be a lot more of us in shows in an ideal world, but it looks like we are not interesting enough to get this.

I suspect it is for the facts above - they don't translate to entertainment value on the whole, althought the Sheldons / Good Doctors etc do have enough to work with for some stories.

We tend to be more of interest to documentaries and serious subjects (think the Rain Man film) and the occasional reality show that tries to make us endearing (think Love on the Spectrum).

If art is to reflect life, I don't think we will get many roles cast for us.

This is starting to read like I'm raining on autists here - I'm just trying to analyse why I think we don't see many autistic roles being cast - facts sometimes suck.

So why can't an autistic character have faults, interact and have a part in the storyline? There is zero reason that more autistic characters can't be written into shows. I'm not saying every show needs to have an autistic character but we can certainly be more represented and more accurately at that.

There are many reasons that I watch a show and one of those reasons would be because it has an autistic character (or a character that presents as if that's a possibility). Some shows I'll watch because I like the humour, some the drama, some the absolute thrill of where is this going and some yes because I'm totally won round by the characters. 

Expecto_Patronum said:

So what is interesting about 99% or the NT characters on TV? 

I like to observe their faults, how they interact, and their part in the storyline, and if they are badly written or uninteresting then I stop watching the show.

It has lured me into some shows I would not otherwise have watched such as Squid Games and Bridgerton (admittedly there was another forced me into watching Bridgerton but the charaters were interesting enough to see past the bling).

Why do you watch anything other than series around your special interest?

So what is interesting about 99% or the NT characters on TV? 

So what is interesting about 99% or the NT characters on TV? 

I never said they had to live lives like ours, just be more representative of the average autistic person. E.g. not a super genius. For it to be representative of the average autistic person, you'd have to have multiple presentations. Not every autistic person doesn't talk much. In fact some would say that some of us talk too much. And people actually seem to quite enjoy watching an awkward interaction. They can still have interesting story lines just with autism factored in.

I don't think the issue is that we aren't interesting enough. I think it's that we are massively misunderstood by those making the shows. They think that Sheldon and Rain man are actually what autism looks like. This is why where I don't see it necessary for autistic characters to be played by autistic actors, I do think it would be beneficial to have more autistic people in the creation and production of shows.

There are many more examples of autism on TV than those that you have listed. It hopefully shows that times are turning but it seems it is doing it very slowly. The ones that seem to be most successful at it are actually directed at children. Quite a long time ago now there was an autistic character in a new power rangers movie. And more recently there was a show based on a book, both of which I really enjoyed called A Kind of Spark. This really captured autism in females and there were no geniuses or anything like that. It also showed how we can be unfairly treated and made a brilliant comparison to the days of "witches" being burned at the stake.

Expecto_Patronum said:

why can't an autistic character have faults, interact and have a part in the storyline?

I never said they couldn't. If they were well written then great, but my point is that they were written to have lives like the majority of people in this forum describe of themselves, there would be little talking, awkward interactions, shutdowns, meltdowns of monotone monologues

We make up about 1 in 20 people so there should be a lot more of us in shows in an ideal world, but it looks like we are not interesting enough to get this.

I suspect it is for the facts above - they don't translate to entertainment value on the whole, althought the Sheldons / Good Doctors etc do have enough to work with for some stories.

We tend to be more of interest to documentaries and serious subjects (think the Rain Man film) and the occasional reality show that tries to make us endearing (think Love on the Spectrum).

If art is to reflect life, I don't think we will get many roles cast for us.

This is starting to read like I'm raining on autists here - I'm just trying to analyse why I think we don't see many autistic roles being cast - facts sometimes suck.

So why can't an autistic character have faults, interact and have a part in the storyline? There is zero reason that more autistic characters can't be written into shows. I'm not saying every show needs to have an autistic character but we can certainly be more represented and more accurately at that.

There are many reasons that I watch a show and one of those reasons would be because it has an autistic character (or a character that presents as if that's a possibility). Some shows I'll watch because I like the humour, some the drama, some the absolute thrill of where is this going and some yes because I'm totally won round by the characters. 

Expecto_Patronum said:

So what is interesting about 99% or the NT characters on TV? 

I like to observe their faults, how they interact, and their part in the storyline, and if they are badly written or uninteresting then I stop watching the show.

It has lured me into some shows I would not otherwise have watched such as Squid Games and Bridgerton (admittedly there was another forced me into watching Bridgerton but the charaters were interesting enough to see past the bling).

Why do you watch anything other than series around your special interest?