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Autism Representation

Larissa

I've been thinking a lot about autism representation in media and wanted to hear other peoples recommendations, especially ones that feel meaningful to you. What I'm really interested in is media that includes autistic creators/actors and shows autistic people as fully rounded individuals, not just defined by autism. Thanks.

  • Anthony Hopkins considers autism to be a "great gift" that helped him, though only diagnosed in his 70s. He now credits his unique insights as stemming from autism with enhancing his ability to deeply analyse characters.

    ***

    More personal to me is Rob Brydon (though he is not diagnosed and so sits awkwardly with your question perhaps). I think several of his characters eg in Swimming with Men, Gavin and Stacey & Marion and Geoff have lots of pointers. 

    I think for older people or their families who often did not have the same levels of understanding and support, these are great roles. Nothing is ever explicitly said. I got emotional seeing these and it resonated with how my daughter and I often interact with the world.

    Everyone sees the characters Rob plays in these examples as a good hearted, loving person with various other great attributes who just doesn't seem to fit in with the "normals". I think that can help make the older generation become more understanding that being different isn't a bad thing.

  • Oh, yeah, another canonically autistic character and one that I find scarily relatable; Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty

  • in reply to pinkchocoholic

    Also the English-language remake, Patience.

    Or, if your tastes run more to comedy, you could try the BBC series Dinosaur. The central character, Nina, is played by Ashley Storrie who is herself autistic.

  • Sesame Street had an autistic character, iirc.

    And I feel like there's a lot of characters in fiction that while aren't explicitly stated as being autistic, do have a lot of traits that often lend to the fandom referring to as autistic, for E.G. Suletta Mercury from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

  • From what I’ve read Bruno from Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go was codeveloped by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and Easterseals. I used him - in addition to myself - as an example when I was introducing my daughter to Autism.