Atypical

What have you been watching?

Atypical

Postby cmsellers » Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:29 am

So Netflix has a new series out about a kid with autism who's determined to start dating. It's come in for a lot of criticism for autistic people, both for not having any autistic people involved as writers or even consultants (there is one autistic actor for a bit part), and for not accurately portraying autism. I had a really hard time getting into it until about halfway through the third episode, and then I binge-watched the whole thing today.

There's a lot of minor things that the show gets stunningly right, but they're mostly in terms of how neurotypicals react to people with autism. One example: the support group for parents of autistic children polices the language people use. Other examples are more personal and I'm not sure I want to get into them right now (though I probably would were I in a better state of mind). However there's a few issues that stand out as glaringly unrealistic:

  1. Sam is lower functioning than I am, but somehow holds down a job while still in high school. Most autistic people I know have trouble getting, much less holding, jobs as adults. Considering how much his mother coddles him, this seems particularly unlikely.
  2. Sam is remarkably self-aware. He's lower-functioning that I was at his age, but more self-aware. High-functioning autistic people with little-to-no self-awareness is common, but self-awareness to the degree he shows is very rare even among high-functioning autistic people.
  3. Sam cannot understand figurative speech as an adult. This is something that's drawn a lot of commentary, and for good reason. Understanding metaphors is linked to first-order theory of mind (I know that people have different beliefs than I do), and once autistic people attain it, we're just as good at getting metaphors as neurotypical people. It's just that we develop first-order TOM later, but Sam clearly has it.
  4. Sam's melt-down after a long time without meltdowns seems unrealistic to me. Once I learned how to handle meltdowns, I never melted down in that way again, no matter how stressful the situation. I don't know if that sort of regression is possible, but I think that this is just another thing that is delayed in autism, and once we learn to control it it's unlikely to regress.
  5. For someone who is as high-functioning as Sam is, he does a lot of socially inappropriate things (like breaking into his therapist's house and barging in on his girlfriend's French class), which it seems unfathomable that he wouldn't understand are socially inappropriate.
  6. He describes four penguin species as "subspecies." It is unlikely that an autistic person would get something so simple wrong about something that interests them.
There's other minor things too, but those are the big things that really stuck out to me as odd about Sam's behavior. I'll also note that Sam is thin, however the majority of autistic people I knew even in high school were fat, and I lived in Massachusetts, one of the fittest states. It's obviously much harder to date when you're fat and autistic than when you're autistic and look like an actor, though in fairness there are thing, good-looking autistic people, and that's what Hollywood wants to portray. Also, the actress who plays his 15-year-old younger sister is a good actress, but is 21 and looks it, plus the character she plays is mature for her age. Which makes situations where she's supposed to be 15, or when she hangs out with her friend who looks her age, seem really implausible.
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Re: Atypical

Postby SandTea » Mon Aug 21, 2017 4:08 am

cmsellers wrote:neurotypicals


Hey! That's our word! just kidding
More seriously, is the show any good? I get that there are probably problems with the portrayal of autistic folk but you said you binged, so is it a fun ride at least?


Also, the actress who plays his 15-year-old younger sister is a good actress, but is 21 and looks it, plus the character she plays is mature for her age. Which makes situations where she's supposed to be 15, or when she hangs out with her friend who looks her age, seem really implausible.


I've completely ok, not completely given up trying to guess ages anymore. I've just seen too many 15yos who look 30 and vice versa that I give leeway to shows on that point now.
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Re: Atypical

Postby cmsellers » Mon Aug 21, 2017 4:50 am

Honestly, the show is compelling but mostly because of the subplots involving the father and the sister. The main plot with Sam is difficult for the reasons I've mentioned (though sometimes funny), and the subplot with the mother is downright painful to watch. (With the mother it's not an implausible sub-plot; she's just a really annoying character doing really annoying things.)
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Re: Atypical

Postby cmsellers » Mon Sep 24, 2018 9:02 am

So I watched season two. They are still inconsistent in Sam's abilities, especially when it comes to metaphor, but they are less all-over-the-place than they were last season. The mother has become less insufferable: she is still annoying, but she's supposed to be. Most of the characters still feel kind of two-dimensional to me. And I kept getting distracted by two recurrent issues that bugged me.

One is that Sam's sister, his ex-girlfriend, and his sister's boyfriend and new best friend all look way too old to plausibly be in high school. This stands out all the more because Sam now has a support group where most of the actors are plausibly high-school-aged. I am not sure if I would notice it if not for the writing though, which brings me to the other issue: in addition to being a very cringy show, a lot of plot points this seasons are predictable well before they happen.

I find the show difficult enough to get through that I did not manage to watch a single episode in one sitting: I had to keep stopping and doing other things. The last three episodes each had several genuinely funny moments, however all the dramatic moments fell flat for me. In fact, the show ended as a triple cliffhanger, and yet if there is no third season I won't really care, because I just can't connect with the characters.

I will keep watching this show as long as it doesn't become downright intolerable, but it doesn't seem likely to become good. And I do have to kind of wonder if, without the autism gimmick, it would have received even a second season.
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