Atypical

Hi Friends!!! For those of you who are new here, my name is Presley. And for my Neurodiversity Certificate capstone project, I am creating this blog to review neurodiversity in our media. What is neurodiversity you may ask? Well, the short explanation is that it’s the term used to describe those with a non-neurotypical brain or a mental disability. It was created to be used as the more appropriate term as well as support the idea that brain differences are normal, rather than deficits. (There is more on this in my first blog post, Neurodiversity: What the heck is that?) My first few posts focused on neurodiverse characters specifically in movies; Forrest Gump, Radio, Rain Man, A Brilliant Young Mind, etc. We are now going to adjust our focus to these characters when they are represented in TV shows.

TV show characters are usually much more complex than movie characters because their character development has more time. While a movie may last an hour and a half to two hours, or even have a sequel, tv shows have multiple episodes with multiple seasons. There are more storylines, side characters, conflicts, and resolutions. There is a lot of ground to cover so we are going to try and just hit the main points. If you would like to know more or dive deeper on each series, please contact me through the links on my homepage or watch the show yourself and check out other people’s reviews. We are going to start with the TV series Atypical.

Season one of Atypical premiered on Netflix in 2017 with 8 episodes, each about 30 minutes in length. I actually watched seasons 1 and 2 of this series before starting the certificate that led to this blog, but I have yet to see season 3. In the series, we follow 18 year old Sam, a boy on the autism spectrum, on his quest to find a girlfriend and establish more independence in his life. Unlike any of the movies we’ve reviewed, this show is considered a comedy. This is unique and can be difficult to write, because we would want to be careful as to not seem to be making fun of someone’s neurodiversity.

Morally, I do not think Sam’s character was portrayed or treated wrong. This is a coming of age story and growing up comes with many confusing emotions and trials. Dealing with those changes along with having a neurodiversity I imagine would make you feel even less understood and even more alone. Sam’s conversations with his therapist provide a strong dialogue that gives us an idea of what Sam is thinking and feeling through these various trials. He discusses that though others think he doesn't know when they are teasing him, he does. He just chooses to shut down rather than react. The comedy side of this also provides a lightness to the character’s life. It is important to remember that just as every person is different, so is each neurodiversity in each person. Some may feel that movies like Radio and Rain Man cause others to pity people like them when they don’t need it. A show like this can provide them a different kind of connection. It also lets viewers see that Sam has the same thoughts and ideas they do, which reminds us that he too is human and not that different after all.

Scientifically, I was not sure how accurate the show is. Sam has autism which is a spectrum, so there is not one specific way he should be acting. I took a look at another blogger's review of the show, who is also on the spectrum, to get their opinion of the show's accuracy (I linked their blog down below). He shared that…”there were certain aspects of Atypical that made me feel slightly uneasy due to the broad generalizations of autism that were displayed at times” (Nathan Hughes). However, this did not jeopardize the overall integrity of the show. Just something that viewers should be aware of. He also pointed out that Atypical provides an important perspective on autism that we normally disregard, and that is growing up with it. There is a lot of chaos happening in Sam’s home, sometimes related to his neurodiversity and sometimes not. This is also good because it is a realistic image and sheds light on another thing we often forget about, the families of the neurodiverse individuals.

In one of my courses, when we were talking about accommodations, a fellow student asked, “why are accommodations not already a part of the normal?” It seems so simple but think about it...why? Stairs work just fine for those who can walk, but we put in ramps for wheelchairs. Ramps don’t hinder those who can walk, so why are ramps an accommodation and not the normal? Why do we only have one large stall in the bathrooms? Why are interpreters not at all speaking events? Why don’t we learn sign language when we learn our native language? Why is our “normal” not considerate or beneficial to everyone? When I seriously thought about this I was so confused. We as a human race created our “normal”. When we discovered the needs of another, why did we not make that change overall. Why do we only look to benefit some of the population? Our normal, should be inclusive of everyone. I am not talking about bending over backwards to make everyone happy or handing out participation trophies, that is not this argument. I am saying to just make things accessible to everyone. Make it possible. That just seems like human decency to me.

Sam’s story is an interesting one that varies deeply from our typical neurodiverse character plot. Like everything we’ve reviewed, there are both goods and bads. Nathan and I agree that the positives outweigh the negatives in this show, and it offers a new kind of direction for neurodiverse media. This shows that progress is being made and we are getting those stories out there. I am anxious to watch them continue and I hope you are too!