It’s a bit of an older show (2014-2018), and while it doesn’t mention autism specifically, it does center around several people who are clearly neurodiverse, using their unique strengths to solve a wide range of complex and difficult problems while also trying to navigate their individual challenges when interacting with the rest of society.
When I watched this, it was well before I knew any of this stuff, and indeed research was undoubtedly less informed as well. So I wanted to see if anyone here that knows more than me has seen it and can give any opinions on it through the lens of our modern understanding of autism and neurodiversity. Was the show an excellent demonstration of ND people, their strengths and challenges? Or was is completely off the mark? Perhaps somewhere in the middle? Or perhaps even negative and perpetuating outdated stereotypes? Or is the show just too old and I’m talking to a field of crickets?
Hi! I’m autistic, and I did enjoy the show!
When it comes to neurodiversity, I did appreciate the inclusion. And they stayed away from harmful stereotypes such as presenting us as having no emotion, and instead presenting the struggle of expressing them in a way “normals” understand.
However, the show has also clearly gone through a filter to make sure it doesn’t look too unusual for neurotypical people.
At some points the main cast was also presented as having sort of superpowers. Such as Sylvester being able to figure out thousands of options in a matter of seconds. (I’ve had such an experience with special interests, but not to that extreme) or the behaviouralist accurately describing his self destructive behaviour as he’s doing it.
Of course, everyone’s individual experience and brain is different. I liked how it was presented overall even tho the writing got a bit lazy near the end
Thanks for your perspective! So a step in the right direction then? I know that when I watched it, even though I didn’t know about any of this stuff, I still identified with them and wished hard to be able to get a job where my skills and talents were an asset, especially to such a wide range of problem solving.
And yeah, they did have to tweak some stuff to make it exciting, but I thought that they did a good job. Maybe after more shows featuring NDs becomes more commonplace, we can see more realistic depictions of them.
Star Trek, Divergent, Wednesday (Netflix) and Doctor Who are a few that I found familiar with too
Three of those I’m also a big fan of. Never heard of Divergent though. TV or movie?
Divergent is a book series, which was turned into movies. The books were okay. The movies were trying to ride in the wake of The Hunger Games, and completely failed to recreate the hype.
They have a similar vibe but if you’re expecting a completely different movie you’ll be disappointed
It’s a movie, quote a couple of m
I’m sorry I just want to be clear, you want me to give you quotes from these shows?
That was a typo, sorry. No I was giving examples of other (not always disclosed) shows and movies with neurodivergent characters.
Divergent is a bunch of books/movies *quite a couple of them
Ah ok gotcha.