#girl meets world autism

[hoardingpuffin]

Autistic Person rates Autistic Characters in Media

In this post, I will be rating some autistic characters in media (specifically TV and movies) based on how well represented I feel by them as an autistic person. Keep in mind that this is thus a subjective list since autism is very individual and no two autistic people will have the same experience or opinions. I would also like to add that I am what would be considered a Low Support Needs autistic person, seen that I can generally live without too much assistance or accommodations, which means that my experience is going to not be relatable to autistic people with higher support needs than mine. On that note, also please keep in mind that “low functioning” and “high functioning” are harmful labels and that they are not the same as “low support needs” and “high support needs”. Also, obviously, since this is subjective, I am not saying that nobody else on the spectrum can’t like or relate to any of these characters; this is my own opinion, not a purely objective rating. Finally, whilst I will be rating these characters on a scale of 1 (worst) to 6 (best), I will not be ranking them in this post.

This list includes characters that are explicitly named to be autistic or that are widely accepted to be autistic, for example because the creators or actors confirmed it in retrospect or because the canon very strongly implies it and the creators have not spoken out in denial of it. Also I can obviously only rate the media I have actually seen so if your favourites aren't on this list, this is why.

CONTENT WARNINGS THAT APPLY: mentions of antisemitism (briefly), mentions of Autism Speaks, mentions of ableism, mentions of an autistic male character acting creepily towards women.

I will be signalling Pros/positive points with a + sign and Cons/negative points with a – sign.

Dr. Isidore Latham (Ato Essandoh) – Chicago Med (2/6)

- “curing autism” theme in the episodes centric on his personal experiences

- usage of the outdated and antisemitic term “Aspergers” over “Autism” (this is especially harmful considering Dr. Latham is Jewish)

+ Black autistic representation (which is rare seen that most autistic characters tend to be White) and Jewish autistic representation

+ whilst Dr. Latham is shown to not be the most social man and to be very direct, he isn’t outright rude or unprofessional

- as far as I could find out online, the actor is allistic (it is always better to cast a disabled actor for a disabled role)

Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) – The Good Doctor (0/6)

- the show collaborates with Autism Speaks, who are known to be a hate group not actually looking to help or listen to autistic people

- allistic actor

- extremely stereotypical in its portrayal (extremely antisocial, no friends, always literal, no social awareness – even though autistic people struggle with allistic tone patterns, usually they would be able to pick up at least somewhat what other people consider rude behaviour and would try to avoid it, something Shaun never seems to do)

- transphobia from the one autistic character, implying directly that autistic people are unable to understand the concept of a transgender identity (when in truth, studies show that many people on the spectrum also often identify as not on the gender binary or as transgender)

- Autistic Savant trope (portraying autistic people as geniuses when in fact, less than 5% of all autistic people are a Savant and even if we are very interested in a topic such as medicine, we still need to learn and study just as allistic people)

Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) – The Community (4/6)

+ writer of the series is on the spectrum

+ PoC autistic representation

+ whilst not clearly being labelled as autistic, the character is recognizable as an autistic person without hitting all the stereotypical tropes such as being antisocial, never joking, always being literal or being a “genius” without ever studying etc. - allistic actor

- whilst generally not labelling a character as autistic is not a bad thing, it makes it harder for autistic people to definitely say “this character is autistic”, meaning that allistics can ignore the coding if they wish to cling to their own, often stereotyped idea of what autism “looks like”

Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (3/6)

- allistic actor

- stereotypical, but not as badly as other portrayals

+ avoids the trope of autistic people not having emotions, instead showing Alfred’s struggle expressing and understanding tone and emotions

+ generally good portrayal of a special interest being made part of the life via the job (salmon and fly fishing)

Music Gamble (Maddie Ziegler) – Music (0/6)

- creator Sia has openly shown ableist behaviour, putting down autistic people, not listening to autistic voices and criticism etc.

- allistic actress

- collaboration with Autism Speaks

- extremely stereotypical portrayal and infantalization of autistic nonverbal people

- harmful techniques such as restraining being shown on screen

- graphic meltdown scenes being shown

Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist) – Atypical (1/6)

- allistic actor

- in-universe infantilization of autistic people (via Mother Elsa)

- having the autistic character act dangerously, for example locking someone in the closet because they annoy him or borderline predatorily pursuing his therapist, sheds a harmful light on autistic people

- as far as is known, no autistic people were included in the production or writing process

- many instances show autistic-related habits or traits, for example wearing noise cancelling headphones, but frame it in a way that the audience is supposed to find it funny or laugh at the protagonist

- instead of making Sam sympathetic, he is largely just shown to make everyone around him uncomfortable

+ the ongoing portrayal of Sam’s special interest is generally well-done

- an ongoing theme is Sam’s girlfriend Paige restricting his info-dumping and by extension his special interest (something autistic people get active joy from) to three “dumps” a day so he can act “more normal” – this might teach allistic viewers that this is something they can do to their autistic friends

Sara Eriksson (Frida Argento) – Young Royals (5/6)

- usage of “Aspergers” both in the show and by the actress

+ actually autistic actress

+ autistic traits like mirroring, struggling with social context or tone and directness/bluntness as well as a special interest (horses) are shown whilst tropes like Sara being entirely unempathetic, rude and antisocial being avoided

Isadora Smackle (Ceci Balagot) and Farkle Minkus (Corey Fogelmanis) – Girl meets World (2/6)

- usage of “Aspergers”

- the original title of the episode centric on autism was “Girl Meets Normal”, implying autism is something abnormal, which is a potentially very harmful rhetoric

- autism is shown as something bad, with Farkle’s friends actively trying to fight over him being not autistic, insisting he is “normal”, generally treating autism as something they don’t want their friend to be associated with – a very harmful take in a show for kids and young teens

+ Smackle is a major, long-term autistic character rather than a One Episode throwaway character, even though she is generally quite stereotypical (but given that this show generally has every character act over the top and often fitting in specific categories this is not as bad, it just makes her fit in the framework of the show; she is not the only one who is largely stereotypically portrayed)

+ actor Ceci Balagot is themselves autistic (according to their twitter that is)

Renee (Madison Bandy) – Loop (6/6)

+ PoC nonverbal autistic character portrayed by a nonverbal autistic voice actress

+ in production, an active effort was made to make the actress feel comfortable, so that her experience working on the film would be accommodating and positive rather than unnessicarily stressful

+ generally very well-done portrayal of both sensory seeking and sensory overstimulated behaviour and the experience as an autistic person

Matilda (Kayla Cromer), Nicholas (Josh Thomas) and Drea (Lillian Carrier) – Everything is gonna be okay (6/6)

+ autistic actors playing autistic characters and autistic writer

+ very realistic portrayal of autism and how it differs in different people, as well as how it can affect interpersonal relationships (also having the sister mention that she thought she understood autism as a whole but later realized she only understood her sister's autism specifically because it is so individual)

+ realistic portrayal of sensory overload, stimming, communication between different autistic people etc.

+ queer autistic people – gay and asexual autistic main characters

+ autistic people joking, showing emotions, humour without the autistic people being the butt of the joke

+ empathetic portrayal of an adult realizing they might be on the spectrum and the denial and questioning that comes with that

+ portrayals of autistic special interests and autistic joy

Quinni (Chloé Hayden) – Heartbreak High (5.5/6)

+ autistic actress playing an autistic character

+ autistic queer representation

+ themes of ableism are included but dealt with sensitively and without making the ableism seem harmless

+ realistic portrayal of stimming, struggle with abrupt change of plans, overstimulation, meltdowns, autistic joy, info dumping etc.

+  autistic character having genuine friendships and friends who support her and know her sensory needs etc.

- because it is set in high school, this is a very specific group being represented so it is possible that the largest part of the autistic community won’t see themselves completely accurately portrayed, but chances are they can relate to Quinni nonetheless at least in aspects.

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

okay I will be honest I fucking HATE the trope/archetype where a character has behaviors that very heavily imply they're autistic but in the actual piece of media they go to great lengths to be like "no I'm not autistic! I've been tested and they say I'm not! I'm just me :) !" coward behavior. however. I do think there are some. SOME characters where it's so so much fucking funnier if they have a fuck ton of autistic traits but it's for reasons Completely Different from autism and They're Not Autistic They're Just Like That. for example

[sukibenders]

Looking back at Girl Meets World, it will forever irritate me especially for how they handled/treated Angela. Oh this show really hated black women because how do you not only 1.) describe her, one of (correct me if I'm wrong) only few black and MAIN characters of the og show, as a "concept" 2.) have characters show obvious disgust at the small mention of her name 3.) depict her as a homewrecker for a new relationship that, really, shouldn't have ever happened 4.) have her old friends treat her like dirt and her old lover like she is the root of his problems, when there was nothing but positive love there 5.) reuse all the concepts from said previous love story just to elevate the new ship with a yte woman and 6.) compare her to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes that caused significant numbers of death, harm, misplacement, and trauma to people, largely of whom were black? Mind you, all these points I mentioned were toward the only main black character of the OG show before the spinoff, and the only, from what I can remember, black female character of the spinoff who didn't even stay long. Not even getting into the racist drama with some of the members on set, but you cannot look me in the eye and tell me that the way the show handled Angela, her story, and her relationship with the other characters + Shawn wasn't fucking disrespectful, you can't because I won't believe you.

[trobedarchive]

it is so interesting to have one of your first and biggest hyperfixations on a media that so obviously hates autistic people. girl meets world.

[applebees4prez]

nobody will understand the kids’ shows i obsess over like i do it’s not cringe it’s the work of a scholar.

[totally-sick-blogger]

Girl meets autism???

It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep and I need to talk about this.

So lately I’ve been rewatching girl meets world and by “rewatching” I mean I let it play on my laptop at night when I’m falling asleep so really I’m not actually watching a whole lot of it. But I’ve just remembered the autism episode and need to to talk about it because it was so….I don’t even know what words to use here if I’m being honest so I’m just going to go point by point.

Why did they act like it something that they needed to cure??? That part catches me off guard every time; especially when Maya GRABS HIS ARM AND TRIED TO PULL HIM TOWARDS THE DOOR. Like did she think that they were gonna go to pharmacy and get antibiotics to cure is autism or something??

Why were they so shocked that he had autism. Like it was really obvious to me from the very beginning. So the way they were all like “but you can’t be autistic???? You’re just quirky???” And when Maya was like “let’s tell them you’re not” I think that part is funny in an ironic way because usually it’s the other way around when someone says “you can’t be autistic because you don’t *insert autism stereotype here*” whereas from my perspective, farkle is the most classically autistic teen boy that is portrayed in the media.

Do you guys remember that one tiktok audio that was like “I’m not autistic! I’m just a bit silly! And I cry when my socks are right…but that’s unrelated” I feel like that basically sums up the dialogue of this episode

They were ALL losing their marbles over farkle being autistic which made no sense to me because from my perspective Riley is definitely also autistic but it presents in her very differently than it presents in farkle and I always found them both to be very relatable. I’m a little bit confused about why they never made that connection especially after isadora told everyone that she’s also autistic and has been diagnosed for a long time.

On the topic of isadora- it made me so sad how she told farkle that she would accept him for who he was and that it was okay that he was autistic and she was so happy to finally have someone to relate to but then his friends somehow convinced him that he shouldn’t do that??? Like by the end of the episode they were all like “we think it’s okay that you’re autistic but just don’t act autistic” (this is paraphrased btw) which I’m pretty sure was meant to be them being accepting and open minded but really they were all being terrible friends.

Isadora was always the butt of the joke in every episode she was in and they were always so rude to her for no reason and I feel like they often went out of their way to single her out and this got worse in a way after the autism episode. Like generally speaking they were always so ableist towards her and I would probably classify their attitude towards her as bullying because they didn’t really ever have any actual reason to hate her.

I also would like to note real quick that in the show they used the word Asperger’s instead of autism during most of the episode but I’m saying autism because Asperger’s is outdated and also named after a….very bad guy… Also I feel like there probably weren’t any autistic people consulted on the making of this episode.

Okay I think that’s all of my points for now. If you want a more detailed, better version of this post you should all go check out Lulaloopsy’s video on YouTube. (I will try to link it here -> )

[97tears]

It’s a kind of what

[jcforsapphics]

breaking my silence: every single girl meets world character was autistic

[witch-in-pointy-hat]

Literally so tired of autistic rep in mainstream media about white boys causing their families problems. No two autistic people are the same but every fucking canonically autistic character is some infantilized white boy whose parents are so brave for having a child with sensory issues.

[granhairdo]

what the FUCK was girl meets world

[brookesophelias]

Girl Meets "I am Farkle;" or Girl Meets Ableism?

third rewatch of Girl Meets World and i'm still not comprehending why people hate " Girl Meets I am Farkle." i reacted to my diagnosis of Borderline Personality the same way Maya reacts to Farkle maybe having Autism.

Girl Meets World.

i had a previous psychiatrist. one who—already treating me for OCD, & traumatic experiences—said there was “no doubt {i} had autism” despite the fact that i had several documents; every one of them said “inconclusive results for ASD; or ASD unlikely.” documents reported that the only diagnoses i had are:

Cerebral Palsy {spastic quad type}

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder {severe}

Generalised Anxiety Disorder {moderate to severe}

i told him to reconsider. all he said was that i needed to watch “Love on the Spectrum”

months later, after months begging, i found out that outpatient psych wrote ASD on my medical history; a year later, after extensive testing, it was determined—by a neuropsychologist—that ASD is not possible and that traditional methods of testing would be unnecessary and inaccurate.

i know a thing or two about ableism. i very very very much appreciate this episode. actually one of my favourite GMW episodes! :)

[defalltt]

Favourite Portrayal Of Autism Is In Girl Meets World Where They Act Like Farkle Has A Terminal Illness And Is Gonna Die In A Month. Like Omg What My Friend That Has All The Traits Of On Autistic Person Now Has A Label For Their Behaviour And Can Now Understand Why They’ve Been Isolated Their Entire Life??? Disgusting No He’s Just A Little Farkle And None Of MY Perfectly Normal Friends Could EVER Be Autistic

[novelist-becca]

You’re telling me there was an actual episode of a tv show where a kid saying “I might have autism” was treated like having cancer? 😀

[gritsandbrits]

Girl Meets World Slander on the TL again this time how it handled its autistic rep

This is why Hollywood (media in general) needs to put autistic creators in the spotlight instead of regurgitating ableist talking points.

[autie-hobbit]

Low-key considering rewatching the Autism episode of "Girl Meets World" just so that I can complain about it.

[darknightwolves]

Episode 142: Autism In Writing 1 | Creative Writing Club

In this week’s episode, I went into talking about autism, sharing some stories and experiences, and did tons of research in order to educate my listeners on what autism is and how it works and how they can correlate it to their writing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eId_vw9ABc https://open.spotify.com/show/0BX9Z6IfApWiXjzzNPJWK7 Though due to the length of the episode I decided to separate…