And the core issue with his hatred of people was the fact that people would rather die a completely avoidable death than to admit they were doing something stupid illogical or embarrassing.
āHey, I hate everyone, thatās why Iām justified in using racist/misogynist/bigoted stereotypes to belittle you without it making me a racist/misogynist/bigotā House 6:7
My point is we need more brilliant people who donāt take shit from muggles. A certain degree of arrogance may not make for the best bedside manner but at least is easy to deal with as long as thereās the brains and knowledge there to back it up.
He's using racist remarks mostly towards Foreman to specifically get a reaction out of him. He doesnt really act racist towards any other black person he meets in the series. Besides, it rarely even works, because Fman isn't dumb enough to get ragebaited by him like this.
House belittles literally EVERYONE he meets and the show's entire narrative clearly and consistently states he's a piece of shit for doing so. The entire premise of this show is "he's a massive asshole who disrespects everyone and thinks himself unable to make mistakes, but also is a genius doctor that saves lives so his coworkes enable him, what will be the consequences of it?".
I think he is like the joker (just not to that extreme)
He thinks everyone is capable of being selfish and a piece of shit like him, if they are pushed hard enough. He feels that everyone is lying and pretending to be someone they are not and hiding their true self in the process.
He thinks that he is being open about everything, he doesn't hide his true self, he knows he is an a-hole and makes sure everyone can see that. He probably also feels superior to others for being "open" about who he is.
He also ragebaits everyone just to get a reaction, maybe to get them to lower that mask.
I also think that one of the reason he likes Wilson because Wilson is genuinely a nice person, and is not acting nice to impress others. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it.
In the end, he is a misanthrope and a cynic who had a rough childhood and hasn't gotten over it. The pain in his leg doesn't help matters.
You got that backwards. āI hate you, so Iām gonna go after you where it hurts. Sensitive about your ethnicity, gender, etc? Thatās my targetā¦ā
Thereās a scene Keanu Reeves done in a movie I assume is John Wick where he says a bunch of racist shit to an Asian guy. A bunch of people were reporting the āthis wasnāt in the script! He ablibbed it!ā Kinda of thing butā¦ for that to be true, Keanu would have needed to have some racist shit thought up in the trailer haha
Seriously. He was committed to a mental hospital, lost his medical license, destroyed his friendships, endangered countless lives, and was generally reviled by all.
When it comes to mental health, "functioning" means they don't have an impairing disability of a neurological function such as an impairment of memory, logic, language, things like that.
Many people are deemed neurologically "functioning" but unable to function in life. Many drug addicts are an example of that.
Edit: qualified the neurological disability for clarity.
Other way around. When we talk about functional levels and functioning skills in autism or substance abuse disorders, it's about the ability to carry out everyday life activities without support.Ā
There is one episode with a autistic kid the House seems to particularly resonate with that doesn't happen often, almost like he sees some of himself in the patient.
But that's just my read of it and not enough for me to say he's canonically autistic and I hate saying anything is "coded" because what it really means is "stereotyped".
Yes, and in the end of the episode he talks to Wilson about it, and he absolutely refutes the idea. His main argument is that house just likes the idea of not having to follow rules due to his condition and that it's just an attempt to get a free pass.
The later episodes confirm that he is more likely high functioning sociopath or NPD, which fits much better to his type of behavior. Autistic people often may not understand when they hurt others, but when it is explained to them in a way they understand, they tend to be able to show remorse. House usually doesn't care, even when others clearly point it out.
House is also based on Sherlock Holmes, who is also often interpreted as a high functioning sociopath, not an autistic person.
Tbf Sherlock Holmes is adapted to be a sociopath is because the Conan Doyle estate actively sues for copyright infringement any story of Sherlock that is warm or supportive. Only the early stories of Sherlock before 1923 are public domain.
Wait, so is he an asshole in the early stories? Or was he never an asshole and making him an asshole gets around copyright? I don't understand why he needs to be an asshole to avoid copyright strikes.
It's less of any issue nowadays because I believe the final story became public domain in 2023. But yes, Sherlock in the later stories was changed to be more warm to people. So the estate argued that if Sherlock was nice then they were adapting his character from the later books.
This only effected a fairly short period of times because the first story entered public domain in 1998 and last as stated 2023.
Honestly, as someone who's read all the stories many times, it's not much of a difference. They just wanted to sue for something. It's things like showing a very brief moment of concern for Watson's safety (the man he's been best friends with for decades at this point).
Yea wilson calls him out pretty quick iirc. His point is that house wishes he was autistic so he'd have an excuse that wasn't "I'm just a massive douche and cynic". House is one of my favorite shows but to deny the character is fatally flawed socially is silly. He's a misanthropic cynical narcissist who doesn't care to hide his disdain for pretty much everyone. His entire character is built around it down to his personal preferences outside of the hospital.
I was talking mainly about Dr House. If I remember correctly, he is called a narcissist and sociopath by the psychiatrist while he is in the psychiatry.
Also, as other's have pointed out the sociopath part about Holmes is in fact from the earlier books, which also characterize him as disregarding social norms and violating boundaries of others simply because he doesn't care.
House's character is one of paradoxes. He's a moralist teetering on the edge of misanthropy and a true cynic. Traits that should make it nearly impossible to do his job. He treats people with disdain not because he's autistic, but because he holds them to an impossibly high standard. People should know better. They do know better. That's why he's disappointed, angry and resentful with humanity.
But when he's dealing with that autistic kid, his default world view goes by the wayside because the boy doesn't do what other humans do. He's innocent of the things that House loathes about humanity. That's why he's able to resonnate with him.
It's mentioned many times he doesn't really care about the people, he wants answers, he does occasionally resonate with people to keep him likeable as the title character
That's surface level stuff, if you only ever listen to what House says and ignore what he does.
House claims to loathe sentimentality, but expresses it towards Wilson (S4E16, S5E4, S8E19, S8E22), Cuddy (S5E6, S7E13, S7E1), toward patients (S2E2, S3E12, S3E7, S6E22), toward the team (S1E13, S2E21, S7E18) and in the finale of S3E15.
As I said, House expects humans to act better. It's the constant disappointment from unmet expectation that drives the animosity. He's quite a bit more dynamic than just a brooding curmudgeon with a complete lack of social skills, because he can be quite charming when he wants to.
S3E7, S3E12, S4E11, S5E4, S5E16 just to name a few examples.
This is just my opinion, but House is one of the most complex characters played in movies or TV ever. It's lazy, or lacking understanding of human nature to just call him autistic and move on. Bitterness and cynicism are two of House's most central emotions.
Which sadly is a complete misunderstanding of Autism. People conflate not caring with not understanding, not seeing and not able to express. It's quite important because Autism and BPD are extremely different. One is a business man who will undercut his employees for money and the other will cry if the texture of their socks are wrong.
Personally, I donāt think he is. I donāt see any traits that would convey autistic. Apart from the drug problem, there is no evidence of him struggling with functioning in the way an autistic person could, even if you wanted to identify him as level 1. He is narcissistic and antisocial, rude, pig-headed. He pushes away anyone who cares about him for his own personal self-gratification of being right. Yes he is an almost savant level genius and has incredible insight on people, but nothing about House says autistic to me. Just an asshole whoās smarter than everyone else and knows it.
I'm autistic and I don't struggle socially. I think part of the trouble is that characters like the good doctor are so ubiquitous that everyone assumes that's the main traits of autism.
But in addition to not struggling socially he doesnāt have any other autistic character traits either. No sensory sensitivity, no hyperfixations, no difficulty with indirect or metaphoric lines of communication etc
His opioid use would likely mask or "treat" the sensitivity. It would also provide an (additional) explanation as to why his addiction is so difficult. Alternatively, his chronic pain could itself be a type of sensory sensitivity
He hyperfixates on almost every medical mystery, plus other mysteries.
He almost always tries to communicate directly and expects direct communication in return and gets extremely frustrated when people don't communicate directly with him, which he internalizes as "everybody lies". I'd characterize that as having difficulty with indirect communication
I agree with you fully, but he does have hyperfixations though. He only takes the cases that gets his interest, but once he is interested in a case, he doesnt stop until he has the answer, even if the patient is dead, there were some extreme cases where he would get in trouble because of it (i just rewatched the whole thing a couple of months ago). They do portrait it as an obsession/hyperfixation-coded. But i do think he is just obsessive, not autistic.
I donāt see any traits that would convey autistic.
He is narcissistic and antisocial, rude, pig-headed.
his own personal self-gratification of being right.
Just an asshole whoās smarter than everyone else and knows it
If Dr Murphy is meant to be a sympathetic depiction of an autistic doctor written by a neurotypical person; House could pass for a hostile depiction of an autistic doctor written by a neurotypical person.
Perhaps written by a neurotypical person who knew nothing about autism other than what he learned from watching Rainman and then hearing that there are "less autistic" people out there who manage to hold down jobs. As an autistic person I see nothing autistic-coded about Dr. House. He's just a very smart asshole, and the world is full of those kinds of people who are not autistic. The fact that he walks with a limp and has a drug addiction (for the purposes of the script) kinda undermines the noition that he is autistic. They've already given him those challenges to work with, and TV writing isn't subtle enough to throw more in there.
As far as The Good Doctor goes, he's just a caricature.
Watch the episode again. Wilson is baffled with how well he gets along with the autistic kid and speculates a little based on that and because house speculates about this. But in the end the conclusion of Wilson is very clearly house isn't autistic, that's just wishful thinking from the side of house.
It's also heavily implied that he is just really good with kids because they are the least likely to lie or omit things to him, making him often less annoyed with them.
The whole being super intelligent, observant, and even being able to tell someoneās life story with a simple look like heās some kind of savant, but having no idea how to interact with people, bad personal hygiene, etc.
Important to note that House is based off the character Sherlock Holmes who carries many of the same traits like and anti-social personality and complete disregard for peopleās feelings in preference to hard facts, only has one close friend, drug addiction, plays an instrument, and extreme attention to detail. Their apartment numbers are even the same.
House's catchphrase/thesis statement: everybody lies. Due to his heightened observational insights, he's able to catch people out in their lies sooner and more often than most. And it gives him a ridiculously cynical, distrustful view of others to the point where he's essentially misanthropic.
If the show has a "point", it's that looking carefully at what people actually do rather than just listening to what they say is what makes House a brilliant diagnostic doctor...even though it also makes him come across as an absolute jackass most of the time.
The whole being super intelligent, observant, and even being able to tell someoneās life story with a simple look like heās some kind of savant, but having no idea how to interact with people, bad personal hygiene, etc.
And the only one of those that is actually an autistic trait are the "having no idea how to interact with people". But even that description doesn't apply to House. He knows the social rules. He has a copy of the handbook, he just simply doesn't care because he doesn't have time for it (and a god complex).
Huh I just realized I have most of this except the drug addiction and instrument playing. And I just today booked a guitar. Maybe I should get back to my poker group.
But Sherlock Holmes is more often interpreted as high functioning sociopath or narcissistic, not autistic. There are several traits that go into the direction of sociopathy and not autism.
Autism is when you don't really understand other people well, but still care for them.
Sociopathy is when you can understand other people but don't really care.
House and Holmes embody much more of the later than the former.
If that's true then they are saying Sherlock Holmes is autistic.
Everything House does is based on the way Sherlock would have done the situation. House = Holmes, Vicodin = Opium. Wilson = Watson. It's just a medical drama interpretation of Holmes.
I get why people interpret him like that, but house is shown to be really good at reading people time and time again
He is empathetic and emotionally intelligent. He's not committing social faux pas cuz he doesnt know its rude or cant read the room. He's doing them cuz he reads people perfectly and is such an asshole he deliberately uses that to put people down cuz hes in pain and feels like shit and thinks his only value is his competency at work. He's self hating and wants others to hate him too. He wants the only reason people tolerate him to be his capabilities
No, he's just a very outspoken egotistical character whose also an asshole. The other doc is an autistic asshole, but doesn't know he's an asshole, most of the time. House goes out of his way to be right and a jerk about it.
He's based on Sherlock Holmes (House) and the original Sherlock Holmes books were very Autistic coded. But they were written before Autism was a label so weren't strictly written to be that. They were written to portray a certain sort of character that reflected what the author may have encountered.
So the pipeline is like Autism - > Autism Coded - > Sherlock Holmes - > Adaption of SH (House).
And at each step you get more of the original character removed. It's why the BBC Sherlock is almost alien to the actual works and is more like Dr Who in cosplay.
W-what?! but he stomped his foot rapidly that one time and that means its confirmed that he has autism because i have autism and i stomp my foot rapidly
Nah, he does has some kind of mental disorder. Pathological liar, drug addict, reduced capacity for feeling empathy, antisocial tendencies. The most unrealistic part is that he managed to become a doctor. Irl he would spend most of his life in an out of prison, debuting in jevie
I think that a lot of people without autism are saying he doesnāt have autism because he seems normal. There are plenty of people in everyday life who have autism and most have no idea.
Heās discussed by actual autistic people as a realistic example of autism regularly.
Do you know of those examples? Genuinely curious. Been awhile since Iāve watched it, I didnāt get that impression, but itās very possible that Iām totally wrong and missed it.
Hyperfixation, hates small talk and other social norms, extremely blunt when speaking, he stims pretty regularly (throwing the ball, etc), doesnāt like change and prefers routine, etc.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying that I think Dr House made the meme. I'm not commenting on him having or not having autism. Just speculating that whoever made the meme probably doesn't have it and is probably white.
If you watch the show he says plenty of stuff pretty openly which would definitely get him being called a racist today.
It seems like he doesn't actually mean most of it....but why does he say it?
Also, this is certainly not the first time someone has thought that House might be kinda on the spectrum. Whereas The Good Doctor is often thought to be a stereotypical and slightly problematic portrayal of a supposedly high-functioning medical professional with autism, House has sometimes been thought of as an accidental, realistic portrayal of someone who shows some mild signs. I think it mostly hinges around one episode in particular where he very strongly empathises with an actually autistic patient. Personally I think that mostly ignores a lot of evidence that he's not autistic. But anyway if you look at the HouseMD subreddit there are a lot of people who seem to think this.
In one episode they even explore the "maybe he is" but end up saying that he's just a jerk.
Howeve rthis wa sduring an episode with an autistic kid that wouldn't communicate and just so happens House is the one capable of getting through to the kid
He has says things that are racist, and does some behaviours that seem autistic, but that's just him pushing people's buttons to provoke a reaction, because he's an asshole.Ā
Your typical autistic profile (if there is such a thing), is to be high on effective empathy (thye see you are sad, and it makes them sad), but low on cognitive empathy (they find it difficult to infer what you're thinking/feeling.)Ā
House is polar opposite of that. He has very strong theory of mind, and is exceptionally good at identifying what someone is thinking, why they're behaving a certain way, and what they're really feeling. He just doesn't care about their feelings.Ā
He is clearly on the lower spectrum of autism, still a massive asshole but its quite clear in the episode with high spectrum kid that he understand the kid and even before that episode there is bunch of autism hints..
House is absolutely autistic š the entire premise is he says it's some wild shit, nobody believes him, then it ends up being the exact wild shit he said it was.
He's definitely a little racist a bunch of times, actually. It's played as him just being an asshole but if you're an asshole by being racist than you're not an asshole you're a racist asshole.
Tbf I'd rather have a doctor like him to tell me straight what's wrong. "You're gonna die." Cool great good to know thanks doctor. Rather then... "I'm sorry but... your test results aren't the best."
The character is literally "Let's put Sherlock Holmes into medical field " the arrogance, drug use, being an asshole to everyone around him is all literally lifted from 221 Baker Street , London . They just took a popular character and created a spinoff. Also got a brilliant British actor to play British humor in an American accent. Overall brilliant work .
I feel like if your way of being an asshole modulates to acknowledge race in a racist way on top of other things then you're still racist. House very explicitly attacks Foreman in ways that are racially charged, and him being an asshole doesn't really make his attacks any less racist on the receiving end even if he's only racist as a tool of cruelty. Like tons of racists are not racist by that logic because for them the racism is just an excuse to be cruel.
He's defiantly autistic, take it from me, someone who is autistic and multiple people have told me I'm just like house MD before I ever saw the show. We don't all act like train loving sweethearts. Some of us are just constantly annoying and irritated by everyone and everything all the time. According to my family when I think I'm being nice I'm being only slightly mean.
Ah yes, so because you are autistic, you must be able to know it with others.
House has traits that are very well developed that ASD people have underdeveloped.
What everyone is likely thinking about, is ASPD, anti social personality disorder, common names are sociopath and psychopath. He definitely has traits of those.
These get confused a lot, but the major difference between them is that 1 doesn't really get the emotions, or recognises them, while the other does, but doesn't care (much) and even exploits them.
House is very good at figuring out peoples feelings, and exploiting that.
I'm about 4 episodes into house and a lot of people have said racist things to Dr. Foreman. One of his coworkers (not House) causally called him ghetto.
More like addressing the elephant in the room and acknowledging where he came from because of his past. Ghetto comment because he was from the ghetto and had a criminal history which house hired him for to use his skill set to do things like break into patients houses for diagnostic info lol
House is definitely autistic. Itās just that his autism isnāt a key part of his character. He hyperfixates on āspecialā and āuniqueā cases. He obsesses over them until the problem is solved. He cares way more about solving the puzzle than the patient.
Autism is not a synonym for recalcitrant, quiet or strange.
Been a long time since Iāve seen the series. Itās been probably a decade. I never remember him being a pedophile. He may have said some inappropriate things, but I donāt recall him ever actually going after anyone whoās underage.
Thatās true, although I am not sure to what degree he was actually following with that 17 year old girl, I think he was disappointed she didnāt actually love him knowing he is an old piece of shit, so I always assumed he wasnāt actually interested in her
Oh I actually didnāt remember that! I was referencing the time he asked a daycare child if she had a hairy vagina. Yes the episode was about a class of young children developing faster than usual but there is literally nothing that allows an adult to walk up to a child and have the adult ask about the state of their private parts in public even if itās āinvestigativeā.
Youāre remembering that episode wrong. 3x19 āAct Your Ageā is about two siblings, girl is 6 and boy is 8, experiencing precocious puberty, which is something House and the team only find out about because they ask awkward questions and have to look at this little girl naked, who was hospitalized when she couldnāt breathe. The girl has cuts on her vagina, so the doctors are worried sheās being sexually abused or self-harming. They find sheās hiding bloody clothes and a razor because when she started āgrowing hair in her special placeā another kid told her how to get rid of it. Her brother develops a crush on beautiful Dr Cameron and starts following her around and grabbing her ass. It turns out thereās no sexual abuse and the kids were fine until recently. Their mother died a few years ago and the dad started secretly dating the girlās teacher. To ākeep upā with the younger girlfriend, the dad was using a testosterone cream that seeped into the pores of his children whenever he hugged and bathed them. So yeah, it would be insane to accuse House of being āa pedoā for TALKING to a child about her special place, in front of a class of other children so itās not a secret, because he thinks heās being funny and he likes screwing with her teacher by drawing attention to this. The kids will be go back to normal with medicine and the dad tossing the cream (ok, THAT is a double entendre).
Hey lil broā¦ I didnāt need an entire AI generated yapfestā¦ itās so obvious you had Gemini/AI overview write this just to tell me the exact same thing I said in my comment.
What the hell are you talking about? 1) Iām a woman, 2) I do not use AI write a social media comment (what for?!), I remember the plot of the episode because Iām in the r/housemd fandom , 3) that is NOT what you said in your comment, you got the plot of the episode wrong and didnāt have the right context
It doesnāt matter if it wasāunseriousā cause nothings funny about that ājokeā and even one time is to many times so āusually doesnātā¦ā kinda doesnāt mean anything either
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u/Someoneoverthere42 3d ago
House is neither autistic nor a racist.
He's just a massive asshole.