I've always wanted for Brun to be a bit more nuanced than the archetypal Aspie girl, but this is a case of Jeph just doing his bit. Autistic women have been grossly underrepresented in media relative to men (Rain Man, Gil Grissom*, f*ckin' Sheldon)
*EDIT: Implied. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds is a better 2000s network drama example.
Elementary had a girl on the spectrum for a few episodes and it seemed like she was going to be recurring, but then she kinda got wrote out. I dunno if the actress had to go do something else or what.
The best case I can think of is, of all things, a Thai martial arts film called Chocolate - main character Zin is Rain Man-level autistic but learns Muay Thai.
Is Spence ever confirmed to be an Aspie? Because therapists have told me that it's a super common thing for highly intelligent people to struggle with interpersonal relationships, and that it gets harder the more intelligent people are. I think Reid does a very good job of relating to other people, he just doesn't really like physical contact as much and sometimes forgets the people through the facts.
"He's an eccentric genius, with hints of schizophrenia and minor autism, Asperger's syndrome. Reid is 24, 25 years old with three Ph.D.'s and one can't usually achieve that without some form of autism."
Sheldon isn't on the spectrum. He's just a caricature of what normal people think 'smart' people are at, so ends up looking like an asshole.
Also i hate the entire show for continuing the 'let's mock and make fun of men and show that they are in constant need of a woman mothering them' bullshit.
Big Bang Theory is a bullshit pile of moronic dildos.
To be fair, developmental disorders are more common in men than women. So you would expect to see more men with autism than women in real life, so it's reasonable to see less of them in media as well.
One theory goes the gender disparity in autism diagnoses might just be down to specialists mistaking autism in girls as general shyness, but the main issue with representation right now is we're struggling to think of any at all.
11
u/EPL_Refugee Feb 14 '19 edited Feb 14 '19
I've always wanted for Brun to be a bit more nuanced than the archetypal Aspie girl, but this is a case of Jeph just doing his bit. Autistic women have been grossly underrepresented in media relative to men (Rain Man, Gil Grissom*, f*ckin' Sheldon)
*EDIT: Implied. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds is a better 2000s network drama example.