By KAITLYN HENSON
Staff Writer
Coming into the 2020’s, it’s becoming more apparent to people of how important representation is, especially in modern media today. It’s in order to prevent stereotypical assumptions, understanding, and most importantly for those minority groups to be seen and heard for their struggles. But the autism spectrum, I feel, has been one of the groups Hollywood has struggled the most with understanding, and it really shows in Netflix’s show “Atypical”.
“Atypical” first came out on August 11, 2017 and ran for 4 seasons until its final episode debuting on July 9th, 2021. The show was created by Robia Rashid and tells the story of an 18-year old teenager on the autism spectrum dealing with his everyday life with his dysfunctional family, all while attempting to find a girlfriend.
To give some context, I’m someone who from a very early age grew up surrounded by those on the spectrum, such as my younger brother, his friend from school, my dad, my cousin, and a couple others who I don’t see often. I became familiar with the different behaviors they exhibit and so I’ve always felt that it’s important for neurotypical people like myself to understand them and be open with them. Unfortunately, I have come across people who hold stereotypical opinions about those who are neurodivergent – they always assume that they’ll hurt themselves or others, are unintelligent, or are plain annoying – when those things aren’t true. And because of Hollywood’s previous attempts of trying to connect with this particular audience, I and many people don’t have much faith in stories with autistic characters. Many people just don’t understand what that means and that in itself can be harmful.
So it’s safe to say I became conflicted when I began watching Netflix’s “Atypical”. Admittingly, the autism representation and the accuracy of Sam’s character was really well done. Although he does exhibit many common behaviors that most people on the spectrum don’t have all at once, overall I was really surprised with his character and the way he describes his passions for the Antarctic – which is in fact accurate. My brother talks in a relatively similar way like Sam when he talks about video games or movies, specifically Super Mario. Even though I’m not particularly a fan of Super Mario and have tried to get into it, he goes on and on about how many stars he was able to get in Mario Galaxy and how he had broken his recent speed run in 2 hours – which of course I congratulate him on. It’s his way of expressing himself, and so it was refreshing to see an autisic character that was like that with something other than math and science.
However, this is where my issues with the show come in. Sam’s love for Antartica comes into conflict with how he communicates with people – more specfically with his love life. A character in the show named Paige takes interest in him and they briefly start dating – which I thought was cute at first. That is until she started using cards that dictated when he would or would not talk about Antarctica. Whenever he would bring it up, she would take a card away. And when he was out of cards, no more talking about Antartica. And the strangest thing is that no characters said anything about this, no intervention or talking to Paige about it. And it was very clear that it was making Sam uncomfortable – it made me uncomfortable – and it felt like there was no clear resolution for that and Paige is still the same controlling and manipulative character that she was before. I don’t mind having plotlines like that, but if the show wasn’t directly going to point out that this was wrong and why it was wrong, then there would still be issues with it. Either Sam had to stand up for himself or Paige would get a redemption arc. Neither of those happened.
Another issue that I have with the show is the other romance plotlines. Not just with Sam, but with the other members of his family. Particularly his mom Elsa. In the first episode it’s established that she’s a controlling, worrisome mother who doesn’t fully understand autism but is too overprotective of her son to see him as a human person. I was fine with that, it made for a good character progression and for her to learn and to understand that the way she was acting was wrong. BUT THEN the show has her cheat on her husband because she felt she needed to get away from her life. And she keeps it from everyone and she VERY WELL KNOWS that what she’s doing is wrong but keeps doing it. It’s incredibly painful to watch and I couldn’t understand why this was necessary for the story as a whole. It’s okay to have a flawed character, but they made Elsa such a hateable character that I just wanted her gone. She’s selfish and has no care towards her own family until she loses it, and acts like everyone else is to blame but herself.
But probably one of the most uncomfortable parts of the show is with Sam and his therapist Julia. They’re introduced in the very first scene of the first episode, and Julia is one of the very few characters that truly understands Sam and wants to help him understand social cues and the way others act and feel. However when the topic of romance comes into play, Sam starts getting inappropriate feelings towards his therapist. It made me so unnerved when Sam talked to his friends and his father about this girl and they’re cheering him on – not knowing who it is – and when Julia finds out and tells him upright how gross that is, SHE’S made out to be the bad guy for making Sam upset. The parents should’ve asked him upright who this girl was if they’re so overprotective of him in the first place, and it hurt so much to watch.
The only positive character interaction I can think of from “Atypical” however is Sam’s sister, Casey. I relate to her a lot as a sister with a neurotypical brother, and her struggles with not being seen as important enough by her parents whenever she accomplished something. Though I’m a lot luckier than her, with having a brother that has a lot of the same interests as me, she’s overall a great character and cares about her brother. She even goes out of her way to watch videos about Antarctica with Sam so that he feels better, which is so incredibly sweet. I don’t often see brother and sister relationships depicted like that and it really warmed my heart.
In conclusion, I have a lot of issues with “Atypical” and I’m hesitant to keep watching. It’s one of the rare shows where there’s good representation, yet the show makes you so incredibly uncomfortable with stupid plotlines that it really hurts to watch everything fall apart with this family. And this is exactly why I preach for better autism representation, for people to better understand how neurodivergent people think and view things. We should come together and educate ourselves, so that people on the spectrum can be more accepted and treated like people rather than objects to look at. They are so much more, and they should know that. And although I’m disappointed in how “Atypical” went with their plotlines, I feel that they do a better job than other shows/movies out there.