Netflix’s Atypical: Were Critics Correct?

On Friday the 11th, Netflix released its newest original series Atypical, a comedy drama that follows an 18-year-old autistic boy as he tries to enter the dating world. Before the show even came out, Atypical was causing a real stir with some people concerned that it would mock autistic people or give the wrong impression of autism. Other issues included complaints that the main character was not played by an autistic actor and one critic went as far to suggest that casting a straight white boy left out ethnic minorities and girls with autism. In most cases, you’d have to be a very high functioning autistic person to be able to take on the persona of someone else. For all the main character, Sam is high functioning, he still suffers extreme sensory issues and meltdowns that would be distressing for an actual autistic person to perform. Also, 1 in 42 boys is on the autism spectrum compared with only 1 in 189 girls meaning that a male lead is more likely to represent the average autistic person more truly. In terms of race, research has found that while autism affects every race, US born white autistic people are more likely to have a high functioning version of autism.

“Children of US African American/black and foreign-born black, foreign-born Central/South American, and US-born Hispanic mothers were at higher risk of exhibiting an AD phenotype with both severe emotional outbursts and impaired expressive language than children of US-born whites”.

Some people wondered why the storyline was about Sam trying to find himself a girlfriend and the answer came within the first few minutes of the show, as Sam’s therapist informs his mother that only 9% of autistic people in the US are married. This figure isn’t low because autistic people don’t want a relationship but because they find it difficult to meet people and maintain relationships, and people’s attitudes towards autistic people don’t help the situation much.

Concerns that the show would show a stereotypical ‘Sheldon Cooper’ style of autism were quashed after the first episode. Sam has many of the traits of autism including obsessing over a particular subject (in his case, penguins) and not totally understanding people’s expressions or remarks. To not include this kind of behaviours for fear of appearing stereotypical would be to show a dishonest version of an autistic person. In the first episode, there’s a scene where Sam is sitting awkwardly on the bus seat because he doesn’t like the way the vibrations from the bus feel against his back. He attracts some funny looks from other passengers whose lack of awareness about autism leads them to believe that Sam is just a bit odd. For anyone who watched the show who didn’t really know much about autism, this insight into autistic traits could help them understand behaviour like this in the future and avoid situations like the bus scene.

Even though the show is a comedy, the joke is definitely not on Sam. The comedy characters in the show are Sam’s frantic mother, Elsa and also his blunt and bad ass sister Casey. Whether or not you were a cynic about the show before it was released, Atypical is a show that everyone can simultaneously enjoy and learn from. It’s honest, funny and greatly informative.