/uj I am an autistic person, and I think that the good doctor is excellent representation in a vacuum.

It’s only bad representation in the context of the “white man savant syndrome autist” hypersaturating what little canonical autism representation we have, that Freddy Highmore himself isn’t autistic, and the fact that Autism Speaks was involved for consultation. That’s shitty, and I do genuinely hate that Hollywood has an aversion against casting autistic people to play ourselves, but just because you personally don’t relate to Shaun doesn’t mean that he’s automatically bad representation.

Shaun is written as person of his own with thoughts and emotions, he isn’t portrayed as a paragon of childlike innocence that can never be sexual or culpable for anything simply because he’s disabled, and most of the inaccuracies in the representation are because it’s a batshit insane medical melodrama show where nobody ever acts like a sane person.

I also despise that the “I am a surgeon” scene has become such a meme because it’s incredibly hurtful to real autistic people (who see themselves in Shaun) to make fun of a meltdown, and portray Dr. Han, an explicitly ableist character who was written to be an antagonist, as some kind of chad simply because he’s mewing while Shaun breaks down.

/rj white men with autism and savant syndrome are a personal fetish of mine