IN TELEVISION WE TRUST

The crap on television amazes me. Since retiring, I’ve had large blocks of time released for idiot box viewing and yet very little of what’s being offered has captured my interest. The loud ‘After the tennis’ promotions only highlight a landscape filled with tiresome reality shows and mind-numbing dramas.

A familiar theme runs through all these programs and- you guessed- it’s stereotyping. The most popular shows have it as the ‘hero’ element of the shit that they’re serving up. I refuse to apologise for the cooking show lingo but don’t get me started on that.

The good doctor is one such example. I don’t pretend to know much about autism at all but what I am aware of is pretty much what everyone knows, namely,

·         Autism covers a large range of conditions, behaviours and features of individuals.

·         The reason that autism is described as having a ‘spectrum’ is mainly to accommodate its varied forms and manifestations.

·         The boundaries of the spectrum are continually changing as research and studies tag more conditions that should come under its umbrella.

·         The number of punters being placed somewhere on the spectrum is increasing markedly.

·         The emphasis with many of these punters is that autism is just ONE element of their make-up and it certainly shouldn’t be viewed as a definition.

However, the creative minds behind The good doctor seem intent on presenting a character whose condition is ‘defining’ and, dare I say it, ‘entertaining’. In fact, the doc’s autism alone provides the fodder for each and every storyline and each and every complication. As one would expect, Shaun gets the gal in the end but not before he’s displayed restricted responses to other players whilst demonstrating a genius-like talent for diagnoses that none of his contemporaries can approach.

The show’s depiction of autism is deeply stereotypical and like so many portrayals of autism centres around an essentially magical autistic white man. (Kim Sauder, 2017)

This depiction of people who are autistic is a recurring one. We saw the same thing in Rain man (savant syndrome) and, to some extent, in House (Asperger’s syndrome…..allegedly). Both central characters possessed immense abilities in specific domains alongside their limited social interactions and communication. I’m NOT suggesting that the latter aren’t important because social interplay is a common feature of punters who are on the spectrum. Rather, the emphasis on super-human powers in stuff like mathematics, deduction and/ or computation is just plain stupid………… not because ASD people can’t display such intelligences and skills- many do- but because the ability to successfully manipulate a Rubik’s cube in ten seconds flat is not an indicator of the condition, in whatever form or magnitude.

In an analysis of fictional characters from 26 films and four TV shows, researchers found that portrayals of autism are often unrealistic, sticking too closely to textbook descriptions of the condition. (Is Hollywood’s portrayal of autism fair? Shaun Heasley, 2017)

Dr Shaun can confidently take his place on the night-time television bench alongside those Russian cooking devotchkas, the bad boy Bernard Tomic and that curly headed man looking for a second chance at ‘love’. The stereotyping that now infests our devices of choice may not be enlightening but, I guess, it is comforting.

Almost two centuries ago, a bloke with a big beard (Marx) alleged that religion was the opiate of the masses. Subsequently, another bloke with a big beard (God) got really pissed off when the idiot box usurped religion’s dress circle positioning. The rapture may be closer than we think given what’s listed in the TV Week over the next few days.