In recent years, the visibility of diverse groups of people in media has become increasingly important and expected by audiences. Representation of particular groups of people is become the standard, risking flack if this principle is not abided by. However, one group in particular that proves especially difficult to properly represent is individuals with autism. There’s a clear shortage of exposure, interestingly however, there comes a time when you find representation from characters who weren’t written or attended to have autism. Let’s take a deeper dive into some character traits and see if they fit on the spectrum even if they weren’t intentionally written to represent people with autism.

Why is Autism hard to represent?

A reason as to why it’s hard to represent autism correctly is because it’s a wide spectrum. According to GetSafe, some common traits social skill Sensory processing motor skills, executive functioning, emotional regulation and special interests or talents. However, these traits are invisible, and it can be hard to identify if you’re not knowledgeable in those traits. Including that, each autistic case is different leading it to a wide spectrum.

Unintentionally Accurate

Oddly enough given what we have about the autistic traits, it’s surprisingly easy to imply those to particular characters. Although these characters weren’t intended to represent those with autism, they give off traits that would match well known traits.

One example that comes to mind would be D-16/Megatron from Transformers One. A video essay from Lord of the TORBs goes into great detail on both the main characters of the film, however I’d like to focus on one of them. In particular the traits that D-16 partrades that I’d like to focus on is Emotional regulation. In the film D-16 has an emotional outburst followed by a shutdown period until the climax. Although not accurate of the situation, it does represent a situation that is rarely portrayed in film.

Closing thoughts

Representation through media has become very important in the modern day, especially positive representation. As someone on the spectrum, it’s nice to see them portrayed as people even by accident. With the knowledge that is known about individuals on the spectrum, it’s not hard to believe that we can make some comparisons. They don’t always need a diagnosis to be able to represent someone on the spectrum. So, take a double look at some characters, they just might have something more profound about them beyond the screen.

https://theableshow.com/unintentional-representation-of-the-spectrum

https://www.getsafe.com/autism-wheel-vs-the-autism-spectrum/.