INTRODUCTION– Autism, Crime Dramas, and Understanding
This book was written to help people with autism put their mental processes and experiences into words, and to assist neurotypical individuals with understanding what life may be like for the autistic. Over the past few decades, autism, once a narrowly defined and rarely studied condition, has entered the cultural mainstream. As the definition of autism has expanded and grown more nuanced in the wake of increased research, it is not surprising that the entertainment industry has increased its focus on this mental condition as well.
But for all of the newfound public awareness of autism, the ability to convey what it is, beyond a cold and clinical list of diagnostic criteria, remains elusive. Too often, stereotypes, broad generalities, and oversimplifications have stood in the way of explaining what it is like to filter the world through an autistic mind.Additionally, while much valuable research has been done, scientific papers are generally presented through academic lenses and mental health professional jargon. Certainly there is nothing inherently wrong with conveying the results of studying autism in such a manner, but the consequence of addressing autism through a dispassionate scientific approach is that it overlooks the emotional factor. There is a great chasm between identifying the characteristics of autism, and conveying what it is like to actually experience autism.
It is often noted that no one really knows if one sees colors in the same way that other people do. It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty that another person’s eyes process red, for example, precisely the same way as someone else.It’s certainly possible that someone else might see a slightly lighter or darker shade than someone else, and there’s no way to really describe the color through words, especially when one cannot be sure if someone else shares the same conception of “cherry,” “candy apple,” or “crimson” as another person. There is no way to set a universal benchmark.
So it is with autism. Words are often painfully inadequate to explain certain facets of autism, such as meltdowns, responses to stimuli, and reactions to memories.Sometimes the mere attempt to verbalize the intensity of the feelings a person with autism can experience can bring on an intense reaction, perhaps an involuntary emotional or physical response, possibly “stimming,” or a full-fledged meltdown with embarrassing effects. Terms like “painful” or “overwhelming” are evocative, but insufficiently detailed as to duplicate an experience. Dramatic portrayals of people with autism, including those that use stylized depictions in order to demonstrate the mental workings of their subjects, are a useful comparative device, though they must be used with caution.
Actors portraying the autistic are often a very blunt tool for describing how real-life people with autism feel. The varieties of autistic experience are so vast and unique that what might be an uncannily accurate reproduction of one autistic person’s mind could be utterly unlike what another person with autism feels.In many ways, many of the most prominent actor portrayals of people on the spectrum (or more often than not, debatably autistic) are a useful tool to explain certain autistic reactions.
But because the autism spectrum is so vast, much of what is shown in films and television either provides an incomplete picture, or fails to illustrate how a specific example is not necessarily universal, or even representative of a majority. Many of the portrayals discussed here have been criticized for not being “realistic” or “accurate” treatments of autism. Based on personal experience, I have found that some of the leading depictions that have been most fiercely attacked on the grounds of correctness are indeed true-to-life, but only for certain people with autism, like me.Â
I wrote this book because in many cases, what I saw on television was an unsettlingly similar duplication of my own mental experiences, though in many respects far from identical. It is my belief that in the decades to come, as autism is further researched and more people with autism give voice to their experiences, the complexities of the spectrum will be better explored, and diagnoses will be more narrowly and separately categorized. It is my opinion that in the future, different forms of autism will be labelled as comparable but distinct branches. What names will be given to those types will be anybody’s guess.“Asperger’s,” the particular branch of autism with which I was initially diagnosed, has fallen out of favor, partially due to the background of the man for which it is named, and now the umbrella term “autism spectrum disorder” is currently used. I would not be surprised if other name changes were to follow in the future, especially with some people’s discomfort over the use of the word “disorder.” Currently, terminology like Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1, 2, and 3, denoting the increasing severity of symptoms, is being used to clarify the severity of issues people with autism have, but this categorization may be revised as well in the future.
The wording used to describe autism has evolved a lot over the years, and it will continue to change in the decades to come. When I was officially diagnosed in 2009, the term used to describe my condition was Asperger’s Syndrome. Within a few years, the American Psychological Association decided to discontinue the use of that term, eliminating Asperger’s as an official diagnostic term and replacing it with the general term of autism.
Officially, “autism” is short for “autism spectrum disorder,” but this term is itself controversial, because many people, including myself, take offense to the use of the word “disorder.” Certainly some people with autism suffer from it, and in many cases the overstimulation and meltdowns and other negative effects cause a disability, but to call autism itself a disorder is to denigrate the autistic mind, and it is certainly not always the case that if the option existed, people with autism would choose to have their brains changed into neurotypical ones.
There is also a debate over the ordering of words.Some people argue that “autistic people” makes autism the first and most central character of a person, whereas “people with autism” makes the subject being described a human being first and makes the autism secondary. There are opposing views on this, especially due to the fact that “people with autism” can often come across as clunky. Often, due to needing to create better-flowing prose, I will switch back and forth between this terminology.
It is not just terms that cause controversy.Symbols are comparably divisive.For a while, popular symbols for autism featured jigsaw puzzle pieces, often of different colors. As a fan of jigsaw puzzles, I liked this symbolism, but it fell out of favor when other people with autism argued that the imagery creates the impression that the autistic are childlike and obsessed with making things fit their preferred patterns. I can understand that perspective, and I certainly do not want anybody to feel marginalized by a symbol meant to represent them. The current, most prominent symbol for autism is a multicolored eternity symbol, symbolizing the diversity of the autism spectrum. Some people who deal with serious problems due to their autism find a depressing ominousness in the eternity symbol, as if it is saying that their troubles will never end, so the longevity of the eternity symbol as a representation of the autistic may be shorter than its creators hoped. No term or symbol is perfect, and most of them have unexpected implications.
I have no doubt that if people are still reading this book in twenty years, that some of the terminology will be considered outdated, even offensive. I can assure readers that no intention of causing insult is meant, and that at the time of writing I am trying to use the official or most widely accepted terminology, but just because I use these terms, I do not believe that they are necessarily the best and most descriptive words. When “Asperger’s” was widely used, it referred to a specific form of autism, arguably a subset of the autistic spectrum. Like many people, I found “Asperger’s” to be more descriptive, as this diagnosis highlighted particular attributes, and personally, I have a deep attachment to the term, as it was a great relief to me to have a widely accepted term to describe a condition that had previously been misdiagnosed with much more ominous terminology. I would not be surprised if “autism spectrum disorder” is ultimately dubbed too broad and vague, and that more specialized terms for different forms of autism will be developed in the future.  I do think that Asperger’s would be a more descriptive term, well-suited for most of the detectives discussed in this book. But for various understandable reasons, including the personal life and political affiliations of Hans Asperger, the term has been phased out, and I am minimizing its use here. When the word “Asperger’s” is used on the show or film, or in a comment by someone connected to the show, it will be used here.
I am trying to use the best terminology possible for this study, though I still have concerns that many of these words will become dated in the future. All I am trying to do is use the best, least controversial, and most widely effective terminology to discuss the growing phenomenon of detectives with autism (or at least, have certain autistic characteristics) in film and television.
This book does not intend to castigate or dismiss any of the characters and screenplays discussed here, but it will try to reframe critical perspectives and place any lessons or messages expressed in them into broader context.
There is one point that I need to address. Recently, when a series of my articles were posted on a blog, one commenter brought to my attention that there is another person who uses the same name as mine, who also identifies as having autism. I am not the individual known for YouTube videos, and I have used the name “Chris Chan” professionally for decades. My name is fairly common, and I write under the name “Chris Chan” instead of “Christopher Chan” or “Christopher M. Chan” because there are so many other people in various fields who write under those names.For a while I considered using a totally unique pseudonym, but I prefer to write under my own name, and I was inspired by the late, great children’s television host Mr. Fred Rogers, who dealt with awkward rumors about being a sniper in the Vietnam War for decades because there was a soldier with the same name. I figure that if Mr. Rogers can deal with that kind of confusion and still maintain his own public persona, I can too.
Hopefully, this book will give people ideas as to how to better communicate with others and understand other experiences. And to better explain the perspective with which I analyze these crime shows, I have to begin by talking about my own mind…
–Chris Chan
