The Good Doctor memes reignite debate about autism portrayal

August 24, 2024

The doctor’s voice rises each time he repeats the sentence, crescendoing into a scream by the eighth repetition.

“I am a surgeon!” Shaun Murphy yells at his chief of surgery, who had boxed him out of helping with a procedure.

The encounter, a scene from ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” went viral in some corners of the internet this week, with social media users mocking its intensity. Viewer reactions and the resulting memes reignited conversations about how the show, which just finished its sixth season, portrays its autistic protagonist.

Among experts and advocates for autistic people, opinions are mixed. Some said the character of Murphy, played by Freddie Highmore, is depicted as an unfortunate assemblage of stereotypical behaviors, rather than as a full human. Others felt the protagonist fairly represents some autistic adults but offers no insight into the experiences of many others. Several called on ABC to employ more autistic screenwriters to make the show more authentic.

The stakes are high: A 2019 study found that watching one episode of “The Good Doctor” resulted in more accurate knowledge of autism than a college lecture on the subject. The show averaged more than 7 million viewers in the 2021-2022 season, ranking 27th among network TV series.

Mary Doherty, founder of Autistic Doctors International, said the show’s significant reach means it has a responsibility to demonstrate to neurotypical people that autistic people can succeed in medicine.

“It’s just a sense of missed opportunity,” said Doherty, an anesthesiologist whose organization represents more than 700 autistic medical doctors. “Because that potential for good representation has just been lost, and it’s a shame.”

To Lydia Brown, senior adviser at Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Murphy is a “cardboard cutout of what people believe an autistic person should be like” — with his existence as the show’s gimmick. As a result, Brown said, “The Good Doctor” reinforces false stereotypes that autistic people can’t form meaningful relationships, understand boundaries or treat others respectfully.

In one scene, a convenience-store robber asks Murphy to show his hands and then to relinquish his wallet. Murphy responds that he can’t because the wallet is in his pocket and “you can’t see my hands” if he reaches for it. Unnerved, the robber fires a shot that injures someone.

That literality is stereotypical, Brown said. While they said some autistic people may not understand what’s happening during a robbery, most have learned to be hyper-attuned to the dynamics around them for their own safety.

In Brown’s view, characters that are coded as autistic without that fact being explicitly stated — such as Chidi Anagonye on “The Good Place” or Gregory House on “House” — tend to be truer to life.

“To humanize a character, whether or not you explicitly label them as autistic, is to think, ‘Why do they act the way they do?’” Brown said.

Lawrence Fung, director of the Stanford Neurodiversity Project, expressed appreciation for the show’s depiction of an autistic person contributing positively to society and said some scenes are reasonable representations of autism. Murphy becoming overwhelmed by the fluorescent light and noises in a hospital room might ring true for some autistic people, Fung said. But he added that the character embodies only one way autistic people might act.

“The real world is not having autistic people that are all like Shaun Murphy,” Fung said.

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Among the show’s strengths is its depiction of the discrimination that autistic health-care workers often experience, said Doherty, of Autistic Doctors International. In the pilot episode, a board votes not to hire Murphy because he’s autistic; the group later reverses its decision.

But the show creates the false impression that all autistic people are savants like Murphy, Doherty said, when only a small percentage of autistic people actually have that trait. She said it should portray how autistic people attempt to “mask” their autism to fit into predominantly neurotypical environments. Most are much better communicators than Murphy and don’t behave nearly as inappropriately, she said.

“It’s really important to show that autistic doctors are really effective,” Doherty said. “And the strengths that autistic doctors bring to medicine are really important.”

Another “Good Doctor” clip that’s gone viral this week shows Murphy as unable to understand the concept of transgender people. The portrayal is unrealistic given that in reality, many autistic people are transgender, said journalist Sara Luterman, who has written about her perspective on the show as an autistic person.

More broadly, she said, “The Good Doctor” promotes the harmful idea that autistic people have to be exceptional to be accepted. The show makes clear that Murphy works at the hospital because he’s a genius, even though much of his behavior is unprofessional, said Luterman, a reporter at the 19th who has covered neurodiversity.

Although Luterman felt fairly positively about the show when it first aired, she said she no longer considers it worth watching.

“Since then, there have been better shows that have better, fuller, more realistic shows of autistic people in them,” she said. “And I don’t feel like I have to dig for the good nuggets in imperfect representation anymore.”

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