Our protagonist, Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), is the one with Autism on Atypical and the program follows him in his Senior year of High School as he yearns to engage with a woman romantically. Sam's got his own social issues to deal with that make him feel the task of getting a girlfriend is a fool's errand, namely his intense proclivity for Antarctica and the penguins that live there that dominate his thoughts and most conversations while his own difficulty with understanding social cues proves to be another barrier. But he's not gonna give up and the season follows him trying to accomplish this endeavor, which eventually leads him to getting a girlfriend, Paige (Jenna Boyd), while still harboring romantic feelings for his therapist, Julia (Amy Okuda).
In the rest of Sam's family, all kinds of different problems ensue. His sister, Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine), is grappling with her boyfriend and a prospective shift to a top-flight school, while his dad, Doug (Michael Rapaport), who's always had difficulty with connecting to Sam, finds that Sam's pursuit of a girlfriend has brought him closer to his son than ever before. And then there's Sam's Mom, Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose been covertly carrying out an affair with a hot young bartender as a way to escape her taxing and overwhelming life. Obviously, Sam's not the only one struggling with his feelings in this family.
So, let's talk about the shows take on Autism, which really ties into the larger-scale writing problems that plague Atypical as an entire show. For Sam, the writers of this program have decided to go with what I've taken to dub the Autistic Asshole stereotype that's become quite prominent in American pop culture, as you can also see it in Sheldon Cooper and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes. Basically, the Autistic Asshole is a person with Autism whose difficulties with understanding and interacting with people manifest in a way that makes him (emphasis on him, apparently only men can have Autism if general pop culture is anything to go by) constantly stand-off-ish and rude to everyone around him. It's basically a cheap and easy for writers to convey "Look, This Person Has Autism, Look They Have Trouble With Social Skills!" without actually getting into the minutiae, subtelties, and complexities found with actual people on the spectrum.
Now, I'm not in the least bit saying there is no one on the Autism spectrum with those exact personality traits but it's so sad to see Atypical resort to such a tired depiction of people with Autism. Was there no more clever way to have Sam's Autism manifest in his personality beyond just doing Sheldon Cooper again? And also, can someone on the spectrum just be shown as a nice person, like in the new Power Rangers movie? I'd hate for kids growing up on the spectrum to think, by way of the pervasive presence of this stereotype, that they'll automatically act like that when they become adult. Plus, in the grand scheme of pop culture, having the vast majority of characters with autism in pop culture adhere to the Autistic Asshole stereotype means that you don't get to see the level of variety in personality, verbal communication skills and other factors seen all across the Autism spectrum. Even just taking the character of Sam on his own merits in the show itself, Sam's just isn't all that interesting as a character with Atypical far too often reducing him down to stereotypical traits instead of digging deep to depict him as a human being even in his most off-kilter moments.
The rest of the cast has a similarly underwritten nature that just makes them hard to get invested in. The one exception to this is Casey, by far the best character on the show. Brigette Lundy-Paine is terrific in the part, her dynamic with her brother feels special and realistic and her plotlines (such as the High School based social struggles she experiences when word gets out that she could be moving to a new school) have a sense of thought put into them that the rest of the show largely lacks. Doug has a few moments to shine but he's mostly just a one-note caricature while poor Jennifer Jason Leigh gets stuck with the majority of this program's worst writing in a subplot revolving around her affair that feels extraneous to the overall show while it's occurring and its cliffhanger ending just makes that entire part of Atypical feel like boring set-up for a second season.
How does Kier Gilchrist fare in the lead role? He's passable, but like the writing, it feels too derivative of past depictions of people on the spectrum, there's nothing really all that unique or noteworthy beyond the solid and subtle way he depicts Sam's struggle with creating eye contact. ah, subtle, now there's an element Atypical could have used more of in spades. The few times the show really tries to go small and intimate, it suggests a more thoughtful program than what we could. Too many unfunny broad gags (like Jennifer Jason Leigh wiping her bare ass on her son's therapists car) and groan-worthy attempts at comedy take up time on the show that could have been spent better rounding out the underdeveloped cast of characters, which also include the overt racial stereotype Zahid as Sam's best buddy and Sam's girlfriend, Paige, who abruptly enters the season and doesn't get much of any kind of personality to have to herself, rendering her just an object the audience (for some reason) is supposed to want Sam to obtain.
It's a shame so much of Atypical just fails to stack up because you can see hints of a better TV show peeking out from the margins. The relationship between Casey and Sam and even a little moment shared between Sam and his dad at a penguin exhibit in the season premiere demonstrate a more subdued naturalistic take on being and living with a person on the spectrum I really would have liked to see both as a person with Autism and just as a guy who likes good TV. Sadly, the vast majority of Atypical settles for a stereotypical and lackluster depiction of a person on the spectrum mixed in with oodles of bad writing and amateurish sets & camera work. We've had some recent progress made in recent American pop culture depictions of people on the spectrum that were far more thoughtful as seen in movies like The Big Short and Power Rangers and that which at least eases the sting of something so lackluster like Atypical
No comments:
Post a Comment