When resident Dr. Melissa “Mel” King (Taylor Dearden) first appeared in The Pitt with her atypical body language and her enthusiastic if not entirely appropriate “I’m so happy to be here,” I thought I knew exactly where her character was going.
She’d be brusque but brilliant, filled with just enough savant-like insight to make up for her lack of bedside manner. We’d never get confirmation of an actual diagnosis, but she’d exhibit a number of behaviors and mannerisms that the average viewer might recognize as autism, ADHD, or a combination of the two that many people in neurodivergent circles have taken to calling AuDHD. These traits would probably be used for drama or comedic relief as necessary. A mix of House, Sherlock, Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon and countless other autistic-coded or “autistish” characters who came before her.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]I’ve never been more delighted to eat my words. As the real-time ER drama’s 15-hour shift progresses, Mel evolves into a nuanced person with strengths, weaknesses, charms, and foibles. Every development in her story adds a new layer to her complex character. In the second episode, she mentions that she has an autistic sister. She performs well under pressure, but can struggle to pick up on hints and humor. Her thorough explanations of medical situations comfort some patients, but unsettle others. Her enthusiasm for her work and moments of success are met with a similar mix of reactions. She sometimes moves her fingers in repetitive patterns and hums or recites lyrics to herself. The prospect of picking countless pieces of gravel out of a patient’s skin excites her. She’s exceptionally empathetic, and can have an intense emotional response to what her patients are going through. She can also be exceptionally aware and proactive about her needs and issues, whether that involves taking a time out to regulate herself with an app, or explaining a thought pattern that’s tripping her up to a colleague.
Mel is still very much an autistic and/or ADHD-coded character. All of the above characteristics are things I’ve experienced as an autistic person, or something I’ve learned about from my fellow autists and AuDHDers. There’s increasing evidence to suggest that there can be a genetic component to autism, and many autistic people end up discovering that they also have parents or siblings on the spectrum. A number of autistic people excel in some areas and struggle in others, or have a “spiky skills profile.” Some people, regardless of neurology, can be quite receptive to our styles of communication while others are less so. A lot of autistic people stim both physically and vocally. We can find repetitive tasks soothing and rewarding. Some of us might even break out the hyperfocus for them. Many of us experience intense emotions that aren’t always easy to manage in the moment, or even hyper-empathy. And some of us wind up very self-aware as a result of the lifetime we’ve spent figuring ourselves out and trying to explain that to other people.
What makes Dr. King such a refreshing change from the old autistic-coded tropes, though, are the range of characteristics she embodies, how they’re integrated into her character, and how she’s incorporated into the show.
First, a number of the above mentioned traits have rarely if ever appeared in a character of this nature before. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Mel comes closer to being a true portrayal of autism. There are many autistic people who do identify with parts of the Sheldons and Sherlocks of the entertainment world. Plenty of us do speak and move rigidly or “awkwardly” for lack of a better word. Many of us have had a moment or 20 where we’ve been exasperated at others’ inability to keep up with our train of thought. And some of us have probably come across as condescending, whether we intended it or not. But there are just as many or more who don’t see themselves in these portrayals, and it’s heartening to see different autistic attributes and experiences make their way to the screen. (Of course, it would be even better to see a wider range in film and television. Outside of a few beloved outliers like Abed from Community and Moss from The IT Crowd, the majority of autistic-coded characters are still very, very white.)
It’s even more encouraging to see these traits as part of such a fully realized character. This is still all too rare among explicitly identified autistic characters, let alone ones who only hint at it. Autistic activist Lydia Brown once described The Good Doctor’s Dr. Shaun Murphy as a “cardboard cutout of what people believe an autistic person should be like,” and I often get the sense that autistic and autistish characters are more of a collection of random traits shoehorned into a vaguely human-shaped cog in a story than a fully realized component of a series or film. Mel, on the other hand, strikes me as a complete person whose traits are a part of a greater whole.
This is a strength of The Pitt in general. Its diverse cast of characters are all given a truly impressive amount of space to grow into rich and multi-dimensional human beings who excel in some ways, struggle in others, and bring their unique perspectives and experiences to their work. While I can’t speak to how well all of these identities are represented on the show, I will say that Mel and her sister Becca (Tal Anderson), who we meet in the Season 1 finale after Mel finally leaves her neverending shift, are written and realized with a notable degree of care and knowledge.
For example, there’s a brief but comprehensive scene in the seventh episode in which Mel is far better able to address an autistic patient’s needs than the more experienced senior resident Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball). In just a couple of minutes, this interaction manages to touch on a number of common autistic supports, including reducing sensory stimuli, being receptive to the patient’s use of formal and technical language, reframing questions in a way that made more sense to his way of thinking, clearly and directly explaining his prognosis, and providing a simple social story for what would come next. There’s a lot of genuine understanding of autistic people packed into that moment. There’s at least one person in that writing room who knows what they’re talking about, and is able to weave it into something deeper than a hacky laundry list of traits.
Actor Taylor Dearden was also able to bring her personal experience as a person with ADHD to the role. “I’m neurodivergent so I think it’s really coming from me,” she recently told Decider when asked about her character’s neurodivergent qualities. “I have severe ADHD. So we’re on the same spectrum now as autism, which was I think for all ADHD people was like, ‘Ohhhhh.’ And then all autistic people are like, ‘That’s why we got along with them.’ I’ve never really seen a character, especially with ADHD, but being on the same spectrum, it just feels, it felt right anyway.”
The absence of any clear diagnosis for Mel throughout the season also feels perfectly natural. One of my issues with spectrumy characters in general is that the lack of confirmation about their neurology appears to be less of a creative choice than a convenience. As autistic activist and advocate Mallory Thomas once put it, “I also think that a lot of the time writers are looking for an easy out if they mess up the portrayal of an autistic character. It’s a lot easier to sort of crib certain traits and when questioned about it say that the intention wasn’t to create an autistic character even though as an audience, we know autistic characters when we see them.” (Novelist David Mitchell basically confirmed our suspicions when he told Macleans that a scriptwriter for The Big Bang Theory confessed to him that Sheldon is autistic, “but we don’t mention it because, a) it’s not relevant, and b) it then takes the show into a political dimension that we might not want to take it in.”)
In Mel’s case, the writers have no need to avoid criticism or accountability. She’s a great character, regardless of what labels may or may not officially apply to her. But it also makes sense that it hasn’t come up over the course of The Pitt’s day, for a number of reasons. An autistic person might not feel like there was a safe or pertinent time to bring up her own diagnosis in the situations we’ve seen Mel navigate. The fast pace and life-or-death nature of the ER means there’s not much time for icebreakers for the new faces on staff. It’s also perfectly possible that a woman in her situation wouldn’t actually know she’s autistic or has ADHD yet. Many women her age and older are still slipping through the cracks. It’s equally possible that she could have a number of neurodivergent traits but not qualify for any specific diagnosis. That happens in the real world, too.
Regardless of what exactly Mel might be and whether that’s ever addressed in future seasons of The Pitt, though, I believe her existence in the pantheon of autistic-coded characters is a small but meaningful step forward for autistic people. No autistic character is ever going to fix all of the problems we face as flesh and blood people trying to survive in this world. It can’t even address the somewhat less pressing concerns that some autistic people have about representation and inclusion on both sides of the camera. But the fact that a creative team could write and portray a character like this who could be considered autistic—and that audiences can recognize her as such—does suggest that there’s been some shift in what the general population sees and understands about autism.
At a time when people in power are perfectly happy to treat us as boogeymen or a looming specter, it’s encouraging to know that some people out there can see us as human.
source https://time.com/7275814/the-pitt-mel-neurodivergence-autism-adhd/
0 comments: