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Vol 3 Ch 38 | The Autism Scene -- AuSPEC AWARDS feat Britton Payne
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Britton Payne is an entertainment attorney, recently of Warner Bros. Animation and Nickelodeon. On the side, Brit regularly presents at comic cons and elsewhere about autism and pop culture, including “Authentically Creating Autistic Characters,” “Autism in Comic Books,” and “After 50 Years, Why do Spidey Super Stories Comics Still Matter to Autistic Kids and Everybody Else?.” This year, Brit started The Autism Scene, a nonprofit advocating for the inclusion of explicitly autistic characters in kids pop culture. This winter, The Autism Scene is running the AuSPEC AWARDS, a kids animated series spec script competition, which requires a series regular meaningfully interacting with an explicitly autistic character. Brit and his wife Alice are active community members of The Frostig School in Pasadena, which is dedicated to helping children, teens and young adults with learning differences live and learn to their full potential.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Sleepover Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to the Sleepover Podcast. This is Fandames with Parks and Nebula. The voice you're hearing now is Nebula. and The voice you're hearing right now is Parks. And today we are joined with a
Britton Payne's Work and Advocacy
00:00:20
Speaker
guest. If our guest would like to introduce himself.
00:00:23
Speaker
The voice you hear now is Britton Payne. Hello, I'm a Hollywood entertainment attorney working primarily in animation. And I'm also the founder executive director of The Autism Scene, which is nonprofit dedicated to advancing or advocating for the inclusion of more explicitly autistic characters in kids' pop culture.
Autism Representation in Media
00:00:42
Speaker
Hell yeah. And you actually found us and reached out to us. And so we're super glad to connect and to talk about this because I know that um autism representation specifically is really near and dear to both ah both of us, more so Parker, um as she's had more experience with it. And I am still kind of learning the ins and outs of it. But mental health and ah different types of struggles in general and different types of personalities and experiences as kids are so, so important in media representation.
Parker's Autism Diagnosis Journey
00:01:12
Speaker
So thank you for being here.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm very excited to be here. I really enjoy listening to your podcast. And so it's very fun ah it's very fun to talk to you both. Welcome back from Japan, by the way. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. I'm fighting through it. Neb, I love you saying that I have more experience with that instead of just saying that I am diagnosed with autism. A really funny way to beat around it. I wanted you to be able to say that. That's your... word um You're right. It's just funny to just say, like, you know, experience of or around autism instead of just me having autism for...
00:01:42
Speaker
Most of all my life, you know? did Did you forget that one of us is autistic and the other has ADHD and doesn't know what the fuck else is going on? Well, here's your reminder. Yeah. You know.
00:01:53
Speaker
What was your diagnosis story? How did you find out? So um for women, it it has been very, very, very, very difficult for autism diagnosis to ever occur because a lot of how it manifests are things that are frowned upon in women.
00:02:08
Speaker
um but We're not allowed to show its extreme like so special interests. We're not allowed to fidget too much or it's unladylike. And these are habits that are supposed to be broken and just women start to mature and ah get into adulthood.
00:02:21
Speaker
So for me, it was very, very hard to find my diagnosis. um I knew I had ADD and I had ADHD at the time um since I was diagnosed. I've had those ones since I was a baby. I think my mom had me diagnosed when I was three.
00:02:33
Speaker
um But I didn't fit the other criteria in the ways they wanted me to. um They tested me if to see if I needed to be in special ed courses, but I tested too well. um I was too smart, I'm gonna say in quotes, for how they described me um when it came to breaking down all of my needs, things like that.
00:02:50
Speaker
And I was ahead of the curve. So they never stopped to think about
Misdiagnosis and Familial Patterns
00:02:54
Speaker
anything. that. um A lot of my bigger like signs of my autism have always come as a part of me being too ah rambunctious or loud or interrupting.
00:03:06
Speaker
um So I'd be punished for those things because I was too smart for my classes that I would get bored and that would make me really really um unable to sit still or pay attention and that would piss my teachers off and I'd get in trouble all the time and they didn't want to deal with it.
00:03:21
Speaker
They didn't want to process what that meant for me or how it like sat, anything, any of it. um My parents knew, but they figured it was just part of my ADHD. That's how it was. And that was fine. um Because again, like my dad ah is 45 and he definitely has autism and he just never checked.
00:03:39
Speaker
um Just figured it was there. He was in denial about it for a long time until I and my sister both got fully diagnosed. I was like, Maybe I do have autism and it's like guy who can't have um if like fish was cooked near his food he'd freak out.
Seeking Formal Diagnosis and Identity
00:03:53
Speaker
umm i Yeah, I know. um But it just wasn't a thing and then when I was 16 I started working my first job and my manager actually is diagnosed with an autistic male.
00:04:06
Speaker
um He had a very early diagnosis and there were things that I was recognizing we both had in common in terms of not just like ticks or things that we would do or little quirks, but it was also how we did problem breakdown was very similar.
00:04:20
Speaker
ah we enmeshed really well with like our oversensory issues, things like that. And it made me start to realize like, oh, maybe this is not just things that I was being corrected on all the time. Maybe this was actually a part of how I deal with things.
00:04:35
Speaker
um So when I was 16, I brought it up to my doctor. I was like, hey, ADD has kind of been completely phased out as a diagnosis now. um I still have ADHD. And I'm starting to show signs of... um I also have a borderline personality disorder that came
Clarity from Diagnosis
00:04:53
Speaker
through. man You know, I have anxiety. i have so much mentally, but when it came down to talking about it with my doctor, it was all of this umbrella.
00:05:01
Speaker
It was all under this autistic umbrella that i found myself under. And it kind of put a lot of things back into place for me because I just really felt that there was too much wrong in my head because I had all of these problems. And as they were all separate to one another, it made me feel very stumped and very doomed and very stuck in myself because it's just like, yeah, problem one, two, three, they're all just there.
00:05:23
Speaker
um But realizing that a lot of these things do manifest under you know the autism umbrella, makes it like this isn't just 50 other problems it's just how my autism chooses to manifest within me and that's fine and that's great and it was really hard to deal with as a 16 year old but it really did feel like the sky opened up a lot more um but you know it's a hard diagnosis for people who don't understand what it fully means but i had that experience when i got it so it just felt nice to be able to understand why i was that way rather than
Societal Misunderstandings of Autism
00:05:56
Speaker
that. But I have had people who have gone through the diagnosis process um and have talked to me about it. And when they got that news to them, it felt like they had gotten a cancer because they didn't understand what that meant.
00:06:08
Speaker
They don't understand. And it's because of education from way back when, where people don't understand that autism of is a very, very common thing, you know, that most people very much are affected afflicted, who afflicted by it in one way or another, or how it genetically passes.
Comic Books and Autism Representation
00:06:25
Speaker
They don't get it and still feels like as in the last 10 years prior to that it was a little bit of a naughty word um because people think that it just means that you're incapable or you know we but we've we've phased out the slurs that have been used thank god um but that was not like that slur was on my diagnostic papers from when i was like twelve I think, still.
00:06:52
Speaker
So it's hard. It's great. um i like being an autistic person. um I feel like it lets me have a lot to my identity in terms of how I deal with things, how I feel represented in things, how I pick up on the world around me. um And that really does play back into how I view media because I see myself in so many of these characters.
00:07:14
Speaker
and Yeah, sorry. Big, big ramble about it means No, it's really interesting. well a lot of of A lot of what you've talked about is very familiar. you know There are a couple of couple of elements of your story that resonate with other stories that I've heard in particular, that it's a little bit more challenging for girls and women to get diagnosed because for other reasons, all women are expected to mask in certain ways.
00:07:36
Speaker
And then it is the masking that sort of hides the expression of autism to make it a little trickier for somebody to self-diagnose until they get to a point where it's just
Anime and Lack of Explicit Autistic Characters
00:07:44
Speaker
unbearable. there's ah So one of the things that I've been doing recently is talking at Comic-Cons.
00:07:48
Speaker
Autism in comic books is the history. Literally every autistic character has ever appeared in comic books. And I've done my best to include manga in that as well. And um there's a French comic book called Invisible Differences about a young woman who gets...
00:08:00
Speaker
ah who who but has a hard time ah in life and finds certain things overwhelming and is really relieved when she gets to go home and and and be in a nice quiet space. And then she eventually stumbles onto to a Google search, you know, kind of putting her symptoms in and comes up with what at the time would have been called Asperger's syndrome. That was the diagnosis that she initially landed on, and which has been replaced with the term autistic for reasons that if you care to look into it, you can you can see why.
00:08:26
Speaker
and um And then as a result, her life improves significantly. She has a better understanding of herself. She can change the way that she interacts with the world so that she's not quite so burdened by the expectations of the world.
00:08:39
Speaker
ah And it it ends up being a relief, like popping a blister or something like that, that like this this relief to get a diagnosis. I imagine it's a little different depending on where you are regionally and where
Necessity for Explicit Representation
00:08:50
Speaker
you are in your life. And being 16 years old, I think, is a challenging time for anything, you know.
00:08:56
Speaker
and any particular label. But that's another reason why the the work that I've been doing, i'm I'm really focused on um explicitly autistic characters in kids' pop culture. And so one of the things that drew me to your podcast is that, you know, you guys were founded to talk about anime, I think, or at least you certainly have a significant focus on anime. And that's not really, that's not really my genre. I have sort of three anime connections. One is the cartoons I watched a kid were Star Blazers, Battle the Planets, and G-Force.
00:09:23
Speaker
And some of those might be the same thing. I know that the names change. Um... My second is that I knew Tara Platt for a minute, and I guess she's like a big voiceover actor and in anime. I haven't spoken to her in a while, but she's she was a terrific person when I but i knew her in the And...
00:09:36
Speaker
and um And then I worked on Avatar as part of my job at Nickelodeon. So that was pretty neat. But by and large, I'm not really exposed to it So when I do my research to try and find the autistic characters in anime, I believe the answer is that there are none.
00:09:52
Speaker
There are no explicit ah explicitly autistic characters in anime, which feels so... unusual given how like broad the genre seems to be and how welcoming of so many different kinds of differences in people, but it it really is the label that seems to be missing.
Obstacles in Media Representation
00:10:09
Speaker
But when that label is missing and then you get the label, you can't lean on the people that you see on in your cartoons to say, oh, I'm like these 80 characters who have the word associated with them.
00:10:22
Speaker
I'm like them. I can feel comforted that some of them are heroes and some of them are geniuses and some of them are kind and some of them are fun. you You kind of can feel lo And so that's why I, what that's one of the reasons, although it's ah it's weirdly enough, it's a smaller reason why I think that the, the explicit use of either autism or spectrum or something that like makes it explicit to the viewer that the character is autistic is important to get it in front of young kids while they're still forming, you know, their opinions about these kinds of things and and their understandings of the world around them.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes, I, yeah, I wholly agree. And it extends beyond just autism. I know that's the focus of today. But in my experience, like as someone who was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD, and who is assigned a female at birth and grew up as a little girl in Oklahoma, that it's, it's really hard when you want to see you, you represented any piece of you represented in something that you love.
00:11:21
Speaker
And then it takes so damn long for it to get there. One that I have mentioned, I'm so sorry, my cat is, she has to be the star of the show. um One that I have mentioned on the podcast several times before is, as problematic as she may be now, whenever the live action Wonder Woman came out, i was in college. And at that point it was it was an incredible that it came out there were little girls that they got to go see that.
00:11:48
Speaker
But it was also like, why did it take this fucking long? Why did it take this fucking long to get that explicit of a of a woman shown on screen in in ah such a well-written light that's a superhero?
00:12:02
Speaker
So why is it taking us this fucking long to get it explicitly stated that there are autistic characters and superheroes and everything like that?
Evolving Media Representation
00:12:09
Speaker
but I think there is an answer to to your question. Like, I know you posed it rhetorically, but there is an answer.
00:12:13
Speaker
And they are largely structural. They are that, you know, we live in a patriarchy and the people who are making the decisions about what kinds of things can get put out to a broad audience, which is what you need. If you're going to spend $100 million dollars in making a movie, you need to have an anticipation that you're going to earn back $200 million, you know, whatever your number is, which means you can do the math and figure out how many tickets do I have to sell.
00:12:33
Speaker
And we grew up in a world where people who look like me, to for those of you listening on podcast, I'm a middle-aged white guy. um For people who look like me, we expect to see ourselves on screen because that is how Hollywood has worked since the beginning and and sort of how culture has worked for ah maybe all time. i don't know, certainly like for centuries.
00:12:50
Speaker
And so when I was a kid, um boy girls would play Mario as a character in the Donkey Kong and the Mario World games, but boys would not play the female characters, Princess Peach or whoever those characters are.
00:13:05
Speaker
Strawberry Shortcake. and It was the same game, but boys would not play as Strawberry Shortcake. Girls would play as Mario because that was the expectation. That was the that was sort of what, you know... white men got adjusted to.
00:13:17
Speaker
And so if you want to get that part of the population and the other part of the population was willing to bend, well, then you serve the part of the population that's not willing to bend.
Cultural Delays in Japanese Media
00:13:26
Speaker
That is evolving, obviously. And when you get Patty Jenkins, you know who has not only been as good as her male peers, but has had to be better, which is something I think that a lot of women to also experience in the workplace,
00:13:38
Speaker
that it became undeniable. And I think that's that's also what I'm sort of leaning towards when I'm trying to push for autistic characters mob culture, is that they have to be really great.
00:13:50
Speaker
You know, they have to be great characters in great scripts. And that's the kind of thing that will allow them to sort of rise above the fact that they are different and potentially risky um and and not established until we get to a point where they are established.
00:14:03
Speaker
And the things that I'm saying now feel passe. Right. And I definitely agree. And I think that's why, because there are, um looping back to like a little bit of the conversation when it comes to represent representation in Japan and Japanese media, is that because Japan as itself, culturally, um throughout the years, because of the way that things have moved, and this comes in with Japan being a closed country prior, everything when it comes to culture is about 10 years delayed in Japan.
00:14:30
Speaker
So everything that we're going through now, they're going through about 10 years. So they're going through 2014 when it comes to media back there. I was realizing that as I was there, when Shin Chan stuff was still huge. And, you know, America has been moved on from that for the last...
00:14:43
Speaker
15 years, it hasn't been a big thing here since I was a kid. um And so when it comes to anime representation, i feel like it's seen a little bit through kind of a dual lens of both just the lack of knowledge when it comes to it, but also this um a little bit of the stigma around it that they have had so far.
00:15:01
Speaker
And it's terrible. um But a lot of the bigger representation for autism in Japan is things like Big Bang Theory, um because that is what they get the West. And I hate that depiction of autism, truly. I think that Sheldon has never been out explicitly said to have autism, ah except for in Young Sheldon.
00:15:17
Speaker
But that's still a terrible frame of reference because it puts this bad... Why is it doing that to me? Oh my god, it's giving me a limit on my Zoom meeting. Okay, whatever. and I'll restart it in a second.
00:15:27
Speaker
um Okay. But because of the way that Sheldon is depicted out there, it puts a weird stigma on how autism is viewed.
Video Games Embracing Diversity
00:15:35
Speaker
And because um overall with Japan, it's a very...
00:15:40
Speaker
societal based culture and it's very work heavy, you're not really allowed to have those expressions that are separate to getting things done. It's impolite to um have to stim in any way when you're in public.
00:15:56
Speaker
it's You're not being or keeping to yourself if you are openly autistic in Japan ah a little bit. In a way. i think that probably that goes for all mental health issues in Japan too, right? Culturally, isn't it just any mental health issues are considered private? We just Yeah, when you talk about the representation of something like young Sheldon, I think about Sammy Davis Jr. And I think about the reasons why is representation important.
00:16:18
Speaker
And so I agree with the things, what we've largely have been talking about right now, the current rates of autism in the United States are one in 31. That's the current CDC estimate for what it's worth. And so it is important at that one in 31 to be able to see themselves. That's an awful lot of people who have not been anywhere near represented appropriately, proportionally.
00:16:35
Speaker
But The representation is also extremely important to the other 30. Because those are the people who need to learn. Those are the people who need to change. And so when i think about representation and that impact...
Importance of Media Representation
00:16:50
Speaker
even though the character is in Bang Theory, i can understand everything that you're saying I can totally understand. But if you think back to like Sammy Davis Jr. getting on stage with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in the 60s, and if you read the transcripts of what those gentlemen said to each other, you would be you'd be shocked. it's It would seem so horrible.
00:17:10
Speaker
It wouldn't appear anywhere in modern culture. However, at the time, it was incredibly progressive. White audiences were seeing ah Black man on stage as a peer of these people that they admired.
00:17:21
Speaker
And it... hopeed It started to move their minds just a little bit, that and other many other elements you know in that process. So that even though the particular depiction of the relationship between white men and black men and and what's appropriate to say with to each other on stage um wouldn't pass muster today, it still was an important step in the
Brave Representations and Acceptance
00:17:41
Speaker
process. It still was progressive in its time. it was still brave in its time.
00:17:44
Speaker
And so weirdly enough, like a show that presents, you know, even a minstrel version of autism, like there is some value in that. yeah It's just that I hope that maybe we can grow from it, you know, with the next iteration of a funny show that has autistic characters in the center.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, and I think with that, because 10 years ago when that so show was out, it was longer, Jesus. um That was somewhat progressive for it. But I'm from, you know, from this era right now, from where we are, i'm fortunate i have but i have the good fortune to say that like I am now spoiled by the amount of actual proper representation.
00:18:19
Speaker
that we have had because we've been able to grow from that
Cultural Influences on Representation
00:18:21
Speaker
point. So for them to still be at that point but trying to progress, I hate that that's their best representation right now, but I'm thankful they have any of it. um And I think it is starting to come through because things like Dungeon Meshi are now blowing up in Japan as one of the bigger... And it's blowing up here too.
00:18:37
Speaker
um But one of the main characters, while not explicitly said, is autistic. ah But that's also because it is more of a um sort of medieval setting. um But he fully stims all the way through. You see him snapping his hands. You see him working through everything.
00:18:51
Speaker
um Very much an autistic man. They just don't say it to the camera. But he's also so beloved with fandom. And a lot of it with anime, unfortunately, does have to in the fandom territory because it's just the setting itself doesn't give them the place to like look the camera and say they have autism.
Media as an Educational Tool
00:19:10
Speaker
And it's hard to get that properly. And that really upsets you in a ways. I hear you. No, I'm there with you. hear you. But also it's conversations like this that can push that and say, hey, it's a little, I'm not trying to pass judgment anybody. I'm glad that anybody gets to make art. It's really hard to make art.
00:19:27
Speaker
But it's also safe to find a way to say the word autism. yeah you know Yeah. We're listening to a translation anyway. Why not just use that word? Autism was the first used in 1911. It didn't become really popularized even until the 40s, I
Supporting Autistic Characters in Media
00:19:42
Speaker
think it was.
00:19:42
Speaker
It didn't appear in American pop movies until 1970 with this movie. and It doesn't even matter. It's an Elvis movie where it called Change of Habit, where Mary Tyler Moore decides that in order to affect good in the world, she's going to go to the ghetto and she's going to wear...
00:19:56
Speaker
normal clothing instead of a habit. And of course she falls in love with Elvis, who's a doctor at a clinic and their first patient happens to be autistic. And so that's, and ah you know, you, you, if you, there are many ways to depict the past and many of them have to have translations to a modern understanding so that we can appreciate the story that's being told.
00:20:16
Speaker
There's no reason why the word autism couldn't appear in a medieval setting. Why not? Right. It's just what they called it back then. Yeah, it's um there's a quote that I heard recently that really resonated with me, especially when it comes to representation and the activism and making sure that you
Challenges and Opportunities in Representation
00:20:31
Speaker
educate other people or that there's at least something out there that can educate people that are unfamiliar with all of these topics is that there's this weird phenomenon right now where people are much more obsessed with doing nothing wrong, that they prevent themselves from doing something right.
00:20:49
Speaker
And I really like that you're you're pushing for that to do the something right, even if you fuck it up,
Hopes for Future Representation
00:20:55
Speaker
even if it's Big Bang Theory, even if it's something that's not quite there, that you're at least starting to get that representation out. I mean, look at Rocky Horror Picture Show that's still this icon for queer folks.
00:21:07
Speaker
And there's a whole number using the words transsexual, transvestite that we don't really use anymore. it's it It's so important to focus, especially when it comes to autism representation, on doing something right, doing something good, as opposed to being perceived as doing nothing wrong, you know? Yeah, I think that's a really important part of It's certainly tricky.
00:21:29
Speaker
um I had a conversation with a friend of mine from high school who has and autistic son who's now 28-ish, I guess. And we had this
Reflecting on Evolution and Inclusion
00:21:36
Speaker
conversation about, don't know, 15 years ago or something before my son is autistic and he's 10 or 11, excuse me, just turned 11.
00:21:43
Speaker
And ah e i wanted to ask her questions, but I didn't want to say the wrong thing. And said that to her. And she said to me, you can't say the wrong thing. You're asking. You're trying.
00:21:54
Speaker
And if you say the wrong thing, I'll let you know. And then you'll understand. But I understand that you're coming at it from a place where you're trying. So I think it's important to make room for people to make those kinds of mistakes, ne just like you're saying.
00:22:07
Speaker
and i But it's also helpful to try and help people who are trying to find ways not to make mistakes in the first place, right? So one of the things that that I'm doing through the autism scene that that we're doing is we're starting a project called the Ausbeck Awards, where we are...
00:22:24
Speaker
having a spec script competition, which means that you're you're writing a script for something and nobody's paying you for it. so you're And in this particular case, it's say it's and a kids animated series spec script competition.
00:22:35
Speaker
So the people who are entering are going to pick a show that's essentially in production that they could theoretically get hired on. And they're going to write a spec episode of it that just is like any other episode. It fits in. It's not a fanfic. It's not a very special episode. It's just like any other episode, except...
00:22:49
Speaker
It has a series regular, meaningfully interacting with an explicitly autistic character. And it's an 11 minute script so that hopefully the people who are in in show business and and who are writing scripts for animated shows will say, oh, I'd like to try this as an exercise or, oh, I haven't worked in a year because the industry is melting ah like an iceberg um let or ah a glacier.
00:23:11
Speaker
um Let me try this. Let me see. let me do this mental exercise. And by doing that and by having these scripts that have the word autism in them, I'd had by naming the thing the autism scene by saying the word autism among people,
00:23:23
Speaker
who are making these kinds of decisions, who might be a little scared to put autism in the show. Why don't we just put the character in and have all the characteristics, but not just say the word. Maybe by saying the word lot, then the word can become a little bit destigmatized, a little bit less risky, a little bit less afraid that you're goingnna get swatted down for doing the wrong thing.
00:23:42
Speaker
and showing ways to do the right thing. When we pick our winners, the 15 category winners, funniest script, best sci-fi script, best use of an AAC device, best non-speaking character, stuff like that, that those scripts will then circulate as writing samples.
00:23:56
Speaker
And then the people who are receiving them as writing samples may never heard of me or this competition or or the autism scene, but will just start seeing like, hey, I just got my third autism script this week. I i wonder if there's something in the air.
00:24:07
Speaker
Maybe this isn't as risky as I thought it was. Maybe this is something that people that the kids are talking about and and I should get on board. um And so hopefully this project and just the general attitude of like, let's have this little tiny area where we're not swatting people down so that we don't let so that we don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good sort of to to put it in a box based on what Nebula said.
00:24:29
Speaker
I completely agree. love that. and Part of what, um, ah like, my little rant from before was also, was just like, with the way that anime and manga works, is that there will always be a... their own spotlight. A lot of animes call it something different. um Some people will call an SBS. Some people would call it manga notes.
00:24:45
Speaker
But within the actual platform, there's always the space for them to explicit explicitly say these things. And that's kind of where it's like, you can put it all in the show and just not say the word there.
00:24:56
Speaker
But you as a creator have these little spaces where you can explicitly tell us these details and they just are too afraid to. And I think it is from a societal standpoint because of Japanese media, which is really disappointing because it's like you're doing every single step for this representation.
00:25:11
Speaker
And that gives, you know, people who like were me because I was very into anime as a kid and I understood a lot of headcanoning because I would write, but you know, They can't explicitly put it into media, which is really disappointing because again, it's like, what's the point of doing the full nine yards if we're not going to just say the word?
00:25:26
Speaker
And so I think with the program that you're running and the awards to be able to highlight that is such a key element because when everything is done through headcanon of writing, you're never going to get that part.
00:25:39
Speaker
And it feels like as someone who would very regularly headcanon characters I related to as autistic, If I ever put that out online, which is, you know, I was a teenage girl, everything is online right now. Everything is on Tumblr. We're all expressing ourselves through like animations, things we do.
00:25:54
Speaker
And if you say you think a character is autistic and someone disagrees with you, it's a fight now. You have to fight to defend why you could believe that because the author won't just stand their ground and say it with despite them giving every aspect of why this happened.
00:26:09
Speaker
um Yeah, but you know, there there are a lot of things at play with that, too. I agree with you. I like it when I see it in the back matter. There's a there's a character for She-Ra, Princess of Power, I guess, called Entrappa. Yes, we love her.
00:26:21
Speaker
Who was not autistic explicitly in the show, either in her original incarnation or in the reboot, but the reboot writer came out and said this character was written as explicitly autistic. And that's a good start, right? Because then maybe 10 years from now, when they do the next reboot, and there's a little bit less stigma about the word autism, that character then becomes canonically autistic, and it works out.
00:26:40
Speaker
Right there's a character, Black Manta, Aquaman's villain, who was established as autistic 30 years ago, not 30, 20 years ago, 2003. And...
00:26:50
Speaker
and um In one issue, and that's it in the comics. And that character um has never had any other mention of autism. Their autism, I'm doing air quotes for people just listening, if it was cured by the the demon Neron in exchange for more powers, whatever.
00:27:07
Speaker
um But, which is not something that we like to say about autism. right Cure is cu is the wrong word and not something we should really be... focusing on But um nonetheless, the character at some point was canonically autistic. So let's preserve that.
00:27:22
Speaker
Let's just make the next time it gets mentioned be something that is um that that has is a more authentic representation. And then by just mentioning in back matter that a character is autistic, there's ah there's a...
00:27:33
Speaker
There's a character right now, um Fair Play, the son of Mr. Terrific from the big Superman movie over the summer. So there's a character, his son in the comic books is called Fair Play. And the creator of that character um has said that in his head, he wrote the character as autistic, but it didn't say anywhere in the book.
00:27:48
Speaker
And then I kind of bent his ear and was just talking about it and letting him hear my spiel just because he's buddy mine. And then somebody called him up and said, hey, you wrote this character, you created this character. We're thinking about using him in such and such. And he goes, well, did you know that character is autistic?
00:28:00
Speaker
Now, just because it was in the air My friend, Jeremy Adams, thought to say that to this other person. And now the next iteration of this character is going to, in fact, be written, we believe, it hasn't come out yet, I believe, as explicitly autistic.
00:28:14
Speaker
So all of these things can sort of play. This is sort of the soft power. But there's also the concern that in, I don't know, anime as well remotely as you guys and probably by... anybody who's listening.
00:28:25
Speaker
But I imagine that there there are lots of concerns about the distribution of anime and getting it to... Animation is expensive. you know It's not a manga. It's not something you can just do on your own and draw with a pencil and you're done and put it out into the world. it It involves a lot of money up front. And the way to make the money back that you spent on making the thing means you need to be able to distribute in a certain way. and there are going to be certain places that, like maybe Japan, where they think it won't do as well.
00:28:50
Speaker
if there are certain aspects or in the Middle East or who knows where. So even the writer in the back matter as an official voice of the distributor of the anime may still feel constricted and unable to make it explicit.
00:29:05
Speaker
I would like that to evolve. And so I'm doing what I can from the inside, trying to like poke and say, yeah, you know, it's not so bad, is it? Or or this thing succeeded, maybe this thing could succeed.
00:29:16
Speaker
I think we're yeah starting to get to that point a little bit more in video games, um which is not... my My resources are not the best video games out there because it's things like Blizzard, how they made Symmetra from Overwatch autistic, and very much in her bio wrote out that she has autism.
00:29:30
Speaker
um And that is something that I've had the pleasure to connect with Anjali Bhimani about, because she had come to Gaming Con in 2019. And I asked her like, what do you think it means to voice an autistic character? Because that was so fresh after my diagnosis that it was like, it was earlier than I was 2016 or 2017 actually. So way closer to my diagnosis in 2019.
00:29:49
Speaker
But I had the opportunity to directly ask her like, you are one of the only characters that has been stated to be fully diet like fully diagnosed. Because, you know, back then it was still too naughty to just say a character's autistic.
00:30:01
Speaker
And um she herself is not an autistic person, but she can understand why that would matter that this word is finally being stuck to something. um And it is starting to be a little bit more, but it's in video games where they are allowed to just put it off into a storyline because the actual lore itself doesn't tie into the game.
00:30:17
Speaker
ah Like with League Legends, they just released Aurora, who is a bunny girl who has full autism. And ah I think she has a direct direct voice line where she talks about having autism, um but it's in her lore written out and they're not afraid to put that lie out there.
00:30:30
Speaker
um And I think Life is Strange also just did that. And Life is Strange has always been huge because they were one of the first main game series to be very proud about including queer women and although back then they didn't say that max was also autistic um they still have hinted to it in some way but changed that a little bit more with double exposure because they made moses very autistic and are very proud of that and very representative of who he like they are by you know showing that And as far as explicitly stating, I mean, yesterday in our private group chat, our friend messaged us and let us know that there is a character in Miraculous Ladybug, the French animated kids show, that he does state that he's on the spectrum explicitly and that the main character asks, what's the spectrum?
00:31:14
Speaker
And it's just like you said, Britt, like that's, that's what we need to focus on is that little interaction there. Because the statistic you said earlier, it's been rattling in my brain this whole time. One in 31, with our class sizes in America right now, that's one kid in every single class.
00:31:31
Speaker
yeah that Yeah, that's true. And that's been my experience too. My son, you know, he goes to elementary school and it was interesting to some, some of this came from just seeing the evolution of his interactions with his peers, where when he was much younger, it was really valuable for him to be with neurotypical peers so that he could model their behavior.
00:31:47
Speaker
But then as he got into second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and um the kids started to break off into their own little social groups. These are the baseball kids. These are the Pokemon kids. And, um,
00:31:58
Speaker
And he was kind of on the outside of all that. And ah ah i these were lovely kids too. And I think that those kids need to be taught. you know They need to have this understanding. If you're a parent, how can you teach your kid about how to treat you know the autistic kid and you don't know anything about autism.
00:32:15
Speaker
If you're a teacher, you're dealing with 30 kids, you know, and you don't have time to get to every single kid's particular needs as far as the social relationships are concerned, because that's not even your mission as a teacher, you know, and then there's HIPAA concerns. You can't exactly point to the kid and say, that kid's autistic, you know, you should treat him this way or that way.
00:32:33
Speaker
And so, That's why I think that pop culture, also because it's what I have access to, but pop culture is ah as an important way to help our kids you know learn values and and have an understanding of the world that they're going to grow up in so that they can you know treat the people around them better and frankly get the best out of a society. There are a lot of people who were treated poorly when they were young, who didn't flower into their adult selves or into their they're a foolish sense of their self until way too late because they were busy dealing with bullies and people who treated them poorly and people who didn't help them unlock the things that that could have been unlocked with a little bit of a better understanding, a little bit of empathy.
00:33:08
Speaker
Reach into the choir, my friend. if you can and And I think that like it's not challenging. SpongeBob can run into the library and say, I need a book. in the librarian says, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm autistic. Could you just... mellow out just little bit. He says, of course I can. And of course he can't.
00:33:21
Speaker
So he's trying to like, you know, cool out for the librarian. She gets him his book. He goes on his way. And then he comes back. He's running through the Krabby pie. He's getting chased in the next part of the show. He's getting chased through the Krabby pie. He's getting chased through the whatever.
00:33:32
Speaker
And then he has to get to the library. He has to kind of walk carefully again because he doesn't want to be too upsetting. And then he goes on his business. Now you've just watched a big, dumb, goofy episode of SpongeBob and not really thought about it. But what you have also seen as a kid is your buddy,
00:33:46
Speaker
Modeling, being kind and empathetic and understanding and showing that accommodation doesn't necessarily take that much away from you. It isn't necessarily that hard. And here's how you do it.
00:33:56
Speaker
And if you multiply that across Unicorn Academy and Monster High and Dora the Explorer and any other show that's targeted to kids, Avatar, Last Airbender, targeted to kids, you That creates at least a model for how you might treat the kids in your classroom.
00:34:14
Speaker
And it also opens your eyes towards things that that you're missing out on by not engaging with those kids. But somewhere, the the cu those kids need to be taught. And I feel like this is this is a way that I feel like I can, you know, drip, drip, drip, cracks the boulder, make a difference.
00:34:30
Speaker
I definitely think you can because like, what are the things that we remember the most as kids? Like, you don't really remember all the names of the kids you went to daycare with or that you were in like preschool with.
00:34:41
Speaker
But you remember that when you woke up in the morning, you watched Blue's Clues while you were eating your cereal or You remember um your favorite like movies of the Muppets or whatever. And that's the media that sticks with you. And it's forming those bases that even if you have a family member or a teacher that doesn't understand, it might be negative.
00:35:02
Speaker
You can at least, like you said, turn back to your buddy that's on the TV and know that they get it. And if kids are going to have that foundation, you need that foundation to continue.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah. And it's stories that we remember. It's art that lives with us. You know, when you think about what do you remember back from being three and four, you're like, I don't remember anything. Yes, you do. The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
00:35:23
Speaker
We all remember those kinds of things. They sit in the back of our head. ah the The episode of the Super Friends that, you know, for some reason, I still remember he shrunk the UN. you know, and put it in the pocket and then use radio waves to get into the other dimension.
00:35:37
Speaker
Those are the kinds of things that just sit in your head. So let's get some things that sit in your head that practice empathy. If you can be, if you can show empathy for the kid in the room who has a hard time interacting socially, because that's the nature of of autism presentation among young kids,
00:35:53
Speaker
then you can bend that to everybody, somebody who looks different from you, somebody who's not from the same economic background, somebody who's got a different way of behaving that's not gender typical.
00:36:04
Speaker
If you can have empathy for the kids who have, in my opinion, the most significant challenge for and the age when elementary kids are trying to learn how to interact with each other, and this kid is a challenge to interact with inherently, then that's going to let you – work that muscle and be able to practice it with all different kinds of people.
00:36:25
Speaker
So that's another reason why I feel like autism is a great place to put my efforts and to start. And hopefully it has this trickle-down impact on a lot of different people. And I, sorry, Parker, go ahead. you Go ahead. I was going to say, i agree because um with autism, when it comes to just even diagnosis in women, it's also harder to diagnose in people of color and because, you know, a lot of the way that people of color and children of color interact with society is seemed as a little bit more of a backseat because of already racial biases.
00:36:51
Speaker
So when you start to, you know, dig into just helping people who have autism in that same stroke, you are helping this a little bit more of a controlled, like separate group. also break into this moral understanding and underground ah empathetic understanding and foundation across the board rather than just trying to prioritize one group or another. Because when we try to prioritize other voices that are a little bit more of a minority in certain cultures or certain areas, you're unable to help anyone if you can't break into the underlying denominator between all of these people.
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely there's a so in speaking about manga specifically, there's there's one character, a lot of times when I'm talking, I'm talking to parent groups and um lot of times there are kids in the room. um But there's there's one comic book that really struck me as worth taking a look into.
00:37:40
Speaker
It's called That's My Atypical Girl. And it's a manga. and And it's basically about a manga artist who is unsuccessful and he's got two people who follow him. And then one day one of them shows up at his door.
00:37:51
Speaker
And it turns out it's this autistic young woman who feels like he is the only person who speaks to her and her experience. And it's about their friendship that sort of evolves into a relationship. And um it's it's about these two young adults dealing with the kinds of things that young adults deal with.
00:38:06
Speaker
sex and drugs and um recovering from trauma, breaking away from your parents, trying to make a living, and trying to fit into the world, jealousy about other people who are moving faster than you are. All the kinds of things that can become kind of acute in your early and mid-20s is what this thing explores.
00:38:21
Speaker
A lot of it's embarrassing. A lot of it's completely inappropriate. You know, it's not something that you would recommend for a young kid. But I just believe that there's an audience for this manga and particularly for autistic young women trying to figure out how to but to understand themselves just a little tiny bit better.
00:38:40
Speaker
So it's it's a weird one. It's sharp elbowed. It's not going to be for everybody. It's the you're going to do a reading at church about, but it's ah it's ah it's something that I think there are going to be people out there who won't have otherwise heard of it.
00:38:51
Speaker
And it's it's worth sort of bringing that bringing bring me a little bit of light to that. Brit, if you haven't seen it, you should watch Extraordinary Attorney Wu on Netflix. Oh, we love it.
00:39:02
Speaker
It's so sweet. It's in that same vein. Love No representation of autism is going to be perfect. They're almost immediately going to like start to curdle. And I think that they're... I'm not the judge of it either. I'm not autistic. And so like it's I'm not in charge of...
00:39:16
Speaker
oh, this is a good representation, this is a bad representation. I'm sure there are people who do and don't care for a lot of representations, but I think that the only way to get them going in the right direction is to do them in the first place. eight and And to get them popular too. you know that The good doctor made onto ABC and was essentially a positive depiction of a person with an expression of autism that couldn't be denied. And that...
00:39:37
Speaker
led to like a rudimentary and sometimes ah stereotypical understanding of autism, but it opened the door. yeah And so then then the and and it it was performed by an actor who was not autistic, but then later in later years, Charlie was played by Kayla Cromer, who is an actor who's autistic, and um and it was only in the final season, I think.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I think, you know, just to get it on the air was such a, such a challenge that even if it's not a perfect depiction, even if nobody loves it, or there are plenty of people who don't love it for reasons based on the depiction of autism, I still think it had great value and it's a step in the right direction. There are a lot of people who are nowhere near the level that you come out of that being who now are because it was popular, because it was widespread, because ABC put a boatload of money into it, because it had beautiful people and it had compelling dramas and um charismatic these folks and and and comedy and and tragedy and the things that we like to see in our art. It just happens to have an autistic character in it. Definitely. yeah So, Britt, I know you have to run very quickly. So all of this lovely discussion, as you've briefly mentioned with the AusPet contest that's coming up, like if you wanted to give just like one last rundown, give a yeah shout out to where anyone can apply or where they can find more information on it.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, so the best thing to do is go to theautismscene.org, which is where you can find all the details about it. It's called the Auspec Awards, AU, which is sort of a common prefix for autism, and spec, which starts with is ah where a speculative script, a spec script, which is a common term.
00:41:04
Speaker
the app The submission... period starts on December 1, ends on January 31. The awards will be in April of 2026. So depending on when you're listening to this, ah you might have about a month to to consider what you might write and then a two-month period to submit it.
00:41:19
Speaker
It's an 11-page script. If you like ah animated shows, And if you've never written a script, this is ah a great way to to give it a shot. Try it out. See what it feels like. It's a $25 donation to the autism scene as a submission fee, which is a lot lower than a lot of spec script competitions.
00:41:34
Speaker
And the people who end up winning, the grand prize winner is $5,000. And then the 15 sort of category winners are going to get meetings with ah managers, creative of execs and showrunners and the kinds of people who theoretically could hire you on the kinds of shows that you've written the script for. So it's ah it's a way of trying to trying to leverage my Rolodex into getting more autistic characters in a kid's pop culture.
00:41:57
Speaker
I love that. I'm so excited. Theautismscene.org. Perfect. And all of that will be attached to this episode whenever someone may be listening to it, Brown. Wonderful. I know this is a short one, but we're so appreciative that you reached out to us and that we are able to talk to you about all of this because, again, this is something that really matters to me.
00:42:14
Speaker
matters to Nebula and I know matters to a lot of people in our audience who like us because they also are autistic or also feel the same way that I do about it when it comes to wanting to be. And so being able to talk about that with someone who also feels so deeply about it, it just means a lot to us. And I really am happy to do this. ah talk to you about this. That's great. Thanks. so I'm really pleased I got to be a part of your podcast. you' You've been such a delight, Britt. And we will share all of the links for Auspec in the description and on our socials.
00:42:43
Speaker
And we will make sure that everyone that wants to can get connected with that because that's a really phenomenal contest. That's great. Well, thank you very much. i appreciate both. Thank you so much. Thank you, Britt.
00:42:53
Speaker
Thank you. All right. Bye now.