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The actors on this show are individuals on the autism spectrum facing challenges in finding a match. What you don't see is how much the narrative is framed to only show a narrow window that is inaccurate for a large proportion of autistics.
The wholesome narrative is a shocking contrast to the fact that many autistic adults have little trouble dating (but are more commonly exploited), can be quite autonomous, more commonly use non-traditional dating options, and are over-represented in the BDSM community. The show presents a stereotypical view of autism by playing infantalizing music while featuring its stars, asking some cast math questions, over-editing to show awkward moments - even playing back the same 'yawn' or awkward gesture multiple times, stitching sentences together with no spaces to increase the sense of anxiety, or recording and featuring every awkward gesture and replaying them in an alternative order to create false depictions of the actual encounters.
Stars who are less obviously autistic are not featured, or were removed after not enough stereotypical autistic behavior, like Kaelynn from the first season. Only showing people who are more obviously autistic gives a misleading sense of what being on the spectrum looks like - it can look many ways. The cast are almost exclusively from upper middle class families and through this you get a narrow depiction of what autistic adults' lives are like. For instance, people who are forced to mask more due to economic circumstances might come across quite different.
The show markets itself as a dating show in it's advertising, but categorizes itself as a documentary on Netflix. This way, unlike other 'dating shows', they don't have to pay the cast, making this an extremely profitable venture. Except this 'documentary' shapes the presentation of autism in a stereotypical manner by over-representing and infantalizing autistic attributes. What other dating show plays baby giraffe music when the stars are talking, or interviews the stars' parents as authoritative figures who 'know better'?
The wholesome narrative is a shocking contrast to the fact that many autistic adults have little trouble dating (but are more commonly exploited), can be quite autonomous, more commonly use non-traditional dating options, and are over-represented in the BDSM community. The show presents a stereotypical view of autism by playing infantalizing music while featuring its stars, asking some cast math questions, over-editing to show awkward moments - even playing back the same 'yawn' or awkward gesture multiple times, stitching sentences together with no spaces to increase the sense of anxiety, or recording and featuring every awkward gesture and replaying them in an alternative order to create false depictions of the actual encounters.
Stars who are less obviously autistic are not featured, or were removed after not enough stereotypical autistic behavior, like Kaelynn from the first season. Only showing people who are more obviously autistic gives a misleading sense of what being on the spectrum looks like - it can look many ways. The cast are almost exclusively from upper middle class families and through this you get a narrow depiction of what autistic adults' lives are like. For instance, people who are forced to mask more due to economic circumstances might come across quite different.
The show markets itself as a dating show in it's advertising, but categorizes itself as a documentary on Netflix. This way, unlike other 'dating shows', they don't have to pay the cast, making this an extremely profitable venture. Except this 'documentary' shapes the presentation of autism in a stereotypical manner by over-representing and infantalizing autistic attributes. What other dating show plays baby giraffe music when the stars are talking, or interviews the stars' parents as authoritative figures who 'know better'?
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