In this op-ed, actor Mickey Rowe explains why Netflix's new show Atypical misrepresents its autistic audience — and why that begins with its failure to include the autistic community in its creative process.

On Aug. 11, Netflix will debut its new comedy Atypical, which revolves around an autistic high school senior named Sam (played by Keir Gilchrist, who is not on the spectrum) who's navigating the confusing world of dating. As an autistic 20-something myself, I was excited when I learned about the show and Netflix’s decision to feature autism onscreen. I had hoped Atypical would be able to offer a glimmer of representation. But instead, I was disappointed.

A little about me, for starters: I am very happily married, have two kids, and feel relatively lucky in my field of regional theater — I’m currently the first autistic actor to play Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and one of the first autistic actors to play any autistic character ever. While I have been fortunate to have many professionals and doctors who specialize in autism help me learn to be successful, I have had many general practice physicians and therapists who have been surprised to meet an autistic person and even more surprised that I didn’t act just like Rain Man. Having a conversation about autism with someone who isn’t a medical or disability professional is nearly impossible. Why? Because our media loves stories about autistic white men, but hates using actual autistic adults when creating these stories.

Which brings me to Atypical. Though the show aims to bring the topic of autism to the forefront, Netflix did not confirm whether there were concerted efforts to include autistic writers, creatives, or actors in any large roles. Onscreen representation isn’t the same as behind-the-scenes representation, especially if that camera-facing depiction is flawed. It should be noted that showrunner Robia Rashid told Teen Vogue that the show worked with a professor who worked at UCLA's Center for Autism Research and Treatment while developing the series, and Netflix confirmed to Teen Vogue that Anthony Jacques, who plays Sam’s friend in one episode, has autism. Rashid also said that several crew members have autistic family members. “We’re telling a very specific story, Sam’s story, and not trying to speak for every person on the spectrum,” she said. But while exposure is great, if the creative team does not have leadership from within the community itself, it will inevitably misrepresent it. After all, consider that the motto of the autistic community is “Nothing about us without us.” That motto should have extended to Atypical, too.

In watching the show, I noticed that it seems to play into stereotypes that I’ve experienced firsthand that could have easily been avoided and that may present damaging information about autistic people. There is so much misinformation about autism in part because we nearly always learn about autism from non-autistic people, instead of learning about autism from autistic adults. For example, I often wear headphones or ear buds. A lot of autistic people do, as they often have sensory processing disorder, too. Atypical’s first episode features an entire scene devoted to Sam's headphones in a restaurant, but the audience is conditioned to laugh at him for it. How horrible if young autistic people watch this and feel ashamed for doing something that helps them to think and function in the world.

There are other aspects of the show that I found damaging; I felt it made Sam the butt of the joke or that it only seemed to help in perpetuating stereotypes.