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Stop Lying About The Good Doctor

Ember Green

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Why lie? An autistic deep dive into The Good Doctor: my criticisms of the show AND its critics!

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Other disability in media videos:
Big Bang Theory - Is Sheldon Even Autistic?
Evil Children - Autism & Horror Movies
Harry Potter is Also Ableist
Ariel: Feminist. Iconic. Autistic?

TIMESTAMPS
INTRO - 00:00
IN DEFENSE OF TGD - 26:40
WHAT DOES AUTISM LOOK LIKE? - 29:16
THE CASTING IS PRETTY GOOD - 45:19
MELTDOWN SCENE, GOOD - 53:39
THE CASTING IS PRETTY BAD - 1:03:31
THE CONSULTATION - 1:07:32
THE SOURCE MATERIAL - 1:11:46
THAT'S NOT WHAT AUTISM LOOKS LIKE - 1:14:44
THE BAD EPISODES - 1:26:11
MY THERAPIST WAS WRONG - 1:34:30
CONCLUSION - 1:40:07

On ABA: https://autisticstrategies.net/nonspe...
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
https://neuroclastic.com/category/aba...

In this video, I take a deep dive into The Good Doctor from an autistic perspective. While a lot of the criticism aimed at the show is shallow or outright dishonest, I break down why those takes miss the mark, and why the show still ultimately fails as meaningful autism representation. This isn’t a defense of the series, but a call for more honest, informed conversations about neurodiversity & disability representation in media that goes deeper than Twitter hot takes.

Looking at the entire 7 seasons of the series, as well as South Korean original series Good Doctor, we discuss the famous "I Am A Surgeon" scene/meme & why it's probably not great to make fun of autistic meltdowns, we talk about Freddie Highmore's performance & also some of the more progressive neurodivergent casting decisions. I break down why the fans seem to hate Charlie so much & what parts of Shaun I see in myself.

Interloper by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

20 Comments

@Ember_Green Creator 1 year ago Pinned

This is just my honest thoughts about the show. Let's hear yours below!

@drtaverner 1 year ago

My last consulting surgeon lost everything due to a meltdown. His Hospital privileges got revoked and destroyed his practice. He was our only Orthopedic Surgeon. He wasn't very good at masking and I recognized him as Autistic in the first consult (like knows like). Everyone I'd spoken to hated his mannerisms but were very happy with his results. He was very good with hips and knees.

Even when you prove your value, there still isn't room for us, not really. We're tolerated until we're not.

@edayavuz1667 1 year ago

"better help can be found literally anywhere else" is an iconic line😂

@appoi8 1 year ago

the beginning part about the therapist recomending watching the good doctor is so real because mine told me to watch the big bang theory and that i was just like sheldon

@Raspberry_Cubes 1 year ago

I think I just hate medical dramas because my stupid brain wants a medical show where no one makes mistakes or has some petty office drama because I’m always screaming “STOP KISSING EACH OTHER AND DO THE SURGERY AGH”

@penginlord9396 1 year ago

no one told me there was a scene where one of the other doctors literally punches out a light because it was bothering Shaun. Based show, actually. 10/10.

@SebastianSeanCrow 1 year ago

17:52 so he was a victims in an armed robbery and he had the natural reaction everyone has of freaking the fuck out and that means he can’t take care of himself? How?!

@RobinBramblethorn 1 year ago

I knew better help was terrible but if i had a therapist recommend inspiration p*rn to me I'd lose my shit

@smallspidersad78 1 year ago

I’m autistic and have big embarrassing public meltdowns and the way people talked about this scene is just like how everyone has made fun of me and treated me like shit for my whole life. IRL people get scared of you too; I’ve had a woman threaten to call the police on me before :/

@pedroff_1 1 year ago

55:59
Just recently I had a meltdown in public because my colleagues at university picked on me like highschool bullies. At a moment of distress, I knicked a chair. That became "I threw a chair at a colleague". That became the threat of an administrative punishment, maybe expulsion? I felt so ashamed of myself, but it also felt so unfair I was judged so harshly for lashing out at my colleagues, just because their way of hurting me was more socially acceptable.

I can definitely see myself having an "I am a surgeon" moment, as embarassing and self-demeaning as it'd be for me.

@z0r0gabe 1 year ago

1:00:32 As someone who lost multiple jobs to meltdowns, I genuinely struggled to watch the show knowing that Shaun was going to have meltdowns- and I dreaded watching him lose everything like I already had. To this day, as a freelancer, I am TERRIFIED of melting down in front of a client or my case worker or anyone. I do my absolute best to have my meltdowns in private. It was uncomfortable because it was too close to home.

@ktgrnhig 1 year ago

An honest thought I did have, regarding the first trans episode.

Yeah, Shaun was slow to come around and said some blunt oof statements.

However, when push came to shove…he was the only person who actually trusted Quinn’s judgment on what she wanted.

Shaun: “Okay, the patient needs this tumour removed and can’t take puberty blockers anymore. We can just remove both testicles!”

Quinn: “Yes! Yes! That’s what I want!”

Everyone else: clutches pearls

Other doctors: “We must apologize for Dr. Murphy’s radical suggestion”

Quinn: “But I don’t want to go through male puberty! I don’t want bio kids!”

Everyone else: “Oh hush, you might change your mind about kids or, you know, being a girl”

…so after all of that scolding Shaun for making faux pas, everyone else just showed their ass and revealed that they think Quinn is probably going through a phase. The grandmother is the only one who will admit to thinking that way, but the scandalization of Shaun suggesting a full removal is pretty telling.

@TalysAlankil 1 year ago

you mean tiktok taking one clip out of context is not a good way to make up your mind about longform television? no way

@HalfBananaWoman 1 year ago (edited)

I’ve never watched the Good Doctor, as I often get annoyed by contrived plots in dramas. However, hearing you explain everything that lead up to the infamous I Am a Surgeon scene made it click for me. Kaelynn Paltrow, an autistic person and therapist described meltdowns as what happens when an autistic person runs out of coping skills. Everything Shaun tried didn’t work, and he had nothing left to do but meltdown and quit his job. He experienced so much discrimination and abuse from his job, and a lack of support from the people in his life. It makes me really sad. He tried everything he could to prove himself, but at the end of the day it didn’t matter because of discrimination. The context of the show makes the scene make perfect sense, and I never heard it explained anywhere else

@werbnaright5012 1 year ago

It's an easy mistake to make to think that non-talkers are non-feelers. - Wallace Stegner
This quote is one that guides my nursing practice.

@cassou124 1 year ago

Ironically, there's an autistic surgeon in Canada whose autism is allegedly very obvious (as in, many visible symptoms) and who had a lot of the issues shown in the show, mainly that the surgeon had social difficulties that caused problems with his colleagues. Oh, the patients loved (love? I don't know if he's still practicing) him, because he would do almost anything to save his patients, because he cares more about saving his patients than what other doctors tell him he should do.
(Not that the show is really accurate to reality in general, but I thought I'd share that tiny bit of trivia.)

@AnxiousGary 1 year ago (edited)

My best cupboard hiding moment was in the psych ward. One of the nurses found me there after a while in a state of contortion, (I'm still very proud of myself for cramming my entire body in there,) and looked at me like 😐 said "Are you hiding?" When I said "Yes." she just gently closed the cupboard door and left me be. I will never know if she was fed-up or super chill, but either way, allies take notes!!

@DSS712 1 year ago

26:07 Its so validating to listen to someone on youtube actually explain the full context of this scene. The show isnt perfect but i personally like it, and it breaks my heart that even autistic people mock this scene online and don't realize how ableist they are being by choosing to shame the scene out of context. There is SO much more to Shawn's meltdown than "he did that because autism," and when people reduce it to that without having actually seen the show, those people are the only ones i can see who are putting an an autistic character into a box. Autism or not, this scene was 100 percent narratively earned, full stop.

@smallspidersad78 1 year ago

Also, my expressions and movements are CALLED EXAGGERATED IN MY AUTISM DIAGNOSIS REPORT, haha. Here’s the thing: backlash against the portrayal of “stereotypes” means a backlash against portrayals of real people. They can be done badly or offensively or done well, but the simple existence of a “stereotypical” autistic person is just… a portrayal that many autistic people share similarities with. May we all please check our internalised ableism in the community and stop punching down at autistic people who have more “stereotypical” autism than them. Some of us ARE robotic and traumatised and have emotional disregulation problems, let us live!

@shinyhitomi3916 1 year ago

I physically recoiled at the comment at the "if he's so smart, shouldn't he know better than XYZ", because I'm autistic and have had that kind of criticism thrown at me over and over. That if you seem smart, clearly you can't be blindsided by anything, and thus any mistakes you make - especially social - are not mistakes, but instead deliberate decisions and thus damning to your character. Holy shit ableism has thoroughly seeped into the criticisms of the good doctor.

I'm not finished with the video yet, so I might need to edit this. But the point slapped me in the face, good god.