This is originally from a comment I posted on r/autisminwomen on a post asking why autism is celebrated in media but not in real life. However, I really really like my answer and wanted to post it here, ESPECIALLY since I talk about divergent so much on my blog. So, here you go:
I think part of the reason I really liked the divergent series so much is because tris's voice in the books is so... Autistic??? I can agree that the book isn't... The best piece of literature ever.... But I think that there's some part of me that will always love that book because it made me feel weirdly normal.
(Oh and while we're at it for 2012 dystopian ya novels - katniss from the hunger games was just an autistic slay.)
But back to divergent. I think this is also why people didn't like the books and (in my opinion) acted like they were worsely written than they were. People are happy to accept autistic characters/autistic coded characters in an act of performance and weird savior fantasy. But, when someone actually has autism (or a character is portrayed with more realistic, less "black and white" autism), this weird internalized ableism comes out in a very subconscious way. I remember hearing about a research article talking about how nts subconsciously notice autistic people almost immediately by a sense of uneasiness or "uncanny valley". People are all too happy to watch the guy on atypical and infantilise him to the point of feeling like they're rooting for a kid in a coming of age movie, but are very happy to jump on characters like Devi in Never Have I Ever for being "too weird" and "too grown to be acting that way".
The celebration for autism in media is a show. The more you realize it, the more you notice it.
