#bronbroen

»Saga Norén is the best reflection of myself I’ve ever seen in fiction, but she is me as I know myself to be inside, and not remotely like me as I present to people in my life. I only realised as an adult that not everyone goes about with a mental monologue of 'Make eye contact…OK, that’s enough, look away…listen to what they’re saying and mentally write your response at the same time so there isn’t a gap in the conversation…now run it over it to try to make sure it’s not rude or weird…'

It’s a heavy price to pay for being able to have slightly easier trips to the supermarket as an adult, especially when being able to semi-pass as #neurotypical doesn’t exactly help me make friends because the effort it takes can make me seem cold and fake.

Saga doesn’t do that. It’s not clear whether her #autism manifests in a different form or if she’s just not someone who feels the need to conform, but in her I saw all the parts of myself I’ve suppressed for years acted out. [...]

A white, non-disabled cishet man can walk into any multiplex, any week of the year, and see someone who looks like him with a more muscular jawline righteously gun down the bad guys. No other groups can, and while I can admire some female characters in books and TV shows, they still seem to me like a similar but distinct species.

If I want to see an autistic woman who’s tough and fearless, who can suddenly reveal a knowledge of the Sumerian alphabet or sign language to crack the next step in a case, who drives a vintage Porsche, who’s sometimes discouraged but never gives up in her quest to stop the dangerous people — if I want an autistic heroine — my only option is Saga Norén. [...]

She’s not and shouldn’t be the sole fictional representative for autistic women, not least because Sofia Helin, despite the production team’s efforts to de-glamourise her by dressing her in the same pair of leather trousers and olive T-shirt all the time, is a very conventionally attractive thin cisgender white blonde woman. Those aren’t negative qualities, of course, but they shouldn’t be used to make Saga’s differences more palatable.

We desperately need a fictional portrayal of the diversity of autistic people in the real world, including [Black and Indigenious autistic people and] autistic people of colour, autistic LGBQT[IA+] people, and autistic people with other disabilities. [...]

Until society, including the people who produce the works of culture we enjoy, stop being afraid of autism and start accepting it as a fact of life, Saga Norén is the only fictional portrayal I have that gives me hope I can celebrate the strengths the condition gives me, cope with the struggles it causes, and live the life I want on my own terms.«