NBC’s Good Minds provides one of the best neurodivergent illustration I’ve ever seen.
As an autistic particular person, I’m hyper-aware of the stereotypes and destructive tropes that plague most characters who’ve any sort of neurodivergence.
Even The Good Physician, regardless of making large strides on this space, created extra issues than it solved., although Good Minds owes it a debt of gratitude.
Wolf’s Neurodivergence Is Solely Half Of His Story On Good Minds
One of the vital necessary ways in which Good Minds is completely different is that it’s about a physician who’s neurodivergent fairly than focusing solely on his neurodivergence as a supply of battle.
Certain, Good Minds Season 1 Episode 1 started with Wolf getting fired as a result of he took a affected person with dementia out of the hospital with out permission, however that was about his unorthodox strategies, not his face-blindness or different neurodivergent traits.
After all, neurodivergent persons are extra prone to break the foundations on this method. We’re usually loath to comply with tips that appear to impede progress greater than they assist it.
Nonetheless, that story units Wolf up as somebody who will get in bother as a result of he approaches drugs in another way than others, fairly than somebody that everybody doubts due to his neurodivergence.
It’s a refined however necessary distinction between Good Minds and The Good Physician.
As a rule, The Good Physician was concerning the methods Shaun’s autism interfered together with his success.
Both his rigidity and want for sameness threw him completely off when one thing disrupted his routine, his bluntness offended somebody, or some physician determined he shouldn’t be a surgeon as a result of he’s autistic.
The Good Physician’s portrayal of autistic characters was meant to be inspiring, however its insistence on making Shaun’s autism a supply of battle inadvertently bolstered stereotypes about autistic folks, particularly the concept that it’s almost inconceivable for them to reach conventional careers.
Up to now, Good Minds has prevented that lure. Wolf is neither a savant nor somebody whose neurodivergent-related challenges are handled as a critical impediment to success.
As a substitute, his neurodivergence is one a part of him, and he has way back realized to compensate for his difficulties so he can succeed.
The closest his face-blindness involves being a critical impediment is when Nichols complains that Wolf ignores him within the hallways, which Wolf rapidly clears up by explaining how his situation makes it in order that he actually doesn’t see Nichols when he walks previous him
The Intersection of Wolf’s Neurodivergence and Previous Trauma Is Clearer
Good Minds does one thing much like what The Good Physician Season 1 did: it makes use of flashbacks of Wolf’s childhood to discover the trauma that made him the person he’s right this moment.
Nevertheless, the main focus is completely different. Whereas Shaun’s brother, Steve’s, demise on The Good Physician was inarguably traumatic, its impact on him was largely restricted to the plot level of Glassman taking him in afterward.
It wasn’t till he started occupied with having youngsters of his personal that Steve’s demise was talked about in another context.
Conversely, Wolf’s trauma on Good Minds is… trauma.
His father’s psychological sickness and subsequent demise affected him deeply as a youngster and are intertwined together with his neurodivergence.
Wolf has grown as much as be somebody who works onerous as a physician to assist others and is keen about caring for sufferers, significantly ones that the world desires him to surrender on, but is closed off to most relationships.
He didn’t even wish to educate interns when he first returned to Bronx Basic.
That isn’t handled merely as “neurodivergent man has poor social expertise.” Certain, that’s a part of it, however he is also afraid to let anybody get too shut due to that early loss.
Wolf can also be an overtly homosexual man who grew up in a time when it wasn’t secure for him to be out.
That’s necessary on a number of ranges.
At a time when LGBTQ+ illustration on TV is declining, we’d like extra characters like Wolf.
I particularly like that Wolf’s relationship together with his sexual orientation, and with relationships on the whole, is sophisticated.
He embraces who he’s but doesn’t wish to let anybody be too near him for varied causes. His trauma round relationships leads him right into a tough scenario with Nichols, his one-time enemy who will undoubtedly be his love curiosity sometime.
He’s a homosexual protagonist, not a homosexual secondary character, and I’m prepared to guess he gained’t instantly die in a gay-bashing incident to show the purpose that homophobia is on the rise as The Good Physician did to Asher on The Good Physician Season 7 Episode 5.
(Sure, I’m nonetheless bitter about that and all the time will likely be. The useless demise of a homosexual character just isn’t okay simply because a homosexual author accredited of the story.)
It’s unparalleled to have neurodivergent LGBTQ+ characters on TV, although there’s vital overlap between the 2 communities, particularly the trans and autistic communities.
Wolf Demonstrates That Neurodivergence Seems Totally different On Every Particular person
Wolf just isn’t autistic; he’s acquired a distinct neurodivergent situation known as prosopagnosia, which implies he doesn’t acknowledge faces and has to memorize particular particulars about every particular person’s look in order that he can bear in mind who they’re.
It is a completely different situation than we’ve ever had on TV earlier than, except an episode of Picket Fences in 1992 during which a person used that situation as his protection for murdering his brother.
It’s carried out actually and demonstrates the methods it’s much like and completely different from autism. It’s additionally not the one neurodivergent situation on Good Minds.
Van has Mirror Contact Synthesia, a uncommon situation during which he feels the ache and different signs of his sufferers, and Dana has an nervousness dysfunction that comes from the trauma of her sister’s demise.
(And sure, these are forms of neurodivergence although they aren’t the splashy ones that are usually misrepresented on TV.
There are numerous extra examples of brains being wired in another way than autism and ADHD, although correct illustration of those can also be necessary.)
That includes all of those completely different characters helps stop the foremost downside with The Good Physician, which was that Shaun was an anamoly who nobody understood or was in any respect like.
Till the ultimate season, he was the one autistic particular person, physician or not, on the whole collection, which bolstered the concept that autism was uncommon and tough to take care of.
There Would Be No Good Minds With out The Good Physician
None of which means The Good Physician was a horrible collection.
It was an necessary present that broke some necessary limitations. Regardless of its missteps, it took the thought of autistic folks being human critically.
It didn’t concentrate on how onerous autism was for different folks. It wasn’t about how “tragic” it’s for folks to have an autistic youngster or any of that crap.
That’s why I don’t suppose Good Minds might exist with out The Good Physician.
Earlier than this collection, it was unparalleled to have a present about an autistic physician, by no means thoughts another neurodivergent situation.
Certain, the producers might have pitched it.
However would NBC, or another community, have purchased it when there was no proof that audiences had an urge for food for neurodivergent characters, by no means thoughts one as well-rounded as Oliver Wolf?
After all, there’s no strategy to know, however I feel it will have been a a lot tougher promote.
I don’t suppose it’s that Good Minds is superior to The Good Physician as a lot as it’s that it constructed on what The Good Physician began and made one thing even higher, much more consultant of autistic folks.
Over to you, Good Minds fanatics!
What do you suppose? Is Good Minds constructing on The Good Physician’s legacy, or would it not all the time have come into the TV world the way in which it did?
Hit the feedback and tell us your ideas!
Good Minds airs on NBC on Mondays at 10/9c and on Peacock on Tuesdays.
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