Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Med Humanit. 2022 Mar;48(1):51-62. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2020-011906. Epub 2021 Jan 27.
In popular media, autistic subjectivity is most often produced through the lens of the neurotypical gaze. Dominant understandings of autism therefore tend to focus on perceived deficits in social communication and relationships. Accordingly, this article has two primary concerns. First, it uses the Danish/Swedish television series (Bron/Broen, 2011-2018) and critical responses to the series as examples of how the neurotypical gaze operates, concentrating on the pleasures derived from looking at autism, how autism is 'fixed' (Frantz Fanon, 1986) as a socially undesirable subject position, and the self-interested focus of the gaze. Second, it analyses key scenes from the series to expose and challenge the dominance of the neurotypical perspective in scholarly accounts of autistic sexuality and relationality. Using Lauren Berlant's (2012) work on love, I argue that the non-normative ways of being constructed by the series do not fit easily within neuroconventional frameworks of love and desire. Consequently, autistic expressions of love are rendered both undesirable and illegible to the neurotypical gaze. The article therefore offers a flexible framework for understanding how the neurotypical gaze functions across cultural and academic spheres and gives vital insight into how autistic love and relationships are narratively constructed.
在大众媒体中，自闭症患者的主体性往往是通过神经典型视角来呈现的。因此，对自闭症的主流理解往往集中在社交沟通和人际关系方面的感知缺陷上。相应地，本文有两个主要关注点。首先，它以丹麦/瑞典电视剧《桥》（Bron/Broen，2011-2018）及其对该系列的批评性回应为例，展示了神经典型视角的运作方式，重点关注观看自闭症的乐趣、自闭症如何被“固定”（弗朗茨·法农，1986）为一个社会上不受欢迎的主体位置，以及目光的自利焦点。其次，它分析了该系列中的关键场景，以揭示和挑战学术上对自闭症性行为和关系的神经典型观点的主导地位。本文利用劳伦·贝兰特（Lauren Berlant）（2012）关于爱的作品，认为该系列所构建的非规范存在方式，不易适应神经常规的爱和欲望框架。因此，自闭症者的爱的表达既不受神经典型视角欢迎，也无法被其理解。本文因此提供了一个灵活的框架，用于理解神经典型视角在文化和学术领域中的运作方式，并深入了解自闭症者的爱和关系是如何被叙事构建的。
