Since ABC’s Love on the Spectrum first aired last year, it’s been personally recommended to me six times. Eventually, I watched it. Or at least, I watched as much as it took to realise that this program isn’t for me. It’s for gawking at people like me.
It’s now hosted on Netflix, I’ve completed a full binge-watch for good measure, and the point still stands.
With all its good intentions and charming participants, Love on the Spectrum is for the neurotypical eye. Just like The Undateables, a similar show from the UK, it takes the inner machinations of disabled lives and creates entertainment for non-disabled viewers. Autistic representation on television is rare, which makes it all the more alienating when these few depictions exist purely for everyone else’s warm-n-fuzzies.
This is an inherent problem with disability dating shows. Most other dating shows are advertised as sexy and salacious. By contrast, our attempts at love are ‘adorable‘.
When autistic people are only seen as something cutesy, something to foster laughs through our wins and losses, it relegates us to this role. Viewers absorb the idea that they are entitled to satisfy their curiosity about our personal lives, even if the reality is far from cute. It’s the same human zoo quality that leads to unsolicited comments such as, ‘what’s your special interest?’, ‘I bet you’re great with computers’, ‘what textures do you like?’, and ‘school must’ve been rough, huh?’ when I’m visiting the doctor… for an ear infection.
Despite the autistic community’s push for self-advocacy, Love on the Spectrum plays into the typical power dynamic wherein non-autistic people frame our narratives, produce our interactions, and act as our mentors. While supportive allies are great in their capacity, I would’ve loved to see autistic advocates providing the real expertise. This could’ve shifted the focus to strengthening the participants’ natural abilities, rather than adhering to arbitrary norms (which are far less relevant when dating other autistic people anyway). Otherwise, who is it helping?
'But why are we only interesting when distilled into something binge-worthy and saccharine? Why do we need to sugar-coat our lives?'
If this were an autistic-led production, I could argue the community benefit of depicting healthy relationship-building. But in the tone of Love on the Spectrum, it feels like quintessential inspiration porn. Why should autistic love and longing be a remarkable surprise? Many autistic people have an autistic parent, and parenthood usually occurs from relationships, sex, and