Asiatic Aspie: Millennial (ab)use of Asperger’s Syndrome

Abstract

Instead of artistic or poetic license in general, millennial novelists and filmmakers have been taking a particular kind of “aspic license” in their use or abuse of Asperger’s Syndrome for characterization and plot. A mental disability turns out to enable lead characters in their respective pursuits, as in the British TV comedy Doc Martin (2004-2013) and Mai Jia’s Chinese spy thriller Decoded (2002). Doc Martin associates Aspie with Asiatic, both betokening the Other, the opposite to neurotypicals and Western universalism. When the mystique of Orientalized Aspies in Western texts morphs into that of their doppelganger of Occidentalized Aspies in Eastern texts, qualitative changes occur. Whereas Asiatic Aspies in the West don the Asiatic like the emperor’s new clothes, skin-deep and stylized, Asiatic Aspies in the East flaunt Asperger’s Syndrome like an imported luxury to boost the value of the East.

Keywords

the Asiatic Asperger’s Syndrome Mai Jia

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