Twitter can be a misguided way to measure popularity. If you constantly look at the online chatter volume, Subrogation It is the most watched TV series of all time, in reality its “record” is around 2.5 million live viewers. In fact, it’s the TV shows, network comedies, and procedural dramas that bring the most consistent numbers, loved by the general audience who don’t tweet. These are of course less appreciated by critics or “cool” to be a fan of, but the popularity of shows like the FBI and NCIS franchises is much more in line with traditional TV consumption, even in the Peak Content era.
So, when the ABC series Good Doctor After going viral on social media last week, many people online have revealed that they had no idea the show existed. They were even more surprised to learn how popular it was, especially when certain clips were circulating.
For those who don’t know, Good Doctor It is the American version of a South Korean drama of the same name. Since its 2015 premiere, the show has hosted its distinctive brand of neurodivergence at the prestigious San Jose St. Dr., who both helped and hindered her work as a surgeon at Bonaventure Hospital. It’s about an autistic savant named Shaun Murphy. In its first season (season six concluded in early May), the show averaged 15.6 million viewers per week. This made it a bigger hit than any other network blockbuster. Grey’s Anatomy And Young Sheldon. For the past eight years, it has remained a huge ratings favorite, maintaining its much less-guaranteed viewership hold in an era of too much TV and endless cancellations.
Good Doctor It was a big deal with a spin-off series in the works that focused on a good lawyer with OCD, and it did. But it didn’t go viral for good reasons.
Twitter is on fire with clips from the show that range from funny to genuinely disturbing. Some highlights: In one we see Shaun, played by Freddie Highmore. news spring A kid with cancer playing like something from an Adult Swimming sketch. Another, Dr. Murphy’s failure to cooperate with an armed robber results in a woman being shot. room accuses a woman Being a terrorist based only on the color of your skin.
a Twitter user He noted that Highmore walked “like C-3PO”, while another real bullshit a real doctor who apparently didn’t know about the existence of trans people. Maybe the jewel in the breast crown is Shaun. shout over and over “I’m a surgeon” has now become the stuff of TikTok legend, being made into countless parodies and increasingly silly riffs. if you can overcome as you watch it without cracking or shrinking, you are stronger than steel.
Not since a dog chewed a heart. One Tree Hill A popular show with very little Internet footprint becomes a viral hit. And you can’t blame anyone for not wanting to jump. There’s so much to cover Good Doctorand there’s a lot to catch, thanks to the absolutely insane six seasons. It’s a show that takes itself extremely seriously, a procedural that seeks to be simultaneously the buzz entertainment of the week and a serious study of the life of a neuro-diverse individual. Freddie Highmore is completely devoted, if nothing else, to his portrayal of Shaun, a seemingly genius but also super racist, transphobic man prone to outbursts of absolute brutality. He says the most ridiculous things, often seems incompetent at his job and needs to be a hero!
The “I’m a surgeon” meme, Dr. With Murphy’s grumpy temper, a set of enemies played by series executive producer Daniel Dae-Kim, Dr. It contrasts with the seemingly extreme calmness of Jackson Han. It’s almost as satisfying in its contrast, like watching a bored service worker deal with the ultimate bad customer. You don’t need to know the context to understand the joke, but watching all the other clips adds an extra bit of schadenfreude to the equation.
Meme makers are drawn to the media’s unsuccessful attempts to create exaggerated meaning because it’s so easy to pop those bubbles. There are few things more satisfying than downplaying self-satisfied prestige efforts. But it has a serious side. Good Doctor‘s new Twitter disgrace: It has inspired a lot of criticism, especially from people on the spectrum voicing the harmful stereotypes it perpetuates about autism. In 2018, three doctors reviewed the show. Hollywood Reporter and “Hollywood depictions highlight the mistaken belief that autistic people only have value when they have savant skills that can benefit non-autistic people and balance their supposed societal burden.” The show shows Shaun childishly between an out-of-control toddler and a three-legged puppy. While neuro-diverse people may have trouble picking up on social cues, it’s insulting to write interesting scenes where someone on the spectrum doesn’t know what a trans person is, or where being racist is somehow an acceptable side effect of their condition.
As the entertainment industry makes incremental progress in diversity (although it has actually experienced a decline over the past year), media portrayals of people with disabilities of all types continue to be sorely lacking in nuance or rigor. Pop culture is based on a kind of stereotype that leaves little room for metaphors, the thorny ordinariness of real life. This is why we see the same stereotypes from decades ago still recycled over and over: While not empathetic or realistic depictions of real people, they are solid storytelling tools.
There are few honest and nuanced portrayals of life in mainstream pop culture, so when one of the biggest scripted shows on network TV pushes a stereotypical, derogatory cliché by default, it only perpetuates society’s preconceived impression of neuro-diverse people. series like Good Doctor Get real aspects of what it’s like to live on the spectrum – struggle with social interactions and the need for stimulation – and make them almost parodic in your depictions. The focus is on all the drama the person causes to the neurotypical people around them, rather than on the means by which the person lives. It doesn’t help that the show does PSAs for Autism Speaks, a highly controversial group that has for years called autism a “disease” that needs to be cured, while making irresponsible fearmongering like comparing autism to leukemia.
Good Doctor uses the concept of savant as an interesting and narratively exciting storytelling tool. It’s not hard to see why; Rain Man He won an Oscar for what he did. But at the same time, the show’s creators seem to be using this trope as a crutch for incompetence and sheer nonsense, as it either provides good TV or provides opportunities for plot-ease. Stereotypes exist not only for convenience, but also to reinforce dangerous attitudes. After all, one of the reasons the clip of Shaun being transphobic got so much attention was because it was broadcast by a right-wing account with the headline “transgender cult on TV.” Of course, the answers were full of people siding with Shaun’s comments about the trans child’s own trauma. Sadly, it’s no surprise that luck dunked Good Doctor because her talent seems to have inspired more resourcefulness than Twitter trolls looking for an easy target.
to laugh Good Doctoris a solid way of examining squat clichés, in or out of context, that prioritizes their sleazy theatricality and neurotypical comfort over gifted conventions. Of course, this fun is shared only by the online crowd, not by the millions of people who made the series a huge hit for ABC. But either way it’s clear that in six seasons, things don’t seem to be improving for the show on the progressive representation front. Fortunately for those looking for it, there are better options for neuro-differential TV representation than Abed. Society to the latest British children’s drama a kind of spark, also starring a young actress on the spectrum. Still, it feels like we’re years away from truly catching the truth on this front of pop culture. But hey, at least the memes are good.