Is Jonah Vasquez autistic?
Some people online were recently talking about Greg on the TV show "Abbott Elementary" showing autistic traits without explicitly labeling him autistic and I immediately thought about Jonah and his similarities to that. Like, how his backstory, his perks and the descriptions on some of his outfits fits that bill:
- He's deeply invested in a narrow set of interests
- He's fixated on exposing bad actors, and helping where he can.
- He compulsively obsesses over patterns, causing him to over-regulate and under-regulate his attention.
- He under-regulates: recognized patterns can't be ignored
- He over-regulates: Obsessively investigates those patterns until he reaches a conclusion
- He's primarily motivated by logic - it's what he brings to the party.
- He has a focus on recovery from hardship - Exponential and Overcome. Autistics face a lot of hardship from a young age that they must overcome.
- He's motivated to help, even when not asked - I was thinking about his perk corrective action.
- He has no sense of style. But has outfits and accessories with descriptions that further support this identity.
- According to his backstory he has been guided, at times, by a cognitive bias like confirmation bias - seeking patterns, and focusing on ones relatable to him. Then, overcoming those biases by considering other people's perspectives - perspective taking develops in autistic brains at about 66% the rate of neurotypical brains.
His perks are helpful, but in seemingly useless ways - which is consistent with how people perceive support provided by autistics and how society sometimes perceives autistics at large. But again, nowhere does it mention autism in his backstory or description... which isn't necessarily a bad thing as one article talking about Greg from Abbott Elementary being "... represented by his traits, rather than a diagnosis helps to normalize the lived experience of someone on the spectrum."
Comments
-
i get an IT guy going through mid life crisis kinda vibe. I feel like this man embodies what it means to wear a flame shirt.
7 -
In his backstory it says he's a cryptographer for the CIA.
0 -
i hope not. as an autistic person, id hate for our probably one and only rep to be jonah "the fed" vasquez.
2 -
I recommend reading Claudette’s tome story.
2 -
i know that claudette is heavily autistic coded and if shes our rep, ill gladly take it.
3 -
@Leachy_Jr Would know best about the war criminal on this.
1 -
Damn, well there's another thing me and Jonah would have in common then.
Maybe that's why I like him as a character so much 🙃
0 -
He's probably the least desirable, lol. But I thought he was closer to representing ASD than, say, Claudette. Granted, she did wander into a forest and got lost, which many people with ASD have done, and were later found dead. It's kinda hard to see where self-care fits, but the others work. I would take her as a representative over Jonah, though, or even both - why not? But, I don't think I've ever seen anyone on the spectrum dress quite like Jonah does.
Yeah, I was trying to stray from that stereotype; it does mention that he brings logic to the party, and not math, though - even if those two are basically inseparable. Regardless, that stereotype is obnoxious. But, what bad decisions has he made?
0 -
This just reinforces my desire for a guy fieri skin for jonah.
0
