Do you believe that empathy is a trait that is learned/taught?
Or do you believe that one develops it naturally as we grow (so long as that process is not disrupted by neurodevelopmental, phycological, or other external factors?)
Similarly, do you think it’s possible to teach yourself to better understand, or maybe even better experience empathy, if said issues were to occur?
Sooo Moon Knight really hit me hard. Especially as an autistic person. It hit me so hard, in fact, that it’s brought me back from my Tumblr hiatus. (I haven’t posted since 2018? what???) It was euphoric for me to see an autistic character operate as a superhero within the MCU. Especially Steven. Though Marc and Jake are also autistic — we’ll get to that.
Steven Grant as the audience surrogate wasn’t written as autistic in Jeremy Slater’s original script for the series, but Oscar Isaac took one look at him and basically said, “I’ll relate to this guy more if he’s on the spectrum.” As an autistic person, I actually love that. This choice doesn’t feel exploitative to me, like Rain Man does, for instance; instead, it feels like I’m being seen. I found it meaningful hearing Oscar Isaac say that part of his way into figuring out this role was through delving into a character who happens to be on the spectrum.
I will say that at least to my eye, Oscar Isaac has created a reasonably authentic on-screen portrayal of an autistic character, at least compared to the typical overblown Sheldon Cooper-style of characterization. It is also amazing to see an autistic superhero who is capable, courageous, and strong, even in their most vulnerable moments. Too often, we are portrayed in media as being incapable of having agency within our own lives.
So, in the future, I want to rewatch Moon Knight and analyze the scenes that were particularly impactful for me from the perspective of autistic experience.
But for this post, I want to talk about autism within the context of trauma and mental health. There is an important distinction to be made between Autism Spectrum Disorder and DID in relation to this show, and I haven’t seen a lot of people discussing it in depth.
I want to preface this by saying that I am diagnosed autistic as well as having a dissociative disorder, but I am not a system, so my analysis of Moon Knight comes from an autistic standpoint.
I do not want to speak over or for any systems.
I am writing this analysis because I believe that an autistic perspective can add some context to certain crucial aspects of this show.
I also want to acknowledge that there is a high degree of co-occurrence between autism and dissociative conditions, including DID. The extreme and constant overwhelm caused by our autistic neurology can lead to dissociative coping mechanisms.
For example, in addition to being autistic, I have Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder, which stems from my sensory processing and social processing issues. Ever since childhood, I dissociate when my nervous system gets too jangled and I’m unable to process the chaos of the world around me.
If Steven Is Autistic, So Are Marc and Jake (and here’s why):
I’ve been seeing a lot of people online celebrating Steven as an autistic character, as in, “Steven Grant is the MCU’s first canonically autistic superhero!” Now, don’t get me wrong, Steven totally is a well-portrayed autistic character; however, I haven’t seen very many people involving Marc and Jake within that discussion of on-screen portrayals of autism.
But if Steven is meant to be on the spectrum, Marc and Jake should be recognized as being on the spectrum as well.
To treat Steven as the only alter who is autistic can inadvertently raise the specter (pun intended) of a harmful and outdated theory on the cause of autism.
So, I want to address two questions: What does (and doesn’t) cause autism? And why are Marc and Jake also on the spectrum if Steven is?
1. Autism Is Epigenetic:
Autism is a genetically inherited neurological variation. It is epigenetic, meaning that there are both genetic and environmental factors that affect each individual’s experience of autism, but you can’t “become” autistic without the genetic factors being present. And if you do have the epigenetic makeup for autism, it is likely that you will have some degree of autistic experience. We still don’t know exactly what this epigenetic makeup is, and I for one hope that we never find out, because Autism $peaks is ready with pitchforks and a eugenics campaign to remove us from humanity as soon as this discovery is made.
Autism’s etiology is not trauma-based. In other words, traumatic experiences can’t “make” someone autistic. However, back in the 1940s, Freudian psychiatrists Bruno Bettelheim and Leo Kanner came up with the “refrigerator mother” theory of autism (they applied it to schizophrenia, as well). They believed that if a mother was neglectful or abusive towards a young child and withheld her love during a critical developmental period, she could cause her child to become autistic. They believed that autistic people could be “cured” of their autism with the right amount of psychoanalysis. These psychiatrists and their disciples subjected countless autistic people to this “treatment” (i.e., torture) for decades.
The “refrigerator mother” theory of autism (and schizophrenia) has since been disproven. The theory was finally rejected in the 1990s when studies of identical twins showed that autism has a high degree of heritability (current research shows that autism’s heritability may be as high as 90%). If you are autistic, the environment (i.e., the people, places, and things around you) will shape your experience of autism, but your environment alone can’t “make” you autistic if you don’t have the genetic predisposition for it.
2. If a System Is Autistic, Each Alter Can Have a Unique Experience of Autism:
To frame all of this within the context of Moon Knight, Wendy Spector’s abuse couldn’t “cause” autism within Marc’s system. To put it more bluntly, trauma couldn’t “make” one alter autistic (i.e., Steven), while the rest of the system remained completely allistic.
I know that a lot of you know this; I’ve just seen some troubling posts about this online from people who are neither a system nor autistic, and I needed to say something. Steven isn’t “the MCU’s first canonically autistic superhero” — the systemis.
If we describe Steven as autistic, it’s important to acknowledge Marc, Jake, and the other alters within the system as autistic, as well. They would each have their own unique experiences of autism.
Now, there is a whole other discussion to be had about whether the writers and directors of Moon Knight knew this (that’s a big topic for another time). However, my understanding from listening to Oscar Isaac’s interviews and watching his performance is that his intent was to portray the system as neurodivergent, and not just Steven.
As portrayed in the show, Steven seems to do the least amount of masking (i.e., learned behaviors that hide autistic traits in order to protect the individual from harm), which makes him “appear” more autistic to an outside observer.
Within Marc’s portrayal, he seems to have learned to mask more consistently (which would make sense, since he protects Steven), and so he behaves in a way that could be interpreted as more allistic.
As for Jake, it’s hard to tell his degree of masking, since we see him for only a few brief scenes. But extrapolating from his role as a protector in the system, it’s possible that he has learned to mask quite effectively, as well.
As we grow older, many of us autistics learn to mask quite convincingly, myself included. Masking is exhausting, and I hate it, but for me it is what is necessary to have a job. A few people that I work with know that I’m autistic, but most don’t, and I’m careful about who I tell. It also helps that I run my own business, and so I have some say in the clients that I choose to work with.
In the future, I want to talk about scenes from the series that spoke to me as an autistc person, and I’ll include Steven, Marc, and Jake in that analysis. There are so many moments where Oscar Isaac makes character choices that resonate with me from an autistic perspective. But that’s for another time. Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. :P
