First let me say that this show has some of my favourite Korean actors, so I was quite excited to check it out. I'm always a bit nervous when it comes to autistic representation, because being autistic myself, most of the time they can be quite bad and traumatic. But for Woo YoungWoo it’s both good and bad… so here’s my brutal opinion:

Just like so many other films and series with autistic representation, a lot of it is stereotypical, problematic and strait up ableist. It’s quite easy to tell that that Park Eun Bin isn’t on the autism spectrum. being autistic myself, it was easily recognizable as a neuro-typical actor doing inverted-masking* to look autistic. Which is really wrong, and can be extremely harmful. But let’s say that her performance was perfect representation of autism. Would that make it okay not to hire an autistic actor ?

And it’s yet again another autistic-savant. Savants represents probably around 50 to 75 people who are on the autism spectrum on the planet. Yes, people, not precent. Woo YoungWoo being a yet another savant makes it seem like there are way more of us special autistics.

The world is already extremely discriminating agents the autistic community, both in front and behind the camera. Some of this discrimination is done openly, but a lot of it is also built the groundworks of society, work hours, expectations, lack of accommodations, etc. I’m speaking from experience and I’m high-masking. The excuse for casting a more famous non-autistic actor over an autistic actor to playing an autistic character is usually to try to get more viewership, but could you imagine a studio casting this way with ANY other minority group ?

It needs to be a universal rule for studios that if a show has an autistic character, you cast an autistic actor. There may be some rare situations where casting a non-disabled actor in a disabled role might be necessary, but that isn’t the case for Woo YoungWoo. All this does is communicate that big studios believe autistic people are not capable enough to be actors, even when we are portraying our own autism. For me, it’s absurd to think a show have the intention of elevating autistic voices and then refuse to let an autistic character be played by an autistic actor.

Now, sometimes it is challenging because a writer or director who isn’t autistic may be the one pitching the show, but it is then the studio’s responsibility to make sure that the autistic people are hired into the other key positions. Could you imagine if I (a white teen from Norway) pitched a show where the story cantered around Korean culture and then no one on the production team, nor the actors who played the Korean characters were actually Korean ?

Woo YoungWoo is a very docile, autistic. She’s highly attractive, acquiescent and she’s infantilized and treated like a pet by almost everyone. And that’s because her autism is docile. The way her autism manifests isn’t disruptive, she doesn’t have to miss work because of overload, she doesn’t have to excuse herself from meetings, she doesn’t have major emotional responses even to incredibly emotional cases or when people are screaming at her. Her autistic traits barely need any accommodation at all. All of her autistic traits are maybe weird, but still cute and adorable. So, everyone wants to make her their pet.

Another big problem is the Korean title of the show “이상한 변호사 우영우” literally means “weird Attorney Woo YoungWoo” that doesn’t sit well with me. And I have criticism of the English subtitles. I don’t know how it’s said in Korean, but they chose to translate everything in person-first language and the majority of English speaking, autistic communities prefer identity-first language. I preferer to say “I am autistic” or “they are an autistic person” rather than “I have autism” or “they are a person with autism”. Saying I have autism makes it sound like an illness, rather than what it actually is.

I’ve gone over the things I dislike, so I might as well talk about some things I did find likable, like looking at it through the culture of Korea the show is quite ground-breaking.
The first awesome thing about Extraordinary Attorney Woo is that they’re portraying autism in a woman. Autism has largely been depicted as a male condition. Women are far more likely to go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. The fact that they chose a woman for the lead who’s autistic is pretty revolutionary.

They also didn’t make her two-dimensional character. She struggles with questions of morality as she has to represent clients of questionable character and she loses cases and makes mistakes. Even with her savant, her photographic memory, doesn’t make her infallible and this creates such a complex character. When it comes the other characters around her there’s a bit of a mix bag, but in every episode there’s at least one great moment of some kind of autistic solidarity or understanding or ableism being called out.

They are showing the spectrum of autism through different characters, although western culture is in a different place compared to Korea when it comes to this, so my criticism is that there showing a spectrum of stereotypical autism traits, but it is still pretty amazing that a Korean show is choosing to show multiple autistic characters so that they are depicting some spectrum.

But the most amazing thing is YoungWoo and JunHo’s relationship. From the beginning JunHo is supportive without judgement. That alone is rare. He exabits, curiosity and looks for ways he can provide accommodation for starting in their very first meetings. From there he never expresses any kind of pity or thinking of her less than, and his feelings for her are obviously from a place of just general affection. He sees her and treats her as his equal and he doesn’t treat her that way because of her abilities. But another amazing thing is that he pursues her romantically.

But just because these things are grate, doesn’t mean I necessarily liked the series. I believe in acknowledging the good in something, especially when we’re stuck with it. The show exists, it’s really popular, I can’t change that. So, I want to talk about the things that are good about it. But we also need to acknowledge the very real and very harmful things that it’s going.