Autism in Media, pt.2: Heartbreak High

At this point, if you're active in the autism community and you've not heard of Heartbreak High, then where have you been?

I'm joking of course, i'm sure there are people who haven't. But I think this show has already very much solidified itself as a very important piece of media in the Autistic community, being one of the first shows to have an autistic actor play an autistic role.

This show is constantly being praised and will go down in autism history for it's representation.

But is it perfect?

That is the question I aim to answer here.

This will be a little different from the last post. I'm not going to give a full synopsis of the show like I did for the last one,

A. because this show is 3 seasons rather than 2, and despite having less episodes per season, somehow feels much, much longer. I guess for touch, the first season wasn't so plot heavy.

B. because our autistic character, quinni, is not the protagonist of the series. She is a main character, but the main plot is kind of irrelevant to most of what we're going to touch on here today.

I do highly recommend you watch it, regardless of what conclusion I come to about the autism representation. I think it's generally a good show in many aspects, and has other great representation in it too, including asexual representation, which, as an asexual myself I love.

Heartbreak High is kind of like Sex Education's shorter, australian, slightly darker and, in my opinion, slightly better cousin.

Certainly proceed with caution if you are someone who is sensitive to sexual content - it has it's fair share. It also has a lot of darker themes to it as well, so of course, check doesthedogdie.com for triggers. It's really easy to forget how dark this show can get, and then it suddenly slaps you round the face with it. Which I personally love, but I know others won't be into that, so... proceed with caution!

Instead of giving a full plot synopsis, I'm gonna try and give a sort of character summary of who quinni is, and her main plot points.

Who is Quinni?

Quinn "Quinni" Gallager-Jones is a teenager at Hartley High in Sydney, Australia. She is, of course, autistic, and a lesbian (or at least queer - I don't know if she's ever explicitly labelled as a lesbian but she really only ever dates other girls, and that seems to be the label most of the fanbase use for her). She is best friends with Darren, who is non-binary.

In terms of her Autistic profile, I guess, she is lower support needs, goes to conventional school, is verbal - if anything she's on the hyperverbal side - and goes through life relatively independently. She has a special interest in a fantasy book series called Angeline of the Underworld, and also animals, specifically frogs. She is hypersensitive to sound, and is often shown wearing headphones, especially when overstimulated. She is blunt and straight forward, often takes things literally. She has an eclectic fashion sense, often wearing a lot of sparkles and stickers for make up, a lot of fun hairclips, and wears bright coloured clothing. She's sometimes shown to like having clear routines and schedules, especially for big events. She is stated to be relatively high masking, which she "drops" for a period in season 2 (more on that later).

She is your typical, spritely, manic pixie dream girl type of autistic person. Often seen jumping and happy stimming, or rambling about her interests.

quinni displaying the textbook 'T-rex arms'

She becomes relevant to the plot after the protagonist - Amerie - is suddenly ditched by her best friend - Harper - with no explanation. She's then sort of "adopted" by Darren and Quinni, who help her to figure things out.

The main plot point for quinni in season 1 pertains to her relationship with Sasha - your typical teenage social justice warrior who maybe holds a bit of a moral high ground despite not being so perfect as they may portray themselves as. Sasha is not aware that quinni is autistic, and after a sort of failed date, gets mad at quinni for seeming disinterested at which point quinni comes out to her as autistic.

Sasha of course then tries to be accommodating for quinni, but doesn't do the best job - more on that later.

Quinnis main plot in season 2 is her obsession with solving the mystery of "bird psycho" - someone who is tormenting Amerie with dead birds and various other hurtful pranks. Quinni goes all in on investigating who it may be, to the extent of having a whole red-string setup in her room. She starts to use this as a coping mechanism to deal with all the change happening around her that she can't keep up with, and this then causes conflict when Amerie tries multiple times to get her to drop it. Darren tells her to stop catering to the rest of the world, to which she "drops" her mask (which to me felt more like just being a bit of a grump and ghosting everyone, if anything it felt like she was masking more just in a different way... but more on that later.)

She ends the season with being voted as school captain and saving Amerie and Harper from a burning building. And she then appoints Sasha as her vice captain, for some reason.

Quinni's main arc in season 3 shows her trying to get a scholarship for Uni in vetinary medicine, and falling in love with a new girl called Taz. However, earlier on in the season, Taz screwed Quinni over multiple times, which leads to Quinni being refused the scholarship, and she doesn't find out this was thanks to Taz's antics until much later. Somehow, Quinni forgives Taz and they end up together, which I wasn't the biggest fan of, but that's just my personal opinion.

And now, lets get onto the meat of this post - the representation.

The representation

This show and Quinni as a character have definitely been praised for its representation, but is it worthy of all that praise?

Well, in my opinion.... not quite?

By all means it's not bad, and it's some of the best we've had in modern autism rep history, but I certainly don't think it's as good as it could have been. It still has it's issues. And thus, a part of me thinks it's a bit over-praised. Sure, it deserves praise, but that doesn't mean its immune to criticism too. There's still things it could have done better.

I think people are quick to praise it for the fact that Quinni is portrayed by an openly autistic actor, but what a lot of people tend to gloss over in these types of criticisms, is the writing. A show with an autistic character can hire an autistic actor, sure, but that doesn't mean anything if it's not written well (I think the show 'Patience' is a very good example of that, but i'll get more into that in a future post!). And honestly, these days, there is little excuse to not cast autistic actors, at least in western countries like America, UK and Australia.

But to start with the positives - what has this show done well (aside from hiring an autistic actor)?

Funnily enough I think in pointing out the positives, I think I have to point to specific episodes or scenes, rather than pointing out general character traits or development, and I don't really know if that's a good sign or a bad one.

I think almost every autistic person who's seen this show will agree that the best episode, at least for quinni, was season 1, episode 6.

That whole episode focuses a lot on Quinni, and is in many ways the climax of her character arc for that season. In this episode, Quinni goes to a book signing for Angeline of the Underworld - her special interest.

She has the day all planned out to a t - knows all the bus routes she needs to take, and has everything prepared well in advance. Then, a spanner is thrown in the works as Sasha chooses to insert herself into this day. She basically volunteers herself to go with Quinni to this book signing, which is the first point of contention.

She says that her friend Missy can drive them, rather than having to get the bus, but Quinni already has all the bus routes planned, so she refuses, though Sasha doesn't seem all that happy about it.

Then on the bus, sasha suddenly stops, saying theres a great ice cream place here and they should get off the bus and get some.

Of course, Quinni is thrown very off guard, but basically has no choice but to get off as she's dragged by Sasha into this ice cream shop. When Sasha asks what she wants, Quinni replies, quietly and sheepishly, "I don't really feel like ice cream."

Ouccchhh. I feel that. This whole scene is so well acted, honestly. It so perfectly portrays that uncomfortable anxiety of having all your plans thrown off.

But that's not it - Sasha is then interrupted in ordering by an old friend recognising her, which then of course leads to a long conversation (which also just generally pisses me off, finish your order first, man! then finish your conversation with this friend.). The whole time Quinni watches awkwardly with that painful feeling of being left out. Again. Ouch.

Back on the bus, now sat between Sasha and her old friend, and already being worked up from the plans being thrown off, Quinni starts to get overstimulated, and pulls her headphones out. To which Sasha and her friend give awkward side eyes, and Sasha quips "she's kind of like.... on the spectrum"

eugh. That's why I hate that phrase these days. Always used as a euphemism as if autistic is some dirty word. And the looks Sasha and her friend share here are just... so well acted. I never know how to describe it, but if you know That Look™️then you know.

They make it to the book signing, and Quinni is of course excited to see all the fans dressed up in cosplay. She rambles excitedly about the book to an old friend who's also there in cosplay, while sasha stands to the side doing, quite frankly, a terrible job at pretending to care.

The whole time throughout the book signing, Sasha is stood off to the side, scrolling on her phone, rolling her eyes, like some bored parent who's only there because they have to be.

On the bus home, Quinni excitedly rambles about how she has now been inspired to be a writer. Sasha looks up with a very annoyed expression, and replies "and I wanna get pissed." To which, Quinni of course explains that she can't deal with a party right now.

Sasha continues to act as if she simply had to be at this book signing despite never being told she had to be there. She exclaims "I feel like i'm always doing these things for you but what about me, huh?"

Ooooooh brother. I hate (season 1) sasha with all my guts.

It's clear to me that the intention with sasha in this episode was to portray that she feels an obligation to be a caregiver for Quinni. Like she needs to be by her side all the time, no matter how much Quinni insists she's fine and can do this on her own. Sasha assumes that because she is autistic, that she is incapable. Despite the fact that we've been shown before that Quinni is perfectly capable, and regularly goes on outings, to parties etc. without needing to be coddled.

This quite perfectly shows Sasha's double standard, and one that is very realistic to the real world. Sasha, your typical leftist, social justice warrior who claims to be morally perfect, is also very ignorant. She knows nothing about autism, and as a result, ends up being pretty ableist to Quinni.

Is sashas ignorance here perhaps a little over-done? Maybe. But I can't say it's entirely unrealistic.

With this day, that she'd planned out to be perfect, ending on a sour note, Quinni can't handle it anymore, and starts melting down as soon as she gets home.

I can't really speak for the accuracy of the meltdown scene because I don't tend to have meltdowns like that, but general concensus online says it's relatively accurate. At least as accurate as acting out a situation of such emotional vulnerability - that you often can't remember afterwards - can be.

Over the next few episodes we see Quinni in full verbal shutdown, not able/refusing to talk. (maybe refusing isn't the best word, makes it sound fully intentional out of pettiness or something, we all know that's not true) While this is not something I experience (at least not to the extent shown where it lasts several days), I can at least appreciate this tiny tiny bit of "non-verbal"/verbal shutdown representation.

Later we see Quinni communicate with Darren via writing in a notebook, writing 'Am I too much?', to which Darren replies "yes, but you're my too-much"

This is a very sweet scene which I think a lot of people appreciated. And I can appreciate it, though I honestly don't think i've ever in my life thought "am I too much?". For me it's always been "am I not enough?" But even though I can't relate to it personally, I can still appreciate how important that scene is/has been for a lot of other autistic people.

Another scene that a lot of people find relatable comes in season 2 episode 5. Quinni's friends try to cheer her up (after she's recovering from a snake bite), by taking her to the zoo for her birthday, and they buy her a new phone after her old one is stolen by the mysterious antagonist of the season.

At first quinni is excited that they found her phone, but quickly realises its not her phone, it's just the same type, and her excitement diminishes. She only wanted to find her phone because it would help solve the mystery.

The others insist that she needs to drop this mystery and move on, and she breaks out into a rambling speech about how that was her way of coping with all the change happening around her, and as a shared interest with all her friends who have so many other things happening in their lives, and now she's "Told that i'm doing that wrong too" and storms off.

Her and Darren go off and chat, Quinni expressing frustration that things are moving too fast, while Darren doesn't have many suggestions to help, other than "Just stop" (referring to masking). To Which Quinni says "fine".

I'm including this scene here while i'm talking about the "positives" mostly just because this is the one scene I see spread around the most as "the best autism representation", but I find it a bit confusing and never really know how to feel about it.

I can understand and relate to that feeling of the world moving too fast, or feeling left behind your peers because they're all talking about adult things, moving out, relationships, etc. And now that they're trying to take away the last bit of connection she felt with her friend group, I can understand how that would be upsetting to Quinni.

In chatting with Darren, when she says she just wants everything to slow down, Darren's response is (paraphrasing) "well things change. We can't not grow as people just because it's hard on you. Maybe you need to find healthier ways of coping that aren't gonna get you killed"

And well... yeah. I do think they're right on that one. This is one of those scenarios where I think it is mostly on us as autistic people to deal with the change, to hold others back from progressing in life just because we're afraid of being left out or can't handle the change is not really fair. Sure, people around us should try and at least support us through the change but they can't let our resistance to the change stop them.

Darren then goes on to say "the world can't always play by your rules" which is pretty harsh I suppose, but again, I don't necessarily think is wrong. And then quinni responds with "I'm always playing by your rules, acting as if they make even the tiniest bit of sense when they don't"

Which of course is alluding to masking. I'm guessing by "your rules" she's referring to a more general "you" rather than specifically Darren.

.... Yeah I just don't really know what to say about this scene. I guess I don't feel as much as a connection to it as someone who is lower masking. It doesn't speak to me in the same way that the bus scene did.

I guess maybe there just feels like a bit of a disconnect between what Quinni is actually upset about, to it then leading to masking. I feel like in writing they just wanted to find a way to represent masking/unmasking respectively, and so they shoe-horned it in a bit. There weren't many points in the show before this scene where I really felt like Quinni was putting real effort into 'playing by the worlds rules'. That's not to say that she wasn't, but there was never any real representation of actual masking from Quinni's point of view (one could argue the date scene in season 1 could be considered masking, but i feel like that portrayed the experience of sensory overload more than the experience of trying to push it all down and mask). I guess for all the times we're told Quinni is high masking, it's not really shown in any explicit way.

And then after this scene, for an episode or two we see a version of Quinni that is "unmasked", but to me it felt less like genuine unmasking and more just pure ambivilence to everything, out of pure spite. Honestly, unmasked Quinni felt more masked to me than Quinni in the rest of the show. It felt like she was putting on this act of pushing everyone away - she didn't really want to, she was just frustrated at everyone. Which isn't to say that I don't think she should have acted that way, I just don't really like the idea that people will watch it and think that's what unmasking is. That unmasking is isolating yourself, intentionally ignoring people, being short with everyone.

Unmasking shouldn't be "I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me anymore, you can go suck it, I'm just gonna do what I want and no one can stop me." Unmasking is about letting your natural autistic traits out and not holding things in anymore, but that doesn't mean you have to show everyone else in your life the middle finger.

I do feel like the show does eventually resolve this and Quinni does apologise to the others, so that helps. But yeah, I don't relate to basically any of Quinni's storyline in season 2. I don't feel the same connection to it that a lot of other autistic people seem to.

There isn't as much to say about the representation in season 3 as Quinni's main storyline isn't directly tied to autism in any way. Which I would say is it's own win. As much as I do love a nice storyline that shows autistic traits in artistic and meaningful ways (I would be a hypocrite to criticise these types of stories), autistic characters can also exist outside of just being autistic - and this is a rarity in autistic media. It's starting to become more common, which I love to see. Characters that just happen to be autistic, rather than characters that are just autistic and basically nothing else.

One small petty qualm I have with the representation in this show generally, which is most likely just a me thing, and isn't necessarily something it does wrong, is that Quinni is very social and is frequently seen going out to parties and clubs and other similar environments, which I personally would never touch with a ten foot pole. On the one hand, it's great that we can show that autistic people aren't always complete social recluses who cannot handle the slightest sensory input, I also can't help but feel like Quinni's tolerance for sensory input is a bit inconsistent. She's always wearing headphones in noisy environments, except when it's in a club where it would be inconvenient to the plot.

But anyway, it's just a personal qualm because personally, I absolutely could never be as social and out-there as Quinni. I have never been to any clubs or (adult) parties and never intend to. They are my personal nightmare. But I do know there are autistic people who are very sensory seeking who love them and find them very stimulating. And I guess, I have been to many concerts and love them no matter how loud it gets so maybe I shouldn't be complaining....

But I think the one big problem with Quinni as autism representation - which has been pointed out by many, including the actress, Chloe Hayden, herself - Quinni is a very palatable autistic person. She is your typical 'manic pixie dream girl', just now with the added label of autistic. She is (supposedly) high masking, low support needs, cute and quirky.

And of course, such autistic people do exist and are just as valid in their identity as autistic as any of the rest of us. But beyond her one meltdown and proceeding verbal shutdown, and the short period of (imo)not-really-unmasking, she is your picture-perfect cute autistic girl who you can easily love.

I think this show does a good job at creating complex characters that exist in the moral grey. For example - Sasha is portrayed as very morally superior, but its to the point that it becomes a flaw, and it pushes her to do some not-so-moral things. Amerie, our protagonist, is always doing bad things, but the whole story basically revolves around her trying to fix her wrong-doings, and learning to own up and apologise for them. Darren is a great friend to Quinni, and a great partner to ca$h, but they were honestly pretty acephobic to ca$h in season 1 and took a lot of growing to accept that and navigate that.

Even the characters who do objectively bad things can, at least at points, become very likeable. I think the show does a great job at that. But Quinni?...

I almost feel like the writers were scared of the implications of giving an autistic character any negative traits, showing her genuinely messing up in any way. Quinni is almost too perfect. Teachers pet type. Which yes, a lot of autistic people are generally quite goody-two-shoes and always following the rules, of course, but in the context of this show, it makes Quinni stand out as almost too good of a person. In all conflicts we see her in throughout the show, we're always rooting for her. She's always portrayed as the one in the right.

And I think this just makes her slightly less 3 dimensional then all the other characters around her. Which is disappointing, because she could have had great potential to be just as complex as all the rest. I wish writers weren't so afraid of letting their autistic characters be bad sometimes. Sure we don't want to be portraying all autistic people as villains, but maybe it would also help the community's endless battle of "we're not a morally perfect monolith", if media could show that.

But I suppose, from some of the reactions garnered by Quinni in season 2 when she started to get a little less "perfect angel", maybe this perfectness is necessary to lure them into accepting us. Because they seemed to presume that as soon as she did something ever so slightly unsavoury, that she was scum of the earth. If the neurotypical population isn't ready to handle nuanced autistic characters, maybe we shouldn't give them any yet.

But honestly, I think that is the only issue I have with the show. While I did come into this blog saying "this show isn't as perfect as everyone says it is" - and I do still believe that - that's not to say its bad at all. In terms of modern autism representation, it's very good. And while one can criticise the "manic pixie dream girl" palatable version of autism it presents, I think sometimes we have to accept that these things need to be represented in order for neurotypical society to start getting it. Sometimes you have to overcorrect, or accept the small steps for what they are.

If having an autistic character that is palatable helps to build up further understanding and acceptance of autistic people, even if only in small ways, I call that a win.

Quinni is a stepping stone for society to see that autistic people exist outside of the young savant stoic genius stereotype, and for writers to see that autistic characters can do things beyond just being autistic.

So, do I recommend this show? If you can handle it's themes, then absolutely. The representation is some of the best we have out there right now, and autism stuff aside, it's just a good show that's easy to get into, with many other loveable characters.

If you've seen it, let me know your thoughts! Otherwise, I'll see you in the next one!