In South Korea, the autistic heroine of a Netflix series arouses many reactions
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Some consider fiction Extraordinary Attorney Woo, broadcast on Netflix, is a “fantasy”. Others are happy that she can raise awareness about this little-known disorder in the country.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo has become the streaming platform’s most-watched non-English-language series for over a month, following in the footsteps of another South Korean phenomenon, Squid Game. The members of the influential K-pop group BTS are fans of it, to the point of posting a video of the characteristic greeting between Young-Woo and his best friend which made the rounds on social media.
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The sixteen episodes follow the journey of a rookie lawyer whose disorder helps her craft brilliant solutions to legal puzzles but lands her in situations of social isolation. Lawyer Woo Young-woo appears extremely intelligent and exhibits visible signs of autism such as echolalia – the precise repetition of words or phrases, often out of context.
A believable character?
Lead actress Park Eun-bin, 29, says she was initially hesitant to accept the role, aware of the influence the series could have on the perception of people with autism. “I felt I had a moral responsibility as an actress“, she told AFP. “I knew the show would inevitably have an impact on people with autism and their families. (…) It was the first time that I had no idea what to do, how to express things, while I was reading the script“, she recalls.
This storyline has effectively sparked a substantive debate about autism in South Korea. Some families with autistic people call the series pure “fancyand consider his character unbelievable. For many individuals with autism spectrum disorder, succeeding like Me Woo would come back for “a child to win an Olympic medal in cycling without having yet learned to walk“Explains to a local media Lee Dong-ju, mother of an autistic child.
Public awareness
If Woo Young-woo is unquestionablya fictional character created to maximize dramatic effecther story is actually truer than many South Koreans think, observes psychiatry professor Kim Eui-jung at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital. About a third of people with autism spectrum disorder have average or above-average intelligence, she adds, and may not show visible autistic features.
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“Public awareness and understanding of high-functioning autism is very limited in South Korea», Analyzes Kim Hee-jin, professor of psychiatry at the Chung-Ang University Hospital in Seoul. The general public sees autism as “a disorder that involves severe intellectual disability“, she observes, which contributes to the general lack of diagnosis and care. Tracking started at a young age can help people with autism notfeel guilty for the difficulties they encounter (…) for example in forming and maintaining friendships“.
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