Theorising the neurotypical gaze: autistic love and relationships in The Bridge (Bron/Broen 2011–2018)

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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McDermott, C. (2021). Theorising the neurotypical gaze: autistic love and relationships in The Bridge (Bron/Broen 2011–2018). Medical Humanities, 48(1), 51-62. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2020-011906

Publication date: 27 Jan 2021 Added to AutiHub: 7 Oct 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. Catherine McDermott *

Abstract

In popular media, autistic subjectivity is most often produced through the lens of the neurotypical gaze. Dominant understandings of autism therefore tend to focus on perceived deficits in social communication and relationships. Accordingly, this article has two primary concerns. First, it uses the Danish/Swedish television series The Bridge (Bron/Broen, 2011–2018) and critical responses to the series as examples of how the neurotypical gaze operates, concentrating on the pleasures derived from looking at autism, how autism is ‘fixed’ (Frantz Fanon, 1986) as a socially undesirable subject position, and the self-interested focus of the gaze. Second, it analyses key scenes from the series to expose and challenge the dominance of the neurotypical perspective in scholarly accounts of autistic sexuality and relationality. Using Lauren Berlant’s (2012) work on love, I argue that the non-normative ways of being constructed by the series do not fit easily within neuroconventional frameworks of love and desire. Consequently, autistic expressions of love are rendered both undesirable and illegible to the neurotypical gaze. The article therefore offers a flexible framework for understanding how the neurotypical gaze functions across cultural and academic spheres and gives vital insight into how autistic love and relationships are narratively constructed.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 17 Oct 2026 01:28.

Cited references
76
With a DOI
38
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
35
8 / 76 (10.5%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
35 / 76 (46.1%)
References with detected author names
43 / 76 (56.6%)
Without detected author names
33
Without a structured title
32
Without a stable identifier
32
References with raw author names still to review
30
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
49
From DOI or external metadata
47
From validated raw bibliography text
2
Raw names already validated
2
Raw names still to review
35
13 / 49 (26.5%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 36 / 49 (73.5%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
9 / 49 (18.4%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 9 / 13 (69.2%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 6 / 41 (14.6%).
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