Drag queening Hans Asperger in new dark comedy

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Ahead of filming taking place in Cardiff later this month, writer Molly Siobhan Parker and producer Dan Trueman talk to Liam O’Dell about the new short film I’m Autistic and Also That B!tch – featuring disgraced autism namesake Hans Asperger in a way which you’ve likely never seen him before.

It’s an unbelievable premise. Asperger, the Austrian physician and name behind the now-retired diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, is to be portrayed as a drag queen in an upcoming short film drawing inspiration from the likes of Jojo Rabbit, Alma’s Not Normal and Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum.

I’m Autistic and Also That B!tch is the semi-autobiographical brainchild of South Wales writer and actor, Molly Siobhan Parker, drawing from her own experiences of receiving an autism diagnosis in her mid-twenties – an experience she describes as being more negative than positive.

“So I had a diagnosis privately, originally, and I’m sure you probably know all about this through your journalism, but […] when you go to the NHS, [they] are saying that they won’t accept the [private] diagnosis, so I had to redo it all on the NHS years later, which was much better,” explains Parker. “It’s definitely a difficult process. There’s a lot of doctors that you meet that are like, ‘it’s your superpower’, and things like that, that are really just treating you like a child, and I think my experiences with post-diagnostic support, isn’t anything. I think when you Google, it’s all geared at children, and I think that’s what I definitely find frustrating.

“There’s a whole bit about it in the film, but a recommendation for post-diagnostic support from the private practice was that I just use online forums for support. So it’s just really silly, and I think it’s just fun to poke fun at that.”

The jokes are not, Parker stresses, aimed at Rayn, the 25-year-old protagonist who she plays in the film. “The jokes aren’t at her, what she’s poking fun at is the neurotypical world around her,” she says. “She’s not the butt of the joke; the neurotypical people are, and they’re the people who are the issue, they’re the people who are saying stupid, unhelpful things.”

So, why a drag queen? “I think it’s kind of snowballed into different things. I think I definitely wanted to have a special interest aspect – not for Hans, just for the piece overall. Originally, I was really into Lizzo at the time I was writing it,” replies Parker, laughing. “That’s kind of where that ‘I’m Autistic, and Also That b***h’ comes from, because she is known for saying ‘I’m 100 per cent that b***h’. So, that’s kind of where that came from, and that just wasn’t working for me.

“My other special interest at the time of writing, was Ru Paul’s Drag Race, so that’s literally where it came from, and when I was going through my diagnosis, I was just watching Drag Race on repeat.”

How fitting, then, that Drag Race alumni Copper Topp is set to appear as Asperger in Parker’s film. Also joining them in the cast is Mark Silcox – known for Man Like Mobeen and being a sidekick to fellow comedian Joe Lycett on his Got Your Back series – who will play Rayn’s dismissive psychiatrist.

“Because Molly’s character, as well, is very much the focus of the story,” adds producer Dan Trueman. “Her outfit and everything is quite colourful and ‘colour poppy’, the rest of the room around her – the neurotypical world around her – is very plain and mundane, and I think Mark’s sort of dry sense of humour and dry tone really fits into that monochrome world, which contrasts very, very well with Molly’s very out there, neurodiverse persona in it.”

Trueman joined the project after being contacted by Parker after they both attended the same Cardiff film festival, with the lead creative team also comprising director Izzy Rabey and director of photography (DOP) Calum Barre.

The film’s producer says Parker’s script really resonated with him.

“My brother was diagnosed autistic when he was very, very young, because, you know, he’s a male, and it’s easier to do that,” says Trueman. “So I’ve always grown up around having a knowledge of autism. I used to go to youth groups with him and meet lots of different people from diverse sort of areas of the spectrum and stuff, so I feel like I’ve always had a bit more of an understanding than, say, like a lot of people I also grew up with, like friends and stuff, in terms of the broadness of the spectrum. Not every autistic person is just Rain Man who’s incredibly good at maths.”

He continues: “There’s a segment in the film where Molly’s character explains the history and Asperger’s as a term and why we don’t use that anymore, and I really enjoyed that part of it, because I remember when I grew up, autism and Asperger’s were almost treated as different. You had autism for the people who maybe struggled a little bit more academically, and Asperger’s, which were for the people who were great at maths and great at science and really academic.

“So that was kind of my understanding of it when I was younger, and then as I grew up a little bit, I remember hearing that was now sort of a negative term, and doing my research and seeing why, and it really surprised me why, but it’s not sort of very common knowledge.”

One of the many controversies surrounding the Austrian physician is his gendering of the very condition to which he put his name.

In his 1944 paper, translated into English by Uta Frith, the scientist proclaimed that “the autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence”, and this later became known as the ‘extreme male brain’ theory put forward by Cambridge academic Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen.

Professor Baron-Cohen later retracted the terminology in favour of referring to it as ‘the empathising-systemising theory’.

I ask both Parker and Trueman whether it’s the autism research industry or film industry that is responsible for past media representation focusing so much on autistic boys, as opposed to autistic women.

“I think that is such a complicated question,” Parker responds. “It’s such a good question […] I think the core probably lies with the science – that’s had a ripple effect. I mean, also, media is just notoriously bad for excluding disabled people and marginalized people anyway, but I think it’s a wide issue.

“If you really think about it,” she continues, “I think the reason that I’m probably late-diagnosed is because of the early research and the Nazi research that is still alive today in our society. I mean, there are obviously other factors as well, but it’s quite interesting to think about how much history has impacted us today.”

Trueman adds: “I think in terms of the science of it, it’s not a solely autistic thing when it comes to medical research in for women. So I think, generally speaking, the medical research when it comes to women is so much further behind than it is with male issues, so when you’ve also got the added factor, for a long time, it was assumed that women couldn’t be autistic, that’s put it behind. Even if we knew from the start that women could be autistic, they would still be behind in terms of research, but add that in, it’s also even further behind.

“And then I think in terms of the film industry, I think it’s getting better now, potentially, but it still not perfect,” he says, “But again, not just autism – I think in general, any sort of social issue or anything to do with disability and stuff, it all tends to have to be something where the person’s the hero, or something where we can kind of laugh at them, but not really understand them. or, you know it, we’re not necessarily interested in seeing just real normal stories.

“So everyone’s got to be kind of like what Molly said in terms of her own experience: ‘it’s your superpower’,” Trueman continues. “So, we only really want to see autistic people if they can solve a problem that will get us to the end result of the film. For example, Rain Man, the fact he can count cards is like his superpower, but someone who is just, ‘I don’t like loud noises, and I feel uncomfortable in this in this space’, isn’t seen as an interesting story for a lot of people. But what that’s neglecting is the fact that that is just a real person in a real situation.

“So there could be more stories that are just, you know, your general, conventional story with an autistic character who just happens to be autistic, rather than that autism having to be the main plot device.”

Trueman also credits a “quite outspoken” creative team for being able to call out anything in the production which seemed diminutive or didn’t hit the right note. “That’s not to say that obviously people won’t, when they do watch it, find it upsetting or find it controversial and think we should have done it a different way,” he says, “but I think to a certain extent, obviously you can’t please everyone. As long as we all feel like we’re doing the right thing – we do – then we can kind of stand behind those decisions that might seem controversial.”

Parker acknowledges her film is going to be controversial, but she’s prepared for that.

“I think not everyone will like it, and that’s OK,” she says. “He is a drag queen in it, and that’s a manifestation of [Rayn’s] special interest being drag queens, so I think that kind of adds another layer as well, with, ‘Hans Asperger wouldn’t want to be a drag queen’. So I think that’s interesting as well. We stick to the facts – except, well, him being in drag – but we stick to the kind of facts that he sent disabled children to be euthanized.

“The scene is set in a classroom, so it is supposed to be like educational. Because the doctor references Asperger’s a lot, and she’s frustrated about that, she references him to bring him in to speak to the audience and let them know the situation.”

“We are very much in that character’s brain,” says Trueman, “so it’s how she sees the world and how she processes the world. Her educating people on the history of Asperger’s, but then doing it through Hans being a drag queen, is almost kind of like how she kind of is coping with going through that information.”

It’s evident the film looks to address the lack of media representation for autistic women as much as it aims to educate audiences on Asperger.