Mel King and the Double Empathy Problem
Something I've been musing on a lot this season is the way that Mel and the rest of The Pitt crew interact with each other, and also the fan response/interpretations of those interactions. It's such a deep and interesting facet of the writing, and of my experience of her as a character overall.
Disclaimer before we start: I'm going off my (terrible) memory of scenes while I write this, so if I make mistakes please correct me :)
Although it's not explicitly stated that Mel is autistic, there is a lot of deliberate autism-coding in the way she's written and portrayed. We don't know if she's diagnosed, or if she herself is aware that she's autistic, but I think at this point it's accepted cannon. We see her stimming, her sensory differences, and at times her preference for routine behaviour and thinking. We also see a LOT of communication differences, and that's what I'm going to focus on in this thesis post.
Autism and Social Communication
To get DSM-5 about it, the A-criteria in autism refer to "impairments" (but from here on in I'll be using neuroaffirming language unless quoting directly) in social-emotional reciprocity, non-verbal communication and social relationships. Mel has differences in all 3 criteria. The DSM is famously deficits-based and as such puts the responsibility for any breakdowns in communication onto the autistic person.
Fortunately things are changing, and in the literature as well as in clinics, there's been a lot of discussion about something called the double empathy problem...
The Double Empathy Problem
Simply put, all communication is an interactive, dynamic two-way process. Both parties bring their own experiences, ways of thinking and understanding, and styles of communicating to the exchange. All of these things will impact how information is coded and then de-coded by the two people communicating with each other.
Following on from this, research has shown that information is communicated more successfully between autistic/autistic and non-autistic/non-autistic conversational partners than it is between autistic/non-autistic partners. This suggests that breakdowns in communication occur because of the differences in how autistic and non-autistic people code and de-code information, rather than because of an "impairment" in the way that autistic people communicate (in very basic terms, autistic people find it easier to communicate with other autistic people, and non-autistic people with non-autistic people. Communication between the two is more difficult). This is the double empathy problem - the breakdown isn't happening inside the autistic person, it's happening between the two neurotypes.
Mel's Communication Style
Mel is so socially motivated! Probably more so than anyone else in the pitt! She's forever striking up conversations, sharing about her experiences and reaching out socially to others.
And yet for two seasons she's been constantly cut off or straight up ignored (except by Langdon, but let's hold onto that thought for now).
This happens for lots of reasons. On Mel's side she takes jokes literally and then overshares, she mistimes comments, she doesn't understand sarcasm (which makes her conversations with Santos absolutely amazing), she talks about her niche interests at inconvenient times.
And from the other side, the people around her are confused by her enthusiasm (high-fiving Robby is a personal favourite), they don't give her time to express her thoughts, they don't consider her literal style of thinking when they speak to her (e.g. saying "do you want to talk about your deposition?" when she's been specifically told that's not allowed).
It's nobody's fault that these breakdowns keep occurring. It's the double empathy problem in action.
This is what makes Mel stand out as an autistic character to me. In most media I can think of, breakdowns in communication are written to happen on the autistic character's side. They're very DSM deficit based in that sense. There's this sense that the autistic person is behaving in an autistic way and the other characters are thinking isn't this cute/annoying/weird. The non-autistic character is always written to be communicating "correctly" while the autistic character is blunt/rude etc.
But The Pitt really challenges this. They have the breakdowns occur on both sides. In fact, they more frequently have the breakdowns occur on the non-autistic character's side, they make the non-autistic characters the rude ones and Mel the considerate one. Which is honestly so amazing to see. This does so much to help avoid stereotyping Mel.
Frank is written in contrast to the other characters when it comes to interacting with Mel. We see the double empathy problem at an extreme when he first interacts with the autistic man with the sprained ankle (whose name I cannot for the life of me remember!!). But by watching Mel with the same patient, he learns that he needs to adjust his communication style. And honestly props to Frank for picking up on this so quickly. It speaks a lot to who he is as a person.
When it comes time to treating Becca, the issue of double empathy is all but gone. By removing his own expectations of what a patient-doctor interaction should look like, he is able to meet Becca at her own level. He takes her comment "don't you dare say you'll be back in a minute" not as a challenge, but as what it's intended to be - a request to speak literally. In turn, Becca is able to meet Langdon where he is and learns about her right to confidentiality, and is comfortable enough to advocate for herself with him.
And it happens all the time between Mel and Langdon! The double empathy problem does not exist between them! They each empathise with the others' style of communication and consistently adjust for that. Their interactions are so beautiful because they are truly two-sided and dynamic. This contrast is what makes their relationship stand out so much because that doesn't happen for Mel with any other character. And all credit to the writing team because wow wow wow this level of representation of avoiding deficit-based interpretations of autism in media is just unheard of!!
Mel, the Audience and Double Empathy
One of my favourite things about The Pitt is the way it invokes such interesting responses in its audience. Mel is a true fan favourite. People love her (with very good reason, me too!!). But sometimes I really do see the double empathy problem happening in fan interpretations of certain scenes. The big one for me is the scene between Mel and Ellis regarding the deposition.
I've seen this being read as highly lesbian-coded (fair enough) and "just what Mel needed to hear!" (I'm less convinced). In fact I think it's a great example of the kind of misunderstanding that occurs between autistic and non-autistic people. I've spoken about it somewhere before, but essentially my thoughts are this: as an autistic woman, watching this scene was awkward and uncomfortable (not a negative!). Because Mel had spent every conversation up until that point telling people she was not allowed to talk about her deposition. That's a very clear rule, and one she very much seemed to take as given with no room for flexibility. But then along comes Ellis who tells her "we're not talking about it, I am". Which... that's still talking about it?? They're talking. Together. About the deposition. It made me feel very stressed. I read Mel as feeling very stressed about it.
But lots of people saw that scene and praised Ellis's approach (and fair enough, you can interpret things however you want and I think there's enough on screen there to make it a valid interpretation). But I think fundamentally this is another case of there being a mismatch between how an autistic person might de-code the information, and how a non-autistic person would.
And I dunno. That's so interesting to me. How do you write a scene in which there's a mismatch, which also causes a mismatch for the viewers? It's very meta and very cool and I love The Pitt so much.
Anyway this is super long and possibly interesting to only me, but I've had so much fun writing about it. Thanks for reading! :)
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