#brön

[norrlands-nonsense]

like this, tit.

[clatterbane]

Nordic Noir and Autism

Kari Sorjonen, played by Ville Virtanen in Bordertown/Sorjonen. Congrats to me for making the vaguest title I ever have on this site! I love

I'm just trying to rewatch Bordertown after Netflix pulled it here, and ran across this.

And that’s what I love about these characters. They are flawed people with human qualities that are well represented and valuable to not just autistic people, not anyone viewing. You might not know anyone like them, but autistics have picked up on their characteristics and feel a kinship with them. They aren’t presented as robots or sexless superhumans, they are real people in society that have a whole personality that isn’t just their “quirks”.

I’ve seen a better ‘accidental’ representation of autism from these two shows than I have from Australian, English, and North American shows combined! Sure, they both have the same job which can be seen as typical of their gifts, but the way they have been written and performed has really touched me and has made me feel respected and included. I urge you to watch both if you can (subs are better than the dubs but you do you). I know Bordertown is on Netflix and if you’re Australian, The Bridge is on Stan.

I tend to like Nordic Noir anyway, but yeah I think this does have something to do with why I particularly enjoyed both of these series.

Sofia Helin's portrayal of Saga honestly just kept reminding me a lot of my aunt if she were from my generation, Swedish, and had taken a rather different path in life. (And no freaking wonder I felt like I understood her better even as a kid than a lot of other people seemed to. We used to be close, before she got her mad on at me years ago.)

Though I personally end up resonating more with Kari Sorjonen. And it's probably just as well--for so many reasons--that I never even considered going cop as a career option.

But yeah, both of these characters do just come across as "some people are like that" portrayals of actual people getting on with their own complicated lives. (And, honestly, within social contexts where coming across as kinda standoffish at times really does seem less likely to get in your way so much as in some other places.) Some of us really are Like That, and the ones who can keep it together enough do seem to often be drawn into certain fields.