The Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon refers to a cognitive bias wherein an observer learns something new and starts seeing it everywhere. For example, I recently noticed a Rowan tree for the first time, and now the world seems to be overrun with scarlet berries and feathery leaves. I imagine if one had just learned the term ‘Neurodiverse’, a word coined in the late ‘90s to refer to differences in brain function, a trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe would activate such a cognitive bias. The Royal Mile might feel like a world of funhouse mirrors, each turn leading you to yet another show making hay with a questionable ADHD diagnoses gleaned from a Buzzfeed ‘tell us your favorite cakes and we’ll tell you what kind of neurodivergent you are’ quiz. Of course, the thing about cognitive biases is they aren’t really based on reliable evidence.
“I would say the number of Neurodiverse shows are lower this year than the first year we did it,” says Simon Jay of the Neurodiverse Review, which has been the Fringe’s Neurodiverse theatre guide for the last three years. “It’s still only less than five percent of the overall Fringe.”
“I mean, there are two shows about the Gwyneth Paltrow skiing accident this year,” says Laura Cathryn Thurlow, whose show River Time! touches on her ADHD diagnosis and experiences with rejection sensitivity dysphoria. “Both at the Pleasance! Where’s that think piece?”
The piece to which Thurlow refers is one published in The Spectator on 18th August, which names her solo show, and others on the subject of neurodiversity, as ones taking advantage of a trend. The eight-hundred word Gish gallop implies that when these acts aren’t faking it for their fifteen minutes of fame, they are putting themselves in harm’s way by seeking audiences rather than therapists, despite the fact that every one of these performers has a formal diagnosis, many of them for decades.
“When I first read that line in his piece (after I stopped laughing, because – hello! – look at the titles at Fringe and also EVERYTHING IN THE HISTORY OF THEATER AND ART),” Blaire Postman of Lady ADHD wrote in an email, “I wanted to say “Man, you don’t know my life.” I didn’t just work out these issues for the first time ever in this show or on these stages.”
“You write from the scar, not the wound,” Thurlow says, “If I wasn’t ready to be talking about this, I wouldn’t be talking about this. I’m an adult and I’m conscious of what I’m doing.”
“Maybe we have some kind of awareness of ourselves and that’s why we’re putting shows on?” says Jax Braithwaite of Baby Belle: Young, Dumb, and Full of Autism. “It’s very infantilizing to assume that we don’t have our own boundaries and our own self-awareness. It can be very vulnerable putting your work on stage, and it can be raw. But I can deal with that.”
The instinct to infantilize women and non-binary people with neurodivergent diagnoses is almost as strong as to invalidate them entirely. Studies suggest that as many as eighty percent of females with autism are undiagnosed by eighteen due to a lack of understanding of how the condition presents itself in females. Perhaps this is why, when an autistic performer doesn’t present like characters from Rain Man or Young Sheldon, they might get accused of milking the ol’ neurodiverse cash cow.
“I think I’m doing a terrible job if it was my intention to write a piece that would catapult me to fame,” Thurlow says. “I’m writing for people who can relate to me, and I’m trying to create work that I want to exist in the world outside of me. I would have loved to have seen this show ten years ago. It would have saved me a lot of agony. The joy and the relief of discovering this is the thing that’s happening to me and is not just this fault of character that I have- I can overcome it and that has been a huge realization.”
Another troubling part of the article is the seeming conflation of neurodivergence and mental illness, which paints the picture of pitiable creatures in need of rescue. “When people start labeling, calling you stupid, you start to believe it. That has a very, very negative impact on mental health,” says Angus Baskerville, magician and motivational speaker with Autism. “If that’s not tackled soon or later, people may start to self harm. [Problems with] mental health can come from a lack of understanding, but we’re not here to play victim. We’re not here to have a pity party. We’re here to take a broken heart and turn it into art, take our challenges and turn it into opportunity.”
“The idea that you’re too vulnerable because you have a diagnosis and an ability to understand ourselves misunderstands what happensin a lot of art spaces,” says Arielle Dundas, a comedian in Edinburgh with her act Hyperactive. “It’s a vulnerable thing to do a stand-up show. It’s a vulnerable thing to do the Fringe.”
“A lot of people don’t know much about OCD and make a lot of assumptions,” says Olivia Levine, whose show Unstuck has been a major draw at Just the Tonic. “My show isn’t just about OCD, it’s bout being very open about the things I’ve struggled with: my sexual shame, my queer shame, shame as a woman, and how that interacted and intersected with my OCD. That’s an important point, because the intersection of those things is what made things hard. To reduce it to OCD feels problematic and upsetting.”
The problem with the Spectator piece is not limited to its reductive tendencies. The author’s bad faith method of questioning came up with each performer I spoke to.
“Boy, does he want to discredit the reality of many neurodivergent conditions or that they are worthy of artistic exploration,” Postman writes of the author of the Spectator piece, echoing the perceptions of the other performers I interviewed. “That someone might write and perform a piece about neurodivergence – ie. their own real life experiences – that would garner attention is seemingly grotesque to him.”
“I would have never spoken to him if I knew it was an opinion piece,” says Thurlow. “The main thing he wanted to know was why on Earth I was doing this to myself. And I was kind of like… because no one can stop me, and I want to.”
Each of these performers was asked why the expression of their neurodivergence was important, a question that the Spectator piece didn’t see fit to answer. The conclusion in the article, pithily summed up by an Andy Warhol quote, is that performers are using this trend to ensure their fifteen minutes of fame. Warhol, thought now by professionals to have been autistic himself, was also fascinated by how many people see but do not observe. The instinct to speak for people we perceive to be vulnerable is not always useful to act on. There are times when it is best to stay silent, and simply observe.
Why is it important to have neurodiverse voices at the Fringe?
“If people are validated or seen by something in a way that compels them to get help or think more critically about their mental health, I don’t see anything wrong with that. To have more access to language and experiences is great. Autism isn’t one thing. OCD and ADHD are often misunderstood. People come up to me and say, this is the first time I’ve seen this accurately portrayed’.” -Olivia Levine, Unstuck
“It’s just important to hear all kinds of voices EVERYWHERE. Not just because you may have a similar experience, but because the feelings and realizations from anyone’s experience may be enlightening or interesting to you, even if you haven’t had the same exact experiences.”- Blaire Postman, Lady ADHD
“I want to generate empathy. I want to generate understanding, but I also am really specifically writing for women like me. I want other people to see it, but that’s who I’m writing for.” -Laura Cathryn Thurlow, River Time!
“There’s that famous quote, if you’ve met an autistic person, then you’ve met an autistic person. These shows about our experiences really show that. Different people come to it differently. Seeing and hearing the range of different experiences can only make you a kinder, gentler person. Being at the Fringe, you have the opportunity to go into different pocket dimensions, exploring one dimension, having a break for twenty minutes, and then popping into another one. I absolutely love that. It’s something we should embrace.” -Jax Braithwaite, Baby Belle: Young, Dumb, and Full of Autism
“Neurodiverse voices have always been part of the Edinburgh Fringe, it’s insulting and ignorant to suggest otherwise. ND acts telling their own stories redresses balance, when so much of our media is about us without us! Whilst disabled led acts are a part of our cultural landscape, the press have been very slow to catch on, and as evidenced by the pathetic Spectator article, when they do try to cover our communities work – they come with an agenda or an irresponsible take.” -Simon Jay, Neurodiverse Review
“Autism is not a puzzle to be solved. It is a perspective to be valued. One of my missions is to raise awareness for autism, and help other people, and talk about autism itself. It’s not about saying, oh, I’m autistic, woe is me. It’s about reaching out to people out there who are suffering with what I suffered with, and helping them tackle it sooner rather than later, because I don’t want these people to have to go through what I did.” -Angus Baskerville, Naughty or Neurodiverse: Magic From Another Planet
“Neurodiverse voices are important being all voices are important. I wanted people who had ADHD to feel seen and understood, and for people who didn’t have it to learn more about it, but one thing I have found really meaningful is partners of people with ADHD saying they understand their partners more because of my show. That means a lot to me.” -Arielle Dundas, Hyperactive
Erin Murray Quinlan is an American playwright and composer, amateur beekeeper, and proud confirmed solver of Cain’s Jawbone. Her full biography can be found at www.erinmurrayquinlan.com.
