‘There is Beauty in the Way that I Think.’ Exploring Autistic Life Narrative in Cultural Texts of Hannah Gadsby

Abstract

ABSTRACT Representations of autism in popular culture usually rely on stereotypes about autistic people rooted in clinical discourse of pathology, reproducing gendered, racialized and classed images of white, cis male exceptionalism. The dominant circulating narratives often ignore lived autistic experience and position autism either as a spectacle or as the unknowable other. Personal narrative allows autistic people to ‘story’ autism in its many different forms and create a space of critical interrogation. This article examines two cultural texts of Tasmanian comedian and author Hannah Gadsby, who addresses their late-life diagnosis of autism in their stand-up comedy show Douglas and their memoir Ten Steps to Nanette. By drawing on queer and feminist disability studies, critical autism studies and theories of life writing, this article analyses how Gadsby employs autistic life narrative as a form of ‘diversity work’ [Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham: Duke University Press] and tells their story in its tense relation to social and medical notions of normality as well as medical discourse of diagnosis. By doing so, this article argues that Gadsby’s use of life narrative contributes to a more diverse representation of autistic lives and offers a critical interrogation of what is considered social normality.