What I think of the autism representation in Moominvalley 2019 as an autistic person:
(my apologies if there are some grammar mistakes since I translated it on a translate site as it's 1 pm and I didn't feel like writing in English)
I have always enjoyed sharing my formed opinions and thus often think about representation within the 2019 adaptation. So as an autistic person, I have my own thoughts about the Snork.
First of all, I want to talk about the stereotype he portrays: we all know the autistic stereotype of a mastermind who is rather socially awkward. This is what the Snork stands for. He has almost all the symptoms of the autism spectrum, which makes the intention of the creators clear. I can see myself in this character very well (would be hard not to since he ticks almost every symptom of the list), so I was not completely disappointed. It's hard to speak for everyone on the spectrum and therefore a stereotype with all these recognisable symptoms is a reasonable thing to do. On the other hand, this stereotype is already known to the public and autistic people want something innovative that shows allistics that autism is more than a mastermind who gets overstimulated quickly.
This brings us to my second point and that is that children's series nowadays think that kids are too stupid to understand certain life lessons. One life lesson in Moominvalley is, of course, that you have to accept everyone. Yet I think this lesson was better executed in the older series and the books, because it is more subtle. The Snork plays a big role here.
My final comment is, is when I read the books and look at different adoptations that any character can be on the spectrum. In the book 'Moominpappa at sea', Moomintroll talks about not understanding sarcasm and in the 1990 series, they recalled this in the episode with Ninny. This is one of the many examples that autistic people will recognise. So I think if you had taken Snufkin or Moomintroll and stuck the label 'autistic' on their head you might as well have even better representation. But the creators were probably too afraid to do that with a protagonist or such a beloved character as Snufkin...
My general feeling about this representation is that it's not bad at all, but it could have been more by making it less.
Just heard that Chance Perdomo tragically passed away in a motorcycle accident. I'm devastated. He had so much more to give to the world. I first fell in love with his acting watching him as Ambrose in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and was ecstatic to hear he'd voice Snork, a character that he has breathed new life into.
This video was only posted on his Instagram last month, and you can see the joy he had in voicing Snork, and what such great work he did doing so.
Season 4 is gonna be a tough watch. And if they end up having to replace him for possible future projects, then his presence will leave an unignorably aching hole in the series.
Dose anyone have any fan theories for Moominvalley season 4? I feel like im the only one who has like 7milion theories on it 😭 I REALLY wanna see what everyone else thinks!