AKA Neurospicy Hero Pants: Autism + Mental Unwellness in Marvel's Jessica Jones (Leeds, 2024)

hi everyone uh this paper was done for the University of leeds's disability studies conference uh for 2024 um so a neurod Divergent spaces most specifically uh autistic and ADHD spaces as well as relatively new disciplines like fandom studies the term head Cannon is used to talk about what groups of fans May imagine about a character or World in a piece of culture like film or on TV and so on so that's where I pled this paper from that in the original series of Marvel's Jessica Jones um in 2015 and the previous Alias Comics the titled character Jessica is never written by the authors as autistic but is something that uh some fans uh imagined about her after the fact my paper joins uh a plethora of other work I've been doing about mechanisms of privilege and oppression that brings areas like superhero studies and comic studies into spaces like critical race studies white studies and also disability studies and in and wider academic Fields as well um including Marvel works such as the Winter Soldier X-Men do strange uh M Marvel and many others what got me what got me to consider Jessica Jones was not the numbers of specialists at the time praising its representation of post-traumatic stress disorder but seeing how autistic people talked about it on social media um years after the fact years later um it also got it also ties quite well into my essay uh welcome to mutant High neurod Divergent students Xavier school for gifted which is available um online as well Open Access uh where I talk about how talk about these white people who Stan leye and Jack Kirby originally called the mutants in a context of people who look white but often in large do not experience the levels of white privilege uh that others who look like them do here I looked to the work of academics like Emma deiri ano nyak uh no ignon Matthew Jacobson no Urban painter among others who discuss this many shades of whiteness in nyac's own words some people are whiter than others some are not white enough and many are inescapably cast beneath the shadow of whiteness and for me Jessica Jones along with many of these powered people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe notably also the Scarlet Witch uh falls into that category of white people who are white but not white white enough compared to to the other white people yet the paper I present to you today wherever you're watching this from is about Jessica Jones a fictional personal investigator operating out of Hell's Kitchen in New York in the Marvel Universe I think of her as an autistic character whose experiences of the world is compounded as a victim Survivor of male violence the perpetrator killgrave first appearing in the Daredevil Comics as well um um yet while he first appeared in Daredevil he became Jessica's arch nemesis in the 2001 Alias Comics written by Brian Bendis and illustrated by Michael gdos in the comics his body produces pheromones that give him the power that allow him to control people with his voice however in the series he developed these abilities uh Following being experimented on uh by his parents when he gets a neurod degenerative illness that would have killed him by 10 years old eventually he developed powers that made that allow him to do allow him to tell people to do whatever he wants them to do basically um and then he began to use it on everybody kilo's first victims however were his parents uh we carried out his every childish demand for years his mother says he was throwing a tantrum but I was busy ironing and I never should have yelled at him but um and that is from the penultimate episode of series 1 AKA sinin he made his parents into his personal slaves developing a lack of empathy for human needs at the age of 10 for example he forced his mother to burn her own face with an iron eventually he called himself killgrave it's not until episode 5 aka the sandwich saved me uh viewers are shown how kilgrave met Jessica here I am just debating where to eat he says and then bam there you are performing Feats of heroism come here let me look at you come on Jesus You're A Vision hair and skin uh apping sense of fashion but that can be remedied but Underneath It All the power just like me though not quite as good of course he says he makes Jessica into his his slave by just using his voice um event later on sexually assaulting her and um raping her too sociologist and forensic social worker Evan Stark's book coer of control how men ENT trap women in personal life may be an appropriate uh vessel to discuss the fictional experience of Jessica Jones with kilgrave um yes kilgrave is a comic book villain but he could well be framed as a male perpetrator as well earlier in the book early in the book Evan Stark writes coercive control shares General elements with other capture or course of conduct crimes such as kidnapping stalking and harassment including the facts that is that it is ongoing and its perpetrators uh use various means to hurt humiliate intimidate exploit isolate and dominate their victims like hostages victims of coercive control are frequently deprived of money food access to communication or transportation and other survival survival resources as they are cut off from family friends and other supports Stark goes on to talk about how unlike other capture crimes coercive control is directly personal and often extends through personal spaces I.E uh the perpetrator will use family members friends and other Close Associates to get to their target kill grave does this to Jessica uh using her friends like malcol and Trish Stark also talks about time killgrave keeps tabs on Jessica um over several years um however distantly and relies on Jessica's isolated nature to get to her as well Stark writes like assaults C of control undermines a victim's physical and psychological Integrity but the main the main means used to establish control is the micro regulation of everyday Behavior haviors associated with stereotypic female roles such as how women dress clean um cook socialize care for their children or perform sexually he writes the subtext of Jessica um going out to stop killgrave in series one is that she was one of his victims first off and wants to stop him doing it to anyone else killgrave is so obsess with Jessica that that he sends um clients to her office um using using only his voice coercive control in the context of this Marvel show is not as we know it in the real world but probably infinitely more dangerous uh propelled through kilg gr's Powers as a metahuman to tell anyone to do anything you wants them to do um including raping eventually raping and sexually assaulting them including Jessica and others this program flicks between the past of what happened to Jessica and the present in her ongoing in her in her going after him when he starts attacking people closest to her to get to her the P the perspective this series is told from is Through The Eyes of a traumatized individual yet there are yet there are enough cues in her pre killgrave life to make the case for Jessica Jones being an autistic character who also canonically um has PTSD so autism in the show is not canon but posttraumatic stress disorder is and also probably other forms of mental illness not only due to male violence or exposure to it but also due to being autistic and um reactions many have to those traits um including ex exclusions um and things like bullying as well which I also hinted at in the TV show uh throughout the first series I picked up on several things I've seen in myself and other autistic friends and colleagues that might that might well explain why Jessica Jones fans head cannoned Jones as autistic on social media for many autistics being specific about being things can be difficult let alone dealing with with and managing other people's emotions as well uh The bading Stereotype of us not having many friends in some cases uh has an element of Truth in it well at the same time I find so many of us can be can people please as a as a form of masking which then makes us appear popular let alone some of us being attractive to strangers wanting to ask us questions even if not to maintain friendships or relationships with us on the flip of this Jessica is not um someone that pretends to care about other people's emotions or feelings to keep face if she chooses to care it is for authentic reasons that she actually cares not for some un written social code or social rule this is normally when we ar when we autistics get called Rude um uncooperative and not nice to be around by non-autistics or even neurotypical people this can sometimes be why many of us struggled in school and friendship when we were children and even sometimes in a a lot of time in adulthood as well Jessica Jones wears clothes that are comfortable for her and spends most of the series in loose fitting trousers baggy shirts hoodies and trainers and that sort of thing I began to think about the sensory Comforts where autistics have like I would generally not be caught dead in suits but do but I do enjoy bagy hoodies and dungarees so we will address in things that are more sensory pleasing to us um and that can sometimes go against fashion in some cases um she's very socially awkward and would prefer to talk about specific topics then make small talk in her conversations with Jerry and Malcolm they learn to be direct uh to get the most out of her the how areu of the world do not run with Jessica Jones this also learn leans into how she did not pick up on social cues that her neighbor fancies her fancies her as well Jessica Jones is also quite impulsive and often reacts out of instinct or strong emotions um and these are these are emotions does not Al she also does not know how to control either even even pre killgrave she was quite an she was quite anti to large groups of people which could be an anxiety thing but but was also someone who had few friends in the Alias Comics her school colleague Peter Parker who became Spider-Man um refers to her as coma girl and in the flashback scenes in series one The ageold Trope of autistics being fired from jobs that we are overqualified for plays out we are often very good at the jobs that we commit ourselves to but the usual workplace social etiquet are where we struggle outside of this Jessica Jones is described as unfriendly rude aoer cynical and drunk particularly unfriend particularly in particularly unfriendly rude and cynical I've seen used by non-autistics to describe autistic people we get called Rude when we don't follow social norms uh or cynical comes from analyzing the patterns in human behavior and predicting outcomes based on that evidence or past evidence Jessica is also a a chronic alcoholic and although alcoholism is not generally an autistic trait um sensory seeking is uh better described as chasing do chasing dopamine um alcohol to Jessica might be what allows her to numb her feelings or it could also be like um a safe drink she lik spb and whiskey simply an Autism media that disproportionately focuses on children we don't ever we don't ever see that side where autistic adults want um safe substances that make them feel good um some might argue this is also common with ADHD as well and they would be right in that Jessica Jones does not have it together and that's okay we need other representations of autistic people that trouble The Narrative so to conclude then uh this paper aimed to discuss Marvel's Jessica Jones in a context of neuro disability and mental unwellness yet while films and TV shows about autistic people disproportionately focusing white boys and white men and also children there are other stories we need to see and that could be told further to consider KRA um in a context of perpetrator also gives another layer to representations of Violent Men on screen and how those Dynamics may be debated in circles that work with victim survivors of male violence and their families even 10 years after its first Ting outing so it'll be 10 years next year in 2025 I still do not think I Marvel have produced a better show um Daredevil might might r it but I think Jessica Jones is the better show um and I think it'll be really good for those of us who are working in the broad equality sector to use shows like this one to think about popular culture differently uh thank you very much and if you had anything you had questions or anything to say you can leave them in the comments or send me an email as well and you can get me at tray vent.com cont where you be taken to my cont platform and just fill out the boxes there