The Queen’s Gambit and the Beautifully Messy Future of Autism on TV

We need more impulsive, substance-addicted Autistics like Beth Harmon on screen

Image of chess pieces and a glass of wine by Randy Fath courtesy of Unsplash

I’ve been slowly working my way through the Netflix series Queen’s Gambit, and have become smitten with the show’s protagonist, Beth Harmon. She’s such a richly rendered, desperately needed portrait of Autism, particularly of how Autism can look among women, people who “mask” their symptoms, and people who were never diagnosed. She’s also a rare media depiction of an Autistic with a drinking problem. And a prescription pill addiction. And a penchant for shoplifting. And trouble managing her money. And maybe some compulsions around sex.

Like so many media portrayal of Autistics, Beth Harmon is shown to be singularly focused on her special interest, competitive chess. She pursues her craft relentlessly, doing anything and sacrificing everything to identify new competitors, amass books on chess moves, shore up her skills, and enter highly-billed competitions. Beth faces down her opponents with a cold-blooded stare, and delivers verbal postmortems on her games in a rapid-fire monotone. She’s blunt and emotionally withdrawn, unable to understand other people’s feelings, or so lost in her obsession as to not care.

All of these traits are pretty common among Autistic characters on TV. We all know the media trope of the rude, emotionally inept genius who is Autistic-coded; we’ve seen him on The Good Doctor and Sherlock and Big Bang Theory and Community and dozens of other shows. It’s still fairly rare to see these traits ascribed to women, so in that way Beth Harmon is a breath of fresh air.

But what’s really unique and enchanting about Beth is that she is so much messier than the “hyper-focused genius with Autism” stereotype. She loves blowing her tournament winnings on beautiful dresses and lavish makeup. She overdoses into a stupor and shows up to high-stakes chess matches hung over. She hooks up with guys she doesn’t even really like, and then breaks their hearts, simply because she’s bored or wants to entice them into helping her train for games. She doesn’t believe society’s rules apply to her, and to an extent they don’t, because she is so removed from the rest of humanity by virtue of her talent and…