I’m a Virgo’s Flora Might Be the Best Autistic Character on TV

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article included statements claiming Flora is canonically autistic, but representatives for I’m a Virgo have confirmed she is not. However, the subtextual autistic representation featured within the series is still valuable and worth watching for. 

Boots Riley’s new Prime Video series I’m a Virgo has a lot going on: a magical realist coming-of-age story about a 13-foot-tall Black teenager, criticism of the superhero genre, and explanations of Communist theory somehow funded and distributed by Amazon. Amidst all its narrative weirdness and thematic ambition, it’s also one of the best depictions of autism on TV, thanks to the character of Flora (Olivia Washington).

Flora works at the fast food chain Bing Bang Burger, and is the love interest of the giant protagonist Cootie (Jharrel Jerome). When she’s working, she moves at such a fast speed that the human eye can barely keep up with her—a power illustrated with intentionally incomplete-looking special effects. It’s in the series’ third episode that we get an explanation of her condition: she naturally moves that fast, and her childhood was a struggle to learn how to slow down to a point where others could understand her.

The books shown in doctors’ offices and occupational therapy sessions in this childhood flashback show that Flora was diagnosed with seizures and autism. Given the magical nature of her abilities, some might say that her powers were “mistaken” for autism—this is the official canonical stance according to the show’s PR team—but I’d argue that, in practice, her powers can still be viewed as a metaphor for autism.

Like many autistic people, Flora is more adept at written than verbal communication. As a child, she figured out how to write before she learned how to talk at a comprehensible speed. As an adult, she’s fully capable of communicating clearly with others, but it takes her more effort. “It’s like translating,” she explains to Cootie. “I have to change my words and my walk. I have to change my facial expressions so people understand me.” That’s as perfect an explanation of autistic “masking” as I’ve ever heard.

The idea of autism as a “superpower” is a somewhat fraught subject. Some autistic individuals such as Greta Thunberg have described their own experiences with autism in such language, and it is true that there are many on the spectrum whose gifts are intertwined with their disabilities. At the same time, autism is still a disability, and some feel that to call autism a “superpower” minimizes the challenges autistic people face, and makes things harder for those without exceptional talents.

With that said, the autism superpower metaphor in I’m a Virgo is effective because Flora’s powers and her challenges are one and the same. Perceiving time differently than everyone around her makes it challenging to connect with others, yet there are still times it’s advantageous for her to embrace her super-speed—whether that’s while flipping burgers or while having sex.

That brings us to another thing that makes Flora stand out from other autistic-coded characters on TV: the show doesn’t shy away from her sexuality. Autistic people are so often infantilized or desexualized in media that it’s refreshing to have this character, in spite of her challenges, shown as romantically desirable and enjoying sex. The sex scene between her and Cootie in the fourth episode is hilarious, but also a genuinely sweet depiction of communicating and exploring desire.

Flora tells Cootie that she connects with him because he’s “missing the same puzzle pieces as me”—which could be viewed as another autism connection, though the “puzzle piece” symbolism for autism is pretty widely despised within the community for its connection to controversial charity Autism Speaks. Cootie is in many ways even more socially awkward than Flora is, but his awkwardness comes from being sheltered from the outside world for 19 years. Flora’s awkwardness, in contrast, comes from the way her mind works.

Even with the character having a diagnosis and demonstrating many autistic traits, there is one major point against the idea of Flora being autistic: her perception of time also makes her really good at predicting people. Her attraction to Cootie is in part due to the fact that he’s the one person she can’t predict the actions of. This is not a common trait among autistic people, and reminds me somewhat of Will Graham from Hannibal, a character who is hinted at being on the spectrum, but whose actor and writers have stated is not actually autistic due to his heightened ability to read people.

Of course, autistic fans embraced Will as one of their own anyway. While the specific form of cognitive empathy Will exhibits is so exaggerated that it’s beyond what even the vast majority of neurotypicals are capable of, many autistic people experience heightened emotional empathy, and relate to Will on those grounds. I expect many will relate to Flora in the same way, and find added appreciation for how her story captures the fact that the communication problems they face often aren’t the result of failing to understand neurotypical people, but of neurotypical people failing to understand them.

Even if Flora is not meant to be specifically autistic, she still feels like more authentic representation than many canonically autistic characters; there’s no “I’M A SURGEON!” histrionics going on here. On a similar note, I can’t tell you how relieved I am that The Hero (Walton Goggins) isn’t played as an autism stereotype, when it would be so easy for a hackier team to see “evil, nerdy billionaire” and use the unfortunate existence of Elon Musk as an excuse to engage in flat-out ableism (see Mark Rylance in Don’t Look Up for the worst version of this).

As of this year, Black and Hispanic children are being diagnosed with autism at a higher rate than white children, but media visibility for autistics of color is still extremely low. So too are women on the spectrum ignored by TV producers in favor of trotting out the same white male Sheldon Cooper/Good Doctor-type characters over and over again. As a Black woman who’s at least metaphorically autistic, Flora in I’m a Virgo fills a major gap in representation, and is one of the best parts of an exceptionally creative show.

Reuben Baron is the author of the webcomic Con Job: Revenge of the SamurAlchemist and a contributor to Looper and Anime News Network, among other websites. You can follow him on Twitter at @AndalusianDoge.

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