Life With Autism Can Be Scary (Dead End: Paranormal Park “Trust Me” Review)
Originally posted on YouTube on Oct. 20, 2023.
There are two types of people: those who view media as content, and those who view media as art. What’s the difference? Find out at the end of this video!
Yes. Really. That’s the hook!
So, Dead End: Paranormal Park. Initially, I slept on this show when it first came out. For many reasons.
First, it’s a Netflix original series, and considering the shenanigans that streaming service has been pulling, especially with its animation department, yeah, I haven’t exactly been keen about following its new content.
Even if I did care about Netflix, I still wouldn’t care much about this show, mostly because, well, it looks like yet another Gravity Falls clone. Yes, Gravity Falls was a huge success, which is why every other network has wanted to emulate it with their own ripoff. Even Disney decided to make lightning in a bottle happen several times over with their own Gravity Falls wannabes.
Of course, that’s not a value judgement on any of these shows, all of which are good in their own unique way—except Star Vs., well, at least the fourth season. (We don’t talk about season four.)
But what made me want to discuss this show was a certain episode with a certain scene that was shared by a certain person on Twitter, who was then ridiculed and harassed for claiming it spoke to them personally. Because how dare grown men watch and empathize with cartoons!
For that reason, I decided to watch this show and, well, while it’s nothing too spectacular, there are moments worth talking about, and we’re here to talk about them. I especially want to address that one particular scene and why it resonated with certain people, including myself. This is episode three of Dead End: Paranormal Park, “Trust Me.”
Before we begin, a basic synopsis. The show follows two teenagers working at a haunted amusement park where there may or may not be an attempt to resurrect an evil demon. Wacky shenanigans ensue as they try to solve this mystery and the many other weird happenings, well, happening at the park. Oh, and one of the characters has a talking dog. Because reasons!
And that’s really all you need to know for this episode.
The episode itself starts with the main character, Barney, getting ready to head down to the beach for some trust-building exercises with his co-workers. Joining him are his dog, Pugsley, his pet pug who can talk because of a failed summoning ritual (again, reasons), and Courtney, a demon who had attempted the failed summoning ritual and has since reluctantly befriended the other characters until she can find her way back home to the underworld.
Side note: When I first started watching this series, I assumed this character was male. But their name is “Courtney,” and they’re referred to with female pronouns. So, this character is female, actually.*
I find that rather interesting. Most other shows would have tried to make her gender more apparent with more feminine signifiers: a pink color palette, a curvier figure, girl accessories like a dress or bow, even a higher-pitched voice. But, no, she’s just a regular demon who happens to be female.
Again, I’m not saying it’s ground-breaking or revolutionary or something that more shows need to do. But it is…interesting, refreshing even, to have a non-human female character who isn’t portrayed with obvious stereotypical female signifiers to let her know she’s female. It’s a nice touch.
Eventually, Barney and the others head to the beach, where they meet Norma and the other park employees. They’re greeted by their instructor, Harmony, who I am certain is not the least suspicious in any way.
Harmony leads Barney and the others through some team-building exercises, which most of the other employees manage to pull off wel—most of them, that is, except for Norma, who seems to be having some trouble with them.
Now’s a good time to talk about Norma. Norma is neurodivergent. Specifically, she has autism. We see hints of her autism throughout the show. Particularly, there’s this common sequence where, whenever she gets nervous about a social situation, she envisions herself sinking through the ground like quicksand. It’s a great visual metaphor for her social anxiety, and as someone who has autism myself, I certainly relate to it—like, a lot!
There are plenty of other moments throughout this particular episode that highlight her autistic tendencies. For example, this moment where she has to participate in a team building exercise by staring into her partners eyes.
Yeah, as someone who regularly wears sunglasses so I can hide my aversion to eye contact, I definitely relate to this scene.
Then there’s this moment where everyone has to form a human web. Having to be so close to everyone in such a tight space overstimulates her and triggers a panic attack, forcings her to run away.
What I like about this scene is how empathetic everyone else is. They may not understand what’s exactly going on with her, but they do understand the situation is not making her feel well, and try to at least console her through it. Good thing Barney and the others are empathetic. If they were anyone else, they’d probably ridicule her and laugh at her and yell at her to “get over it and suck it up” because she’s acting like a baby.
(Whoo! That made me relive some past trauma.)
For the very last exercise, Harmony instructs everyone to touch a crystal skull so they can face their worst fears. Yup! We all know this trope. A bunch of characters are forced to face random phobias, while the main characters face actual trauma. (Though, to be fair, that one employee having his electronic device drying on him in a place where all of the power outlets are taken, that’s pretty funny.)
But, like I said, while everyone else is facing a random phobia, both Barney and Norma are forced to relive some of their worst traumatic moments. And it’s these two moments that make the episode worth discussing.
The first moment is with Barney.
Barney is an interesting character because, despite being a character who’s transgender, his character isn’t wholly defined by him being transgender. What I’m saying is that Barney isn’t a stereotype. He’s a fully fleshed-out character whose central character trait isn’t narrowed to him being trans. Even then, his trans identity isn’t completely irrelevant, as it does play a part in his character arc.
See, the reason why Barney is working at the amusement park is because he wants to make enough money for him and his dog to live alone. In the very first episode, he runs away from home to live at the park because his parents are giving him a hard time for being transgender…
But not for the reason you may think!
See, in any other show, the reason why Barney ran away from home would have been because his parents were transphobic bigots who were antagonizing him for his gender identity. But that’s not the case at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. His parents are perfectly accepting of him. They don’t misgender him. They don’t deadname him. They don’t treat him like he’s going through a phase. They accept him and his identity.
So that’s not the problem. The problem is with his grandmother…sort of.
In his fear world, Barney is eating dinner with his parents when his grandmother transforms into a monster and starts attacking him. This personifies the antagonism Barney suffers from his grandmother due to her transphobia towards him. So she’s the reason why he ran away, right?
Well, no.
As Barney explains, he’s not entirely bothered by his grandmother. Old people are going to be tied to their old ways, after all. No. The problem isn’t that his grandmother was mean to him. The problem was that his grandmother attacked him and his parents did nothing.
This is a common defense tactic for most families. You see two or more family members fighting with each other, and you do your best not to get involved. No sense getting dragged into their drama. And, normally, this is okay when dealing with fights over petty disagreements. But there’s a difference between squabbling with a family member over nonsense, and acting bigoted towards another family member, especially one from a marginalized identity.
It’s one thing to want to duck away from aa fight between two family members over something trivial, but when a family member is acting overly bigoted—well, as the old saying goes: when you’re neutral on matter of oppression, neutrality is siding with the oppressor.
But now let’s talk about the other big moment.
In the real world, Norma confronts Harmony. He says he’ll release the others If she overcomes her deepest fear. So she summons her courage, takes a deep breath, places her hand on the skull, and this happens:
As I mentioned earlier, Norma is coded autistic. Her fear world reveals the social anxiety she feels on a regular basis due to her autism.
Now autism, like other forms of neurodivergence, is often hard to depict in media. That’s because autism is a spectrum disorder. That means people experience it differently. Some people experience some symptoms more severely. Others experience other symptoms less severely. Everyone experiences autism differently because everyone is different.
In this instance, we see Norma’s autism visualized through surreal imagery: her feet sinking into the ground like quicksand, people’s faces twisting into distorted figures, their voices distorting in different tones, colors flashing in and out. It may not be a perfect representation of social anxiety everyone with autism may face, but it does a good job portraying this particular instance of autism. As an autistic person myself, I empathize with it.
I first watched this scene on Twitter through a clip posted by a user named Crimson Mayhem. As he wrote in his tweet: “Coming from someone who is actually on the autism spectrum, I relate to this moment beyond a spiritual level.”
And, of course, other people, upon reading this tweet, were able to understand where he was coming from and empathize with his experience as a neurodivergent person by…
No. Sorry. This is the internet. So the exact opposite happened. His tweet received a sizable backlash from trolls deriding him for being a man children and looking “too deeply” into a children’s cartoon.
Sigh. I promise I have a bigger point to make about this. But let’s wrap this up.
So Norma conquers her fear with the power of friendship, defeats Harmony, and everything returns to normal…or at least as normal as it can be in Paranormal Park.
I mentioned this before: there are two types of people: those who view media as art, and those who view it as content.
I discussed this on Twitter in response to the backlash against Crimson Mayhem, but I’ll reiterate what I said here.
The people who view media as content only consider it mindless entertainment, something to watch to pass the time and nothing else.
The people who view media as art understand it as art. It’s not just entertainment. It’s an expression of the human experience.
People create art to express themselves, to share their lived experiences with others, to allow others to better understand them and their lives. Art has a deeper meaning—all art. Even media like children’s shows and movies.
That’s often why people who view media as content don’t understand people who view media as art.
“Why are you looking for deeper meaning in this?” They ask. “It’s just a kid’s show. It’s just mindless entertainment.”
But media, content, art—whatever you call it—did not magically appear. It did not pop out of the ether. It did not will itself into existence. A real person made it. A real person created it. And they did so either from drawing from their own experiences or those of others.
That’s why art makes people feel things. Because it resonates with their emotions. It helps them come to terms with their experiences. It helps puts words and images to thoughts and feelings they always had but could never truly articulate for themselves.
That why when a person on the Autism Spectrum watches a cartoon about a character going through similar experiences with mental and social complexities, it helps them come to terms with their own experiences and makes them feel seen and heard.
That’s why a scene from a show like Paranormal Park can resonate with a neurodivergent person. It puts to images and words how they experience and view the world, and it can even allow someone who’s neurotypical to better understand and empathize with their experience.
That’s how people who view media as art view a show like Paranormal Park. As something that speaks to them on a deeper, more personal level.
That’s why people who view media as content scoff at such people. “It’s just a kid’s show. Why do you care so much?”
Why do they care? Because all media is art. All art—even corporate art—draws from personal experience. All art expresses real human emotions, and all art elicits real human emotions. Media is art, and art is human.
That’s something you miss when you only view media as content.
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* CORRECTION: Courtney was actually non-binary in the original graphic novel the cartoon was based on, but was changed to female in the animated series.
J.C. Alexandre 