A. S.imple D.ate review and interview with Rebecca Faith Quinn

They say that representation matters, so why are we still waiting for proper representation for autistic females? Plenty of autistic female writers and actresses exist, and yet filmmakers choose to omit them from stories about autism. Autistic women like myself didn't grow up seeing autistic females on TV, and the autistic girls of today shouldn't grow up the same way. My good friend Rebecca Faith Quinn is a fellow autistic who was also fed up with the lack of autistic female characters, so she decided to make her own. Her short film, A. S.imple D.ate, focuses on an autistic woman named Rachel who goes on a date with a guy she met online. It may be a short film on YouTube (channel name is YoungQuinn Productions), but it is undeniably a huge step in the right direction for autistic female representation.

I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Rebecca via video chat almost immediately after her film premiered on YouTube. I sat down in my kitchen as she sat down in her room while dressed in a red and black dress and some lovely pearls to spill the beans on the filming process. She was sick of not seeing a girl like herself in the movies. "If you’re not gonna see me, I’m gonna make you see me," she said as she adjusted her pearls. After the premiere ended, autistic female viewers sent Rebecca messages saying that they finally felt seen, which made her tear up a bit. When I asked her where the idea of Rachel came from, she said that she actually named her after Rachel Bloom, the star and creator of the comedy series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She loved how Bloom drew inspiration from her own experience with mental illness to create a character that was both lovable and believable. She also liked how Bloom's character on the show was named Rebecca and thought to herself, "Well Rachel, if you're going to name your character after me, I'm going to name my character after you." While Rebecca and her film character Rachel have a lot in common like being fans of Queen, they are also a bit different. While Rachel has stated in the film that she had never been to a concert, Rebecca's one and only concert was a Kiss concert in which she caught Gene Simmon's flicked guitar pick as a souvenir. The reason why she decided to make Rachel a female lead in a romantic film was that she didn't see girls like herself as the lead in romantic movies growing up. "I didn't think that I deserved love because the girls in those movies didn't look like me," she explained. "I do deserve love." In the film, Rachel goes on a date with a guy named Josh, who was named after Josh Chan from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rebecca stated that Josh wasn't really based on anyone that she knew. Rather, she wrote him with the things she was looking for in a partner. He certainly responded a bit more positively to Rachel explaining autism better than how most people would, which the viewers in the comment section deeply appreciated. One misconception about autism is that we are incapable of falling in love. I once thought nobody would love a disabled girl like myself, but I am currently in a happy relationship with the best boyfriend in the world. I've lost count of how many times we've said "I love you" to each other. Rebecca and I know that we deserve love, and so does everyone else on the spectrum.

A. S.imple D.ate was directed by Rebecca's friend Tamia Young, who took research for the film very seriously. She not only watched documentaries about autism and asked Rebecca about her own experience, but she also asked for advice from her autistic uncle. "She said 'I want this to be accurate to you'," Rebecca stated. She also made sure that she knew what to do in case her star had sensory overload. This one scene where Rachel has sensory overload got delayed thanks to Covid, so they didn't film it until late October. Since Rachel wasn't wearing a jacket when they filmed the previous scene nearly two months earlier, she had to film it in 52-degree weather and could only wear a jacket in between takes. They filmed between 10:30 pm and 3:00 am, and the weather was a bit too much for Rebecca. "I felt like my skin was peeling off." This caused her to have a meltdown and run away from her co-star. Her director sat by her side and suggested that they take a break. “We’re not gonna start filming again until you feel like you are ready," Tamia said to her star. Recently, Australian singer Sia made a film about autism called Music, in which she cast a non-autistic actress as the autistic lead. She claimed that she did initially cast an autistic actress who reacted negatively to the filming environment, but this turned out to be a lie. Even if it wasn't a lie, it was wrong of her to not give the actress the proper accommodations. Tamia knew better than that and made sure that Rebecca had what she needed.

Obviously, one does not make something so ground-breaking and just call it a day. When I asked Rebecca what she planned to do in the future, she said that she wants her film to go viral so that Netflix will notice and expand it into a series. "I want it to focus on different autistics experiencing dating, especially autistic people of color and non-binary autistics." She has an idea for a series called Four of a Kind, which will focus on four different disabled women. "One will be autistic, one will be a stand-up comedian with Tourette's, one will be a woman in a wheelchair who comes up with clever responses to inappropriate questions asked by strangers, and one is a black neurodivergent." Autistic adults are often infantilized, so it would be a huge breath of fresh air to display autistic adult characters doing adult stuff like working and dating. I once suggested to Rebecca that there should be a show like Sex and the City with disabled people (I called it Sex and the Accessibility), which is pretty much what Four of a Kind sounds like. It's about time that autistic women receive shows and movies like that. Autistic women exist, and badass autistic women like Rebecca Faith Quinn are here to make sure that they are seen and heard.

Be sure to check out YoungQuinn Productions on YouTube and watch A. S.imple D.ate!