Can The Assembly, which pairs neurodivergent interviewers with celebrities, get representation right?

Margaux Wosk wasn’t sure about appearing on TV. As president of disability nonprofit BC People First, owner of LGBTQIA+ and neurodiversity merchandise company Retrophiliac and a full-time artist, they already had their plate full. 

But being an autistic person with a less than rosy view of autistic representation in media also gave them pause. So the idea of going on Canada’s version of The Assembly, which pairs autistic and neurodivergent interviewers with Canadian celebrities, seemed like a bit of a risk.

“I had a little bit of hesitation at first,” they told CBC News, regarding the media's track record of depicting people whose brains work differently from what is considered “typical.”

“When we think of something like a specific Netflix show that has to do with dating, it can be very infantilizing.”

The Netflix show Wosk was referring to, Love on the Spectrum, is one of a number of shows that includes autistic people and storylines — for better or worse. And while they can be viewed as empowering examples of increased representation, shows like The Assembly have also garnered a reputation for evoking patronizing participation and a condescending viewpoint from their non-autistic and neurotypical audience.

In the frequently criticized column, there’s The Good Doctor — about a physician diagnosed with autism and savant syndrome — or Atypical, about an autistic teenager looking for love.

Both those shows have been criticized for their poor representation of autistic people — such as framing sensory processing issues as a joke, or a tendency to be brutally honest as an entertaining quirk — and for not hiring autistic actors.

But there are other examples: As We See It, Dinosaur and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay are all shows about autistic people that have been celebrated for not only respectfully handling their storylines, but including neurodivergent people behind the camera.

Then there’s The Assembly. Based on the French series Les Rencontres du Papotin, the franchise and format has jumped from England, to Australia, to Norway, to Singapore — and now to Canada, premiering Nov. 6 on CBC Gem.

The reality TV production pairs neurodivergent people — including those diagnosed with autism — with different celebrities from their respective countries and has them ask questions of the famous guests.

On the Canadian series, the celebrities include everyone from Jann Arden, to Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Howie Mandel. No subjects are off limits, in accordance with show's stated goal of highlighting “honest, authentic and open interactions” between guests and panel.

The reaction to its various iterations have been mixed: The Guardian called the BBC version “powerful television, a portrait of disabled people that doesn’t go all serious and sombre.” Then there was the takedown of Australia’s version by autistic writer John Delmenico, who called it “full of good questions, talented people and basically every modern ableist trope.”

These preconceptions were all on Wosk’s mind as they headed into their taping session. But, they said, the experience was anything but regressive.

“It felt like this incredible energy in the room and everybody was just positively, I think, feeding off of each other that it just turned into magic,” Wosk said. “I don't even know how else to describe it, but it felt otherworldly.”