Seeing Ourselves On Screen: ADHD Representation with Matthew Fox
Entertainment Clutch Picks
Matthew: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Nikki: Love, Con, Revenge
Pete: Hijack
Here's a puzzle that will stop you cold: ADHD has exploded into public consciousness. More diagnoses than ever. More research. More conversations. And yet? Turn on your television. What stares back at you?
The class clown. The scatterbrained sidekick. The walking punchline.
Something doesn't add up.
This disconnect—between lived reality and screen reality—forms the heart of this week’s conversation with Matthew Fox, whose passion for dissecting genre media runs as deep as their own neurodivergent experience. Fox hosts Superhero Ethics and other podcasts that examine the ethics woven through our most beloved stories. But today, they’re hunting bigger game.
Consider this: Maria von Trapp. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" Sound familiar? Fox argues she's ADHD incarnate. Flighty. Unpredictable. Out of focus. The nuns can't pin her down. Neither can we, apparently. Because nobody—not once—uses the words.
That's the pattern. Characters burst with hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention challenges. Dennis the Menace in the '50s. Tigger bouncing through the Hundred Acre Wood. Calvin racing after imaginary adventures. All ADHD-coded. None explicitly labeled.
Why does this matter? Because children search desperately for themselves in stories. Adults do too, though less consciously. When representation gets frozen in stereotype—or worse, buried in subtext—it shapes how teachers see students, how employers evaluate talent, how we see ourselves.
The conversation zigzags through terrain both familiar and startling. Percy Jackson, where ADHD becomes a god-given power. Phil Dunphy, the endearing but scattered dad. Jake Peralta solving crimes through controlled chaos. Then the darker territory: Barney Stinson using ADHD as an excuse for predatory behavior.
But here's where it gets interesting. Fox points out a part of the conversation that is too often forgotten: the gender patterns. Hyperactive male character? Meet his organized, grounding female partner. It's everywhere once you see it. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Modern Family. New Girl. The narrative is always the same—love of a steady woman tames the chaotic man.
And buried within all of this lies a more uncomfortable truth. In our hunger to see ourselves on screen, we claim characters who were never intended as representation. We read ADHD into Kirk and Spock, into Hiccup and his dragon, into anyone who shows even a glimmer of recognition.
Is that enough? Should it be?
Whether you're searching for positive examples for your children or trying to untangle how decades of media have shaped your own relationship with neurodivergence, this conversation might just shift how you watch ... everything.
Links & Notes
Shows and Movies
Modern Family - Phil Dunphy as ADHD-coded character
Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Jake Peralta as positive ADHD representation
How I Met Your Mother - Barney Stinson as problematic ADHD portrayal
New Girl - Nick and Jess relationship dynamic
The Simpsons - Bart Simpson and Ritalin episode (2000)
Community - Abed Nadir as autism-coded character
Parenthood (TV series) - Autism representation
Arrow - Felicity Smoak as ADHD-coded character
K-pop Demon Hunter - Zoe as positive ADHD representation
The Sound of Music - Maria von Trapp as ADHD-coded
Finding Nemo/Finding Dory - Dory as ADHD representation
How to Train Your Dragon - Hiccup as ADHD-coded
Books and Characters
Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan - ADHD as demigod trait
Calvin and Hobbes - Calvin as ADHD-coded
Dennis the Menace - Classic hyperactive representation
Winnie the Pooh characters as neurodivergent representation
Podcasts by Matthew Fox
Marvel Movie Minute (co-hosted with Pete Wright)
The Once and Future Parent(Coming soon!)
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control, the ADHD podcast on TruStory FM. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer.
Nikki Kinzer: Hello, everyone. Hello, Pete Wright.
Pete Wright: Oh Nikki. It's ADHD Awareness Month. I don't know if you've heard. Are you up on the months when ADHD Awareness Month comes around?
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, yeah. I am.
Pete Wright: It just sneaks up.
Nikki Kinzer: It does. But as you know, it's ADHD awareness every day in our world.
Pete Wright: That's the truth, ADHD Awareness Life. And we are continuing our ongoing ADHD awareness conversations with a conversation that we've actually never had on this show.
Nikki Kinzer: Correct.
Pete Wright: We're going to talk about representation in the media and what it means for us with ADHD and for kids and for those who don't have ADHD. To see neurodiversity in the media that they consume. Talking about TV, we're talking about movies, we're talking about books, and the characters that have sprung up with ADHD, how they're written and how we - do we see ourselves in them? I think it's fascinating. Our guest is fantastic. Before we get started, if you love what we're doing here, the best way to support the show is by becoming a member. Head to patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. Your support helps us keep growing, adding new features, and building this community together. You can find us at takecontroladhd.com where you can listen to episodes, join the mailing list, or connect with us on social media and don't forget to jump into the ADHD Discord community at takecontroladhd.com/discord - we would love to see you there.
Here's a paradox. ADHD has never been more talked about. More kids are diagnosed, more adults are discovering they've had it their whole lives, and the science is everywhere. And yet, when you turn on the television or go to the movies, what do you see? The distracted friend, the quirky genius, the punchline. Representation, especially of neurodivergence, has a way of lagging behind reality. And that gap, the gap between who we are and how we are shown, matters. It shapes how children grow up seeing themselves, how teachers approach students, how employers value or dismiss talent. Media is not just entertainment, it's a mirror, and sometimes that mirror distorts.
Today, to help us make sense of this, we are joined by Matthew Fox. Matthew's passion for deep conversations about genre media started in childhood, and they've carried that curiosity forward as host of Superhero Ethics, Star Wars Generations and Marvel Movie Minute, where they bring an ethical lens to everything from cape crusaders to galaxy-spanning sagas. Matthew, welcome to the show.
Matthew Fox: How are we doing today? I have to say with a show called Taking Control, I have an old bit with Pete that often I'll try to jump in as though I'm the host. So I just want a round of applause that I have not tried to take control of this podcast.
Pete Wright: You did! Yes, noble effort.
Matthew Fox: Yet.
Pete Wright: I just want you to know I noticed and I feel represented.
Nikki Kinzer: Yay!
Matthew Fox: Yet. There we go. There we go.
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## The Gap Between Reality and Representation
Pete Wright: Yeah, and I should say Matthew and I are friends. We co-host right now the current season of Marvel Movie Minute and Matthew's shows are on TruStory FM as well. So we're all in the family. And I have long been impressed by the way Matthew thinks about representation across big media, right? The media that most people take in. And you know, we live in this time when more people than ever are identifying as neurodivergent, right? ADHD is widely diagnosed, widely discussed, widely researched, and yet in the media, the ADHD we see is frozen in stereotype. So I just want to start with a bit of a table setting, Matthew, on how you see on all the media that you watch the gap that exists between lived experience and representation. How do you approach this conversation?
Matthew Fox: So this is a great question and one that I've thought about a lot, both from the, you know, I like looking at representation in media, but also on my own journey. I am someone who has ADHD. And I only figured that out late in my life, in part because I had never really seen other examples of it, you know, and it was not something we talked about much when I was growing up. You know, I'm just about your age. And when I look at the media right now, I kind of see three different areas that ADHD is being talked about a lot.
One is as punchline, as you said, and there's a lot of times where it's not even a main - it's not a character we know well enough to really pay attention to. It's just the - in a school about high schoolers, there's that one kid in the class who just is always being annoying and the class clown and that kind of stuff.
There's the ADHD as relatable character, which is slowly starting to every now and then become a main character, but often still is in the best friend. But, you know, a lot more characters where it's being portrayed in a positive light and so I think of things like Dory in the Finding Nemo movies, Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon, which I guess is more of a main character, but often it's side characters.
And then thirdly, as a superhero. And I think the best example there is Percy Jackson from the Percy Jackson Olympic books, where they specifically talk about ADHD as a thing that these Greek demigods have because it's, you know, and that's the like, no, we're neuroregular, everyone else is neurodiverse kind of a thing.
To me, the most interesting thing about this whole narrative, though, is that how often the characters I'm talking about, no one ever actually explicitly says they're neurodivergent. And so I think one of the kind of interesting lenses that I bring to this is that in this regard, the understanding of how we see ADHD characters in media is actually very similar to how we see queer characters in media a lot, which is that people are looking to see themselves and so often they're putting it on characters who you wouldn't expect. Because so often, you know, never has anyone ever said Kirk and Spock were gay. And frankly, they're probably not as it was originally written, but an awful lot of people have said, wait a minute, we see ourselves in those characters.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right.
Matthew Fox: You know, and when I look at this and I look at how many characters have had traits that I think we today could think of as very ADHD coded, very intentional or often the people writing them had no idea what they were talking about, but it is. And it's there. And one of the things that I did was I asked a lot of people I knew, like, hey, where have you seen yourself in media? And I came up with an example that kind of blew my mind. I wonder if it's ever occurred to you. Because tell me if this description would sound to you like someone who was ADHD coded. They're out of focused and bemused. They're unpredictable as the weather. They're flighty as a feather. How do you pin down a problem like Maria? Maria from Sound of Music is 100% ADHD coded.
Pete Wright: Sure. Yeah. That's really interesting.
Matthew Fox: If you look at all the things about - and you know, when I put this out to other neurodiverse communities a number of people said, "Yeah, we saw ourselves in Maria." And people said they saw themselves in the character - to make a much more modern example, Zoe, who's one of the three girls in K-pop Demon Hunter, is just constantly being distracted by things. But in her case it's a help and they show her friends loving her for it and things like that instead of it just being as it is in Sound of Music a literal problem to be solved. So yeah, I think that's kind of the first place I start is that there are a few cases where it is specifically mentioned and sometimes it's positive and sometimes it's very negative, but most of the time when I'm looking for representation I don't expect to hear the words ADHD. And I think that's very telling.
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## Historical ADHD Coding in Media
Pete Wright: I think it's very telling. I think it's very telling because so much of what we're talking about is, as you said, coded, right? Like we can go back to the '50s with Dennis the Menace, right? Dennis the Menace is a classically hyperactive impulsive, constantly in trouble, never labeled as ADHD, diagnosis was not in the public discourse, and yet retrospectively it's pretty easy to view Dennis the Menace through that lens. Tigger, kids growing up with Tigger and Winnie the Pooh. Tigger is absolutely an ADHD tiger. That's an interesting thing.
Nikki Kinzer: Well, and the thing about Tigger that I love is the joy that he brings to the screen, right?
Pete Wright: Yes. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Like he's just happy and energetic, but there's just this sense of joy about him.
Pete Wright: The impulsivity coded as joyous because Tigger is not burdened with having to think about consequences either, right?
Nikki Kinzer: Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright: Like Tigger's bounces can be complicating, funny, but destructive. And Tigger never has to confront that. And that's also kind of a thing that I think is in the gestalt of the time. And go through the '80s. Like I feel like I grew up with the Cat in the Hat and Pee-Wee Herman and Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes, all coded as ADHD.
Matthew Fox: Well and if I can go back to the Winnie the Pooh thing, I have sometimes wondered if somehow a copy of the DSM-5 fell back through time and space to the author of Winnie the Pooh because a lot of times there's an ADHD person and everyone else is normal. Normal being in huge quotation marks here. But in Winnie the Pooh, you have Eeyore, who is classic depressive.
Nikki Kinzer: Yep. Absolutely.
Pete Wright: Totally.
Matthew Fox: You have Piglet, who is walking anxiety.
Pete Wright: Oh, you're right. Yep.
Matthew Fox: You have Winnie the Pooh who eats his feelings, which is something I very much identify with and joke that that's what my baby does too. And in each one - you know, in other parts of my life, you know, ADHD is not the only thing I have fun with up in my brain. In depression circles, we often talk about how Eeyore is this wonderful example where all of his friends know this and they never abandon him. They never shun him.
Pete Wright: Right.
Matthew Fox: They just give him space to feel his feelings. Same thing with Tigger.
Nikki Kinzer: Mm-hmm.
Matthew Fox: Every now and then Tigger bounces a little too much and kind of encroaches on someone else and they very lovingly say, "Hey Tigger, this is hurting us a little bit," and he learns, and he moves forward. In the same way with Piglet, in the same way with Eeyore.
Pete Wright: Right.
Matthew Fox: I hadn't thought of that to this exact moment, but you know, Winnie the Pooh is such a great example of go through the DSM-5, someone's in there, you know.
Nikki Kinzer: It's so true. Yeah, yeah.
Pete Wright: That's amazing.
Nikki Kinzer: I love Winnie the Pooh and the gang.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Totally. Totally.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
---
## Negative Representations and Stereotypes
Pete Wright: And in fact, I think it's a great and I think classic representation that allows us to see our behavior in a way that isn't necessarily burdened by anthropomorphization, right? Like it's not a human kid who's in trouble, it's an animal that's experiencing these things in the Hundred Acre Wood and somehow that makes it okay to experience the adaptation and see myself through that lens and it becomes less comforting when you get to characters like Bart Simpson, who is disruptive and impulsive and thrill seeking and all those things constantly treated with - you know, actually canonically treated with Ritalin in the show, in The Simpsons, as early as 2000. And I think that's an interesting thing. You start seeing yourself in those behaviors. That's not necessarily a positive reflection on how you see yourself with ADHD. That falls into more of the joke, the punchline, the non-example, use my life as a warning to others, kind of thing. The one that hit me the closest is Phil Dunphy in Modern Family, because I found Modern Family as an adult and as a parent. And that is explicitly written with ADHD traits, is endearing but scatterbrained. And I could relate to that as an adult man diagnosed as an adult with ADHD.
Matthew Fox: Mm-hmm. I want to talk about that, but first can I talk about what I think is one of the best examples of the Bart Simpson type thing, but where it's not a kid, it's an adult, and it's a negative stereotype that's being played for laughs.
Pete Wright: Please.
Matthew Fox: Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. They explicitly at one point in an episode because he is very impulsive, particularly when it comes...
Pete Wright: Oh.
Nikki Kinzer: Which character is he?
Pete Wright: Which character is...
Nikki Kinzer: I have to remember.
Matthew Fox: He is the one played by Doogie Howser, the sexist misogynist and...
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, okay.
Pete Wright: High five, up here, right.
Nikki Kinzer: That's right, okay.
Matthew Fox: At one point, ADHD is used to almost kind of not justify, but sort of like, oh, that's just Barney being Barney. And the line he says is, you know, "I was diagnosed with something as a kid, like ADHD, oh look a pretty girl." Like literally that's the line.
Pete Wright: Yes.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: He doesn't say "look a pretty girl," but he's distracted 'cause a pretty girl...
Nikki Kinzer: By something else, yeah.
Matthew Fox: And it's just - I mean that whole show is one where I've found it a lot more problematic than I than I had when I first watched it as I came to understand it more, but his character is just random impulsivity and no understanding of the boundaries of others, particularly of women, but also sometimes of others in general. And it - yeah, a lot of times, as you said, like Dennis the Menace, no one knows the term ADHD. Bart, we understand it because he's a cute kid. Barney to me feels like one of the worst examples because it's 100% ADHD is the joke, and ADHD is the justification for being a jerk.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Pete Wright: I wonder how much though - I mean that line is really ADHD - oh a pretty girl - and representative of what that character is.
Nikki Kinzer: That's annoying.
Pete Wright: I wonder like - I never thought about it the first time I watched through the show when it was airing and only started seeing it after I was diagnosed and more aware of, you know, as I was watching through the show with my kids years later. And that awareness - does that awareness necessitate a sullying of the original interpretation of the show, particularly because I'm biased by my natural inclination to love Neil Patrick Harris, who is just a charming, charming SOB. And also that he's playing so against type, right?
Matthew Fox: Right.
Pete Wright: I mean that character Barney Stinson could not be farther from Neil Patrick Harris.
Matthew Fox: I mean when I say I think it's a problematic character and a problematic show, the fact that it's not good ADHD representation is pretty low on the list.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right. Right, that's fair. Well, and then you look at other shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, right? Jake Peralta's - you know, Samberg's character on Brooklyn Nine-Nine is explicitly ADHD coded, distractible and goofy and energetic, and brilliant under pressure. That is a counterexample that is largely contemporaneous to Barney Stinson, and I think is a great representation. Right. There are a lot of things about Jake Peralta that I can see I could see taking on as you know aspirational traits. There is a guy who is fine saying yes to a lot of opportunities that through a number of other characteristics, fear, shame, doubt, I might say no to. And yet his impulsivity is somehow aspirational.
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## Gender Tropes in ADHD Representation
Matthew Fox: Brooklyn 99 is I think a really interesting example because I agree with you. He is presented as a lovable, relatable character. But there's one sort of like fly in the ointment there, which is, and again, it's not a bad thing for the one character, but it's a big trope that I've noticed. Because what is it that finds him balance? The love of a good, steady woman. And I think this is a thing I see in the representation a lot is the more flighty, more out there male character, the much more - you know stolid, like everything is okay. I am one hundred percent - you know, often OCD - you know there's often the like, you know, the OCD woman and the ADHD man that those two belong together. And even if she's not, you know, OCD coded, that often it's that kind of like the much more sort of like everything is in control woman who can help to regulate the ADHD man.
Pete Wright: Well, this is Nick and Jess in New Girl.
Matthew Fox: And I haven't seen the show, but yeah, that sounds right.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Fox: So again, not to rain on the parade, but just to say I think that's another interesting trope of how it's often presented, is that it's often - it's gender coded a lot, but also it's romantic love that helps to kind of rein that person in.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: You can see that in Modern Family for sure, because when you look at Phil Dunphy and the wife...
Pete Wright: You can see that.
Nikki Kinzer: She's super organized. I mean, works for like a closet organizing, you know, company that her dad started, right?
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: So like, yeah, you can totally see that.
Pete Wright: I've forgotten that.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: I totally forgotten that.
Nikki Kinzer: Like she's totally gonna put everything in order and Phil's gonna just kinda bounce around. But I love Modern Family. I think it's a great show.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: I think it's really funny and entertaining. So...
---
## Media as Mirror: Impact on Children and Adults
Pete Wright: I find it interesting because these are, as we said just a second ago, like these are things that I was not thinking about before. And yet part of the case is that representation is a mirror, right? Like children see themselves - search for themselves in stories, and adults do too, maybe less consciously. So the mirror of media shapes in that regard how we see ourselves. And I'm wondering, especially because you are a new parent, have you thought about what happens - the kind of media that shows neurodiversity represented well versus that which is represented as chaos and incompetence.
Matthew Fox: Here's, I think, a really interesting insight that you've helped me understand that the point being you have the insight, not me. I'm not bragging here, but I haven't. Because I've been thinking an awful lot about white supremacy and racism in media and sexism and misogyny and rape culture in media. And ADHD and neurodivergence - I also am autistic, so those two things are very co-linked for me - has kind of gone to the bottom of the list. And I think that's - like on the one hand I kind of understand like the in terms of the visceral damage being done in society, but also I think of something very interesting is that in my own head, as someone who's very dedicated to talking about these issues, that was a secondary concern. So no, it is not something I've looked at, but I already was pretty big on the idea of my kid watching Winnie the Pooh and all those kind of things and reading Percy Jackson at a young age, which I definitely want to make sure we talk about.
Pete Wright: And do you...
Matthew Fox: But yeah, it's an interesting thing to think about. And I'll say if there's kind of an overall idea that I really want to focus on in society at large, but also with my kids, is the idea of difference, not disorder. And I approach this on a couple levels. I am also physically disabled. I have a prosthetic leg. And that's a case where I think - I have a wonderful experience of the world and there are people who are differently abled, and that's a great thing for them, and I honor and support that. I am disabled. My body does not do what I want it to do. And so I use a mechanical assistant to assist me to do that. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn't - ADHD is annoying. Autism is annoying. And if you told me tomorrow that you could cure me, I would say go to hell. I don't want to be cured. I like the way my brain works. Not to go too far off topic, but there are times where I say like, oh, I'm unable to hide my thoughts through small talk and just tell you directly when I want something. I'm the divergent one? What the hell?
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Matthew Fox: My point being that I really want to - I think that a growing understanding is neurotypical is - there's a whole lot more neurodivergence and that we can look at it as difference. And that yes, sometimes it becomes unmanageable. And so medication is great, therapy is great, all the ways to help it are great.
Pete Wright: Right.
Matthew Fox: But no one says Tigger's bad. People love that Tigger is so bouncy and energetic. There are times when Eeyore is the only person who can understand the sadness that someone's going through, and we need that. And so yeah, so I think to me, I really want to focus on media that highlights that this can be a not just a difference, but a cool difference. And that you know, frankly the world would be a lot more boring if there weren't, you know, at least some people out there with ADHD and some people with autism and some people with all the other things.
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## Percy Jackson and Genre Media
Pete Wright: I definitely - you provoke questions in me about creators and sort of authority in writing neurodivergence, but first I want to go back to your Percy Jackson question because I think Percy Jackson - you're right to link on that. But I think broadly you spend a lot of time in genre media, right? And I think some genres thrive on different - superhero material, science fiction, for example. They're all full of outsiders learning to navigate unique powers. Sitcoms rely on exaggeration and ridicule often, right? Like I don't - I can't think of a time that I've seen Luke Skywalker step on a rake and get hit in the head with the handle, right? That kind of lampooning doesn't exist there. So talk a little bit about - Percy Jackson exists clearly in that crossover of fantasy, and we have a character whose metaphor for neurodivergence sort of helps describe both the narrative place in the world and the human place on the planet.
Matthew Fox: Right. Well, and so let me just table set a bit for those who don't know the Percy Jackson stories. They're written by a guy named Rick Riordan and they're about characters who are literal demigods. If you think back to Greek myths where you've got Hercules and Perseus and all the rest - Pericles is the philosopher, ADHD, look, I'm bouncing around. That all these characters who are the children of the Greek gods and of human partners, often women. And the idea of this is, guess what? The Greek gods are still around and they're still horny and they're still having kids. And that those kids are different. And that one of the things that it says, and here's where I think this is actually a little bit of a dangerous line. Because what they explicitly say is that ADHD is not in any way a problem, that it is a holdover from a time when hypervigilance and being able to jump into new situations quickly was good because you never knew when a monster was going to jump out and attack you or a Greek God was going to come along and screw with your world.
But so for the most part I think it's very good and I think a lot of kids really love this idea that there's something heroic, there's something great, there's something, and that Percy Jackson and all the other Greek gods - they have ADHD. Many of them are dyslexic because in this world, dyslexia is that you're constantly trying to look for ancient Greek and so you're confused by the English lettering of modern things. And I think that's really cool of saying to kids and saying to people of all ages, like, no, hey, the thing that you think - that the whole world is telling you is wrong and bad and different and you need to be fixed and you need to be normal like everyone else, that no, is actually not only a difference, but is the sign of your superpowers. I don't know, I went on my Percy Jackson rant and completely forgot the question you asked about.
Pete Wright: No no no, I think you did. Nikki, are you a Percy Jackson?
Matthew Fox: I apologize.
Nikki Kinzer: No, so I appreciate the explanation because I don't know.
Pete Wright: Did you have an opportunity to do any of that with kids? Okay.
Matthew Fox: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah, it definitely hit our family right when the kids were right at that age.
Matthew Fox: There - yeah, they're a great series of books.
Pete Wright: And it's been made into a couple of properties, right? There's a series, I think on HBO and there was a film, two films. The series was...
Matthew Fox: Technically they were. The less said about them the better.
Pete Wright: The series is better and what's interesting about it, and some of what it does to conflate for narrative purposes, ADHD and sort of amygdala hijacking anxiety for you know monsters attacking. You know, it gets a little bit sloppy. And yet, I love the idea that the stories are telling kids, hey, I see you, we see you. What you see on screen, we see you too, and you get to write the story of the way your brain relates to the world. And frankly, that's something we as adults can do too. I think there are lessons to be learned from this sort of young adult media.
Matthew Fox: Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright: Fiction books, TV shows that says, hey, you have authority and agency to rewrite how you think of your ADHD in the world.
---
## Finding Ourselves in Media
Matthew Fox: And that's where I want to draw the connection that I sort of started with very explicitly to queer representation and a queer lens towards media. Because when I was a kid we had someone come to our high school and speak and he was both black and queer and he talked about how growing up, he could look on TV and see people who looked like him in terms of being black. But he couldn't look and see who was queer. He could know his family members had gone through, you know, his experience of being black. He didn't know who were the people around him who had been queer. And I think there's a really strong connection there. Granted, yes, we often can see the symptoms of ADHD a lot more often, but still with the fact that so often it's not talked about, the connection here that I'm drawing is what I think is connecting what you're saying is that a lot of times in looking for ourselves in the media, we're the ones creating it, you know, and so take this case in the same way that there's lots and lots of media that takes Wonder Woman and has made her into a queer woman icon and has made Kirk and Spock into gay male icons, even though they're not necessarily that in the text, but people have found that there.
The character of Zoe in K-pop Demon Hunter, which I don't know if either of you saw, but if you care about the Oscars, it's got about three entries for best song that are probably gonna be out there.
Pete Wright: Oh yeah.
Matthew Fox: It's a fantastic movie. And one of the characters is very much ADHD coded. And it's brief little snippets, but the number of people I've talked to who talked about how much they cried watching her because they felt so seen with her on screen. And there's now so many memes and screen art and fan casts and stuff talking about her as an ADHD icon, especially as a woman with ADHD, because - and you guys know this far better than I am sure, but my sense is that so much of the media representation of ADHD, like with autism, is male-coded.
So yeah, so I think that's the - again I hope I answer your question. It feels to me like what a lot of what we're getting is fans who are so hungry to see ourselves on screen that often if we just see the curtain lifted up a little bit and we see a little part of what looks like us, we're gonna grab that and run with it and be like, okay, this character's ours now. You know, Hiccup has never explicitly said ADHD because how does that exist in a world with dragons? But look at his father's description of him. He doesn't listen. He has the attention span of a sparrow. I take him fishing and he goes hunting for trolls. And, you know, lots of kids, lots of adults look at that and say, that's me. That's me on screen.
---
## Authentic Representation and Creator Authority
Pete Wright: Yeah, right. We've been talking a lot about portrayals that are coded, right? And coded meaning these characters are not explicitly described as living with ADHD. They are not explicitly described as autistic. They just have those behaviors. And there's a bit of a sleight of hand there that I sometimes feel the most authentic portrayals are people who are neurodivergent creators themselves who want to see - as you say they want to see themselves on screen so they write it. But we also have, you know, we're in a culture right now of authentic representation and particularly in casting, right? We're casting actors who live with certain characteristics in order to embody characters that also have those characteristics. Does authentic representation in the media require neurodivergent creators at the helm? Or do you think we just we get it through strong, empathetic outsiders?
Matthew Fox: I'll say that my general idea on representation is that, and this is for all kinds of representation, someone needs to be in the room. And that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be like a world in which only black people can write black characters and only queer people can write queer characters, like that becomes a very, you know, sort of really problematic media world where actually you know we're really limiting people. And I think the same thing here. But I think knowing about the kind of people you're talking about and you know asking writers to talk to other people who have the experiences of the characters that are trying to write and using beta readers. And I want to - this is again a different kind of disability, but I think it's a very good example. Brandon Sanderson - I have no connection to, but a friend of a friend is one of his beta readers. And forgive me for spoilers for the newest Brandon Sanderson book, but it's been out about nine months. And in it, there's a character who loses a limb. And Mr. Sanderson, not having had that experience, wanted to have a beta reader who had had that same experience. And so my name came up and it was suggested to me. They sent me the chapters and it's a magic fantasy kind of a world. But where he wanted it to be a kind of authentic experience of using a prosthetic and trying to adjust to it, even if the details of it were magical. I suggested some changes and some changes were made.
That I think is the line that we look for. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to check every single box of every single character you're writing about, but you have to make sure that someone from within that world is giving you input because that way you avoid the stereotypes. You avoid just using someone as the punchline or as the excuse for their bad behavior or for the way of showing that your main character is actually better than this other person.
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## Media Influence on Public Policy and Social Change
Pete Wright: I think it's fascinating. You've spent a lot of time also in your career as an advocate and working in social justice, and I feel like I know where this answer might go, especially because of what you said earlier about how ADHD and autism and neurodiversity representation has fallen to the bottom of the list. But we're in a time right now where we sort of need to be thinking about how these things influence the people who are making decisions beyond creativity, but just in general, in school boards, in you know, public policy, seeing ourselves on other screens that aren't necessarily fictional. How do you think about that right now in 2025?
Matthew Fox: So let me actually start by throwing a question back to you all, which is - cause one of the things that I was thinking about particularly in terms of ADHD is I posted the question on my social medias because I love hearing the input of my colleagues and friends, and I said, "Hey, fellow neurodivergents, but especially people with ADHD. Tell me about your type, you know, what you see of yourself in media on screen, both good and bad." And 90% of the responses I got were about autism. And when I did some Googling about ADHD in the media, it took me to a lot of stuff about neurodivergence, which took me to a lot of stuff about autism. And I am comorbid, I have both of those, so I'm interested in that. But it kind of got me thinking, I want to kind of ask you, do you all find that there's an extent to which in these conversations ADHD is kind of the red-headed stepchild. And I say that as a red-headed person with a stepmother, so I can use that term. But like do you get a sense that even in the neurodivergence - often autism isn't the first thing that comes up, but that even in those circles, ADHD is often the "Okay, we're mostly gonna talk about autism, but ADHD will come into the conversation somewhat."
Nikki Kinzer: It's interesting that you say that because I don't - I don't see a lot of autism in TV or media representation. So I would say that they're both - the shows that I'm watching anyway, they're both lacking representation.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Nikki Kinzer: The one I remember specifically was in Parenthood when one of the sons, one of the main characters' sons has autism and - it's been a long time since I've watched it, but I thought they did a pretty good job of talking about the struggles and the acceptance and compassion around, you know, helping and raising and supporting that child.
Pete Wright: Right.
Nikki Kinzer: But with ADHD I definitely see what you're saying, Matthew.
Pete Wright: I definitely see that.
Nikki Kinzer: I see more of the joke around it and not the struggles. And I'm always surprised when somebody talks about ADHD on a TV or movie, it always like surprises me because it's so not talked about.
Pete Wright: Right.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Pete Wright: We have to talk about that line.
Nikki Kinzer: Like you see a lot of like with alcoholism and drug addiction and you know, those are all over the place. But when somebody says something about ADHD, I always like perk up and I'm like, oh, wait, what did they say? Yeah. And I want to rewind and see how they're talking about it.
Pete Wright: Yeah, because it's presented in many cases - and we'll say, you know, portraying characters who are maybe going for a job interview and are struggling to keep up with the interview or struggling to go for a higher level position in organization, there is this feeling that, oh, ADHD is a thing that is a deficit. It's a thing that stands in the way of future success. And we're going to use that as a narrative point to explore neurodiversity. And yet the reality is many, many executives have made it because of their ADHD, because of the way their brain worked. And that is a bit of a conflict in the storytelling that I think needs to be resolved. Same thing with autism, right? I mean this sort of the coded language of deficit meaning limitation, I think what I hope we see in this sort of post-stereotype world is ADHD autism coded as engine for success. Right. The reason Peter Parker is able to do what he can as Spider-Man is because of his ADHD coding, fast talking, impulsive, constantly able to juggle chaos and do it at lightning speed.
Matthew Fox: Right.
Pete Wright: Because of the way his brain works, Jake Peralta is able to solve crazy crimes. Because of the way his brain works. Abed Nadir in Community is able to challenge all the neurotypical stereotypes as an autistic coded individual.
Matthew Fox: Right. Because autism, every version of Sherlock Holmes and every Sherlock Holmes coded detective, you know, has been able to do these kind of things.
Pete Wright: Hugely important because of the number of neurotypical kids who saw Sherlock Holmes at a young age and didn't even know that they were aspiring to autism-coded behaviors, right? I was one of those kids. I wanted my brain to work the way Sherlock Holmes's did. And yet why does everyone refer to this thing called autism as a deficit? I don't - that's a high jump, low ceiling.
Matthew Fox: 'Cause you often don't find someone with as much patience as Watson is frankly the answer there.
Pete Wright: Right, right.
Matthew Fox: But I hear - well...
Pete Wright: We all need a Watson.
Matthew Fox: And I think what you're saying though is really important and brings up what I was saying is the one little hesitation I have with Percy Jackson and ADHD, which is that I feel like there are these two poles that are often out there. One of which is you're broken, you are different, you are disabled, you have a deficit, and you have to be fixed.
Pete Wright: Right.
Matthew Fox: And the other is you're actually better than everyone else. Why in the world would you do anything to treat this? And I love listening to kids talk about Percy Jackson. I often though, and I - you know I've heard this from both like therapist friends and also parent friends, that sometimes a kid will watch Percy Jackson and be like, "What do you mean? Why do I need to go to therapy? Why do I need to take any kind of medication?"
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Matthew Fox: And I'm not a therapist, I'm definitely not a psychiatrist, I don't know anything, I don't want to weigh in at all into those debates, but I'll say that for myself, both medication and therapy have been incredibly important. And as well as podcasts like this one, I've been a listener for a long time and you guys have really helped me. I wanted to kind of give that plug. And just to say like I would love to have a Peter Parker who also talks about like, yeah, if I can have 70% of my ADHD, I'm perfect. So I just need something to kinda help dial it down a bit.
Pete Wright: Right, right.
Matthew Fox: And maybe when he's got a big fight coming up, he skips his medication for a day or two. I don't - I again I don't know the brain chemistry I don't know about, but like having that kind of an idea of like, yeah, I've got this part of me that at extremes can be problematic, but at the extreme of not having it at all, I think is problematic. And I want to just play with it the same way that I can adjust my voice. I come from New York. My way of speaking when I go back home is very different than my way of speaking when I live in Minnesota where I am now. I code switch. I'd love to see more characters who were able to, you know, a lot of - actually here's the thing I hadn't thought of before, but like a lot of autistic folks I know, we talk about code switching and that we have learned how to do small talk and do eye contact and do the other things that neurotypical people have decided is normal. I have a lot of feelings about that. That's another question entirely.
Pete Wright: Yeah, right.
Matthew Fox: I don't see that with ADHD though. I don't see a lot of - you know I'd love to see more characters who talk about like being able to kind of turn it up or turn it down, you know, be like, okay. Hulk smash. It's time to let all of my random impulses happen because that's what's needed in the situation, but it's not needed in that situation.
Pete Wright: Yeah, that's I think that's a really interesting observation and I think Hulk is one of those fascinating examples because Hulk is incapable of doing those things right on demand. And that's a representation of ADHD that I can see, right? I can see that very clearly. Sometimes I'm incapable of slowing down and being methodical and being focused. Sometimes I just have to smash. And I've - Hulk did not make it to my list of example characters. And of course, Hulk should have been there. Huh. Okay. This is fascinating. Nikki, I feel like I've been truly dominating the conversation because I'm deeply interested in it.
Nikki Kinzer: That's okay. Yes, it's great.
Pete Wright: What - do you have any reflections on this that I feel that I've missed?
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## The Need for Better Representation
Nikki Kinzer: I think Hollywood needs to do better. That's the bottom line, right?
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Like we need to have...
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, we need to do better.
Pete Wright: We need to see ourselves. I like it. Let's just say I like it when I see myself on screen. I like it when I see a character like Phil Dunphy that I feel like, that's me. They got it. And maybe a character like Jake Peralta is that could be me if I was able to massage my ADHD in new directions. That's aspirational me. Maybe Felicity Smoak in Arrow, right? That could be me too, if I was also a brilliant engineer and scientist. Like there's - I think those are characters that are worth really looking at and understanding. And also keeping room for sometimes I see in myself the punchline. Sometimes I see in myself the joke that they're making, and I get it. And keeping goodwill and good humor about it is also important, or else it's really depressing to watch anything.
Matthew Fox: And if I can just add one thing to what you were saying, Nikki, I really want that as well, and I have a fear because - and here again I'm mostly gonna talk about genre media, and I don't know how much this is a thing in other worlds, but you know, as someone who, you know, is also autistic, who also has borderline and PTSD and somewhere in the middle of those two, that for a long time I felt really kinda bad that there was no representation on the screen. Until Hollywood discovered those things and suddenly every supervillain had some form of PTSD or some form of something like borderline. And then a lot of them became autistic. Or actually in one of my other kind of - I think that one of the best superpowers is the ability to fall in love, and I love rom coms. How often did you start seeing that the either the horrible ex-boyfriend or just the person you have to find a way to love is very autistic coded because they're kind of like they don't know how to relate to people or often it's the best friend. You know, our rom-com heroine is really good and charismatic and they have a best friend who they're always trying to set up on dates, but they're autistic coded and they drive guys away.
And so I'm both - I want ADHD representation. I just I hope we can skip what every other group of mental difference seems to get, which is the "okay, cool, we see you, so you're gonna be our villains now."
Pete Wright: The tidal wave, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah, right, yeah.
Matthew Fox: You know, and I don't really see like ADHD - to me autism, I think, PTSD, those things lend themselves more to villainy because of the stereotypes around them. I hope that isn't the case with ADHD, but like I always try to think about this, Pete, or either one of you. I couldn't find any villains, like super villains or anything like that, who's ADHD coded, the way you can with a lot of the other neurodiversions. But is there any you can think of?
Pete Wright: What about Gru and the Minions?
Nikki Kinzer: I don't know. Oh, I love Gru.
Matthew Fox: Yeah, he's - he can be - but they become heroes.
Pete Wright: So there's some - there might be some ADHD coding in there. I know they're heroes in the end.
Matthew Fox: They're antiheroes.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Matthew Fox: Menace is a new term we should use in terms of heroes, antiheroes and stuff like that.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah. That's a good point.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: Dennis had it right in the fifties.
Nikki Kinzer: Yeah.
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## Wrapping Up and Resources
Pete Wright: Okay. Hey, this has been fantastic. Matthew, thank you so much for hanging out and sharing these insights and just joining and helping us cultivate the conversation, right? I think you're fantastic. Where do you want to send - I'm gonna put lots of links in the show notes for all the stuff that you do because people need to see it.
Matthew Fox: Sure.
Pete Wright: What's the most important? Where do you want people to go learn?
Matthew Fox: Yeah, I'd say three quick things. If you go to theethicalpanda.com or just go to my page on TruStory FM - TruStory.fm, you'll find all about me. But if you're just looking for podcasts, Superhero Ethics is where we take kind of a wide range of things. Star Wars Generations podcast is where I'm specifically talking about Star Wars, which you want to talk about ADHD coding, it's all over the place with that one. And I have two co-hosts who are different generations. I am Gen X, one of them is a millennial, one of them is Gen Z. And so we're talking a lot about Star Wars through different perspectives. And then I've recently started, and when both Pete and I can stop chasing squirrels, we will eventually get it posted, The Once and Future Parent, which is about parenting. And we actually just did an episode. Nikki, I wasn't sure if you were referring to the TV show or the movie Parenthood, but somewhere...
Nikki Kinzer: The TV show.
Matthew Fox: Okay. Because it's based on an original movie from the '80s, and we've just done a couple of episodes with me and Mandy Kaplan talking about that movie. So yeah, I'd say take a look at those three podcasts.
Nikki Kinzer: Oh, okay.
Matthew Fox: And I've heard good things about the show and I want to check it out.
Pete Wright: Excellent. Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. We appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget if you have something to contribute to the conversation, we're heading over to the Show Talk channel in our Discord server. And you can join us right there by becoming a supporting member at the Deluxe Level or better, patreon.com/theADHDpodcast. On behalf of Matthew Fox and Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll see you right back here next week on Taking Control, the ADHD podcast.
