I don’t remember when my mother introduced me to the Jim Henson Company’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal, but I do remember I’ve always loved it, despite having several recurring nightmares after. I was drawn to the fantastical and wonderous, contrasted against the dark and unsettling. As I grew up and watched other 80’s films featuring puppets like Labyrinth and The NeverEnding Story, it became obvious that nothing quite captures humanity’s contradiction like puppets - equal parts magical and uncanny.

As a late-diagnosed autistic woman, I’ve gone through most of my life masking - hiding my autistic traits and symptoms to appear ‘normal.’ This felt like being a puppet, controlled by social rules and expectations I didn’t understand, but nevertheless performed by invisible strings. Anxiety, internalized ableism, and masking are concepts that the puppet and puppeteer dynamic perfectly capture, recreated in Kendra and The Harpy’s relationship.

In addition to the masking is the very real sensory distress Kendra feels. Many autistic people struggle with unbalanced sensory profiles, where certain senses are either hyper- or hypo-sensitive. Film has so many tools available to convey that subjective experience. Lens distortion, aspect ratio changes, and practical costume gags are of the visuals elements we play with, while the sound team focused on frenetic diegetic music you can never quite settle into, deliberately muddled sound mixing, and layering in brown noise and other artifacts to disrupt the listening experience. Yes, this is what going to a loud party without accommodations is like for me.

There’s a saying in the autistic community: “if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” This is why it is critical we cast an autistic actor to play Kendra, someone who could bring her lived experience to the story, who has also gone on the journey of being controlled by fear to stepping into the power self-knowledge offers. And they needed the comedic chops to explore the darkly funny side of autism, without losing the pain and distress that often comes with it.

My hope is that you come to better understand autism from the inside, and that you fall in love with the magic of puppets the way I have.