The revolutionary children’s television program "Sesame Street" has been teaching kids more than their 123’s and ABC’s since its inception in 1969.
Grover taught kids it’s okay to be alone, and Mr. Snuffleupugus demonstrated that friends come in all shapes and sizes, including invisible. When Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, shopkeeper and friend to Big Bird, passed away, the show took on the topic of grief.
About a decade ago, young fans were introduced to Julia, a puppet who has autism. Big Bird met Julia while she was painting with Elmo, Abby Cadabby and Alan.
It was recently reported that there was a more than 400% increase in autism diagnoses in adults between the ages of 26 and 34 from 2011 to 2022. As of 2022, the CDC reports about 3% of 8-year-olds had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder — that’s about one in 31 kids, which is higher than it’s been in the past.
In April, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said kids in this country are being diagnosed with ASD at an “alarming rate” and promised a comprehensive look into environmental factors that may lead to it by September.
This has led to a lot of controversy and disagreement, but one truth all parties can likely land on is that we don’t know enough about autism, or how to interact with people who have it.
That’s where Stacey Gordon, Julia's puppeteer, comes in. By introducing a character with autism to kids of all ages, "Sesame Street" says it’s trying to help increase empathy and understanding — the way it has for all kinds of children.
Gordon has a son on the autism spectrum, and her portrayal of Julia is more of a cause than a career. Gordon joined The Show in her empty Phoenix studio, since she was moving out of state the next day, to discuss her sense of responsibility to this community, playing this character.
Full conversation
STACEY GORDON: The moment I was asked to audition, in fact, the moment that they sent me an email asking my connection to autism, that's when I felt it because I thought, “Oh, they want someone in the community's perspective, that's really cool,” because they consulted over 80 different organizations. They consulted autistic people, they consulted therapists and, you know, they had a giant team of researchers. And the fact that they'd want a mom's opinion. A mom who has sensory challenges opinion. You know, this is, I just thought it was really, really cool.
And so yeah, I have a responsibility at that point and then I found out it was an audition and I was like, “OK, I know how I don't want autism portrayed.” It's not a tragedy. Like, it's not. Are there challenges with it? Yeah, there's challenges. Everybody has challenges. And the idea in bringing Julia to life is pointing out our similarities and pointing out our differences because our similarities bring us together and allow for the differences.
MARK BRODIE: Well, it's interesting to hear you describe this because with kids you often hear with books or with TV shows the idea of a mirror and a window. Like you want kids to have the mirror where they can see themselves reflected in characters, and a window where they can see into somebody else's life or somebody else's experience. It sounds like that was very much on your mind.
GORDON: Yeah, yeah. I don't know that I had that frame of reference, the mirror and window, I think I just had the frame of reference of my own childhood and feeling misunderstood and then watching my son be misunderstood. And I don't want any kid to feel rejected by their peers. It's a sucky feeling. If I can portray Juliet like most of the kids that I know today, she's a happy kid. She's funny. She is creative and she finds she can see, she sees the world in her own way, and boy howdy does that like blow people away at times, you know.
It’s like, my son did that. My son, the observations he made all throughout his childhood. I started writing them all down, started tweeting them for a while back, when you tweet stuff. And I keep writing it down. He's 21 now and I still write stuff down because, and like I'll laugh and he'll look at me and he'll go, ”It's going on Facebook, isn't it?” And I'll say, “If you'll allow it, yeah."
BRODIE: Well, so what's the process like when you are portraying Julia? I mean, do you have input into the scripts? Do you have input into, like, how Julia is going to act or react in certain situations?
GORDON: Yeah, yeah, so we do. They'll give us, they'll give us the scripts and then we get to give feedback, performer feedback. I've even had writers come to me and say, “Hey, what do you think of this?” I've had producers call and say, “How do you think Julia would respond in this situation? We're in the writer's room right now.” And the really amazing thing about "Sesame Street" is, if something comes across my lap and I'm reading something and I go, “Oh,” I know that they've never written it to be that way. They're trying to make some kind of other point. But I know that I can go to them and I can say, “Hey, this makes me uncomfortable. And I don't know why yet, but let's figure it out and can we change it?” And they are so receptive. I mean, like the last time it happened, it literally brought me to tears.
BRODIE: Also, I'm curious what you have heard, because you've been playing Julia for a number of years now, I would imagine you're somewhat of a rock star in the community of kids, you know, with autism spectrum disorder. Like what, what do you hear from the kids? What do you hear from their parents and their families about how this character has impacted them?
GORDON: Gosh, there's a parent, this, this tweet that goes around where there's this parent named Ship, and they have a kiddo that they call “action kid online.” It's been, it's one of those screenshots that makes the rounds and it's something to the effect of like a conversation of this little girl off to the side and you know, a little girl, “He's silly.” And the grandmother says, “Oh, be careful,” and her son is spinning in the corner and she says, “It's OK, I saw it on 'Sesame Street.'” She knows how to play with them because she saw on "Sesame Street."
BRODIE: Wow, that must be really gratifying for you.
GORDON: For me, I don't feel like I've accomplished anything. I feel like I just get to be around while it's being accomplished. The writers and the researchers, they're doing really hard work. The entire team, the making sure that Julia's headphones are right, putting her in the parade and giving her headphones and not talking about it afterwards, you know, just doing it. And saying, “She's just here and she has a visual accommodation that we don't need to talk about.” She has a talker for when speaking is too much for her. And normalizing accommodations like that allows everybody to be normal, you know.
BRODIE: And I would think that there are some kids who really see Julia as a real person, like, as a friend, as someone with whom they can really relate.
GORDON: Yeah, absolutely. Just like we did with characters when we were little, right?
BRODIE: I'm so interested in what you said about the similarities and the differences because I would imagine, and you alluded to this that when you are playing Julia, it's not just who is Julia and what is she doing, it's who is Julia not and what is she not doing that that you're thinking about. Like trying to portray her as accurately as possible and not making her diagnosis seem like a real problem, not making it seem like she's “strange” or “atypical” in some way, but having her just be a kid and this is who she is.
GORDON: Well, I think all people regardless of their diagnoses are people first, whether you're a kid or an adult or anything, but it is still important to — she is autistic. She is different and it's OK to be different. It's OK to have big feelings regardless of your diagnosis. It's OK to have a meltdown. It's OK to express yourself. It's OK to fidget. It's OK to bounce your leg. It's OK to click your pen.
It's not so much that I'm trying to make her not appear strange, it's that I'm trying to help everyone realize that we're all strange. We're not all autistic, but it does mean that we can have compassion for every single person on the planet. It does mean that your value isn't in what you bring to the table, it is in your sheer existence.
