When it first premiered a couple of years ago, I have little doubt that I wasn’t alone in instantaneously writing off The Big Bang Theory. Two nerds do their awkward thing, hot neighbor moves in, one of them pines for her with aching, unrequited passion… hilarity does not ensue.
Surprise: as it turned out, it was funny.
Once it got past the initial “new series thrashing around, trying to figure out what it is, hoping it stays on long enough to get past the suck and start being worthwhile” growing pains, The Big Bang Theory rapidly evolved into something unexpected — a surprisingly well-rendered ensemble comedy featuring nuanced writing and characterizations in place of the expected, grotesque, Revenge of the Nerds-style caricatures of America’s best, brightest and most socially inept.
And, at the heart of it all, there was Sheldon. As portrayed by genteel Texan Jim Parsons, Sheldon developed into something more than the Freudian ego of the show — the perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, reason and logic-driven aspect of the human self. He became a creature who transcended easy description or understanding as the all right-brained, über-intelligent, hyper-logical and socially inept counterpoint to Kaley Cuopo’s free-and-easy Cheesecake Factory waitress/cute dumb blonde object of desire/surprisingly, pointedly funny Penny.
He became, in essence, the first mass audience-friendly rendition of Asperger’s to be embraced and beloved by popular culture for being nothing other than what he is: strange, fascinating, and a very unexpected kind of wonderful.
Asperger’s Syndrome, of course, is one variant of the autism spectrum: a pervasive developmental disorder not infrequently characterized by what famed British psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (and yes, he’s the cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen) referred to as mindblindness — basically, a lack of the kind of fundamental empathy that enables people to recognize the perspectives of others, which subsequently inhibits flexible social interaction and communication.
As autism spectrum disorders have emerged from the shadows in recent years – in concert with an alarming growth in the rate of ASD diagnoses in children, which now may be as high as 1 in 91 American children – there’s been a concurrent rise in speculation that some of the great scientific and technical minds of human history (Einstein, Bill Gates and Isaac Newton, among others) were touched by Asperger’s. 
Sheldon falls very neatly into this continuum: a brilliant scientist whose greatest passions are characterized by obsessive focus on details (witness this past Monday’s episode, spotlighting his effortless expertise in some Magic-style fantasy card game in which his eidetic memory and subsequent card-counting skillz establish him as the king of geek mountain) as well as his innate inability to relate to people on an even remotely normal level (his recent operant conditioning of Penny, training her to act better by feeding her chocolate as a reward, offered one glorious example).
But the thing is… even in the light of all that defines him as odd or (deep breath) quirky, we love him. He’s funny as hell, and – despite the fact that he consistently aggravates everyone around him by virtue of who he is and everything he does – he has friends, a career, and a full life. He is, in short, the poster child for the successful integration of Asperger’s into mainstream society.
It’s an easy and uncomfortable point of comparison to think about how easily so many of us have embraced Sheldon, and then to reflect back on Hoffman’s Wapner-loving Rain Man or Dr. Westphal’s tragically, profoundly autistic son Tommy from St. Elsewhere (and yes, I realize I’m dating myself with the reference). And granted, before we jump to any quick and simple, pat-ourselves-on-the-back conclusions about “how far we’ve come in accepting neurological differences in others” we need to keep in mind that the reason it’s called the autism spectrum is because it casts an enormously wide net, broad enough to encompass any and all of them with ease, and as such each of these characters need to be viewed not as representatives in a logical progression in how autism and related issues have been viewed in popular culture over the years but rather as independent phenomena, each delineating a different aspect of all that falls within the classification of autism.
That said, there is no denying that Sheldon is a rare and wondrous joy on-screen. And while the show may keep his Aspergery-ness as subtext… for those who know to look for it, it is clear as day, entirely visible at all times, and a heartening affirmation of all that may be possible for our own spectrum youth.
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