In celebration of the release of the new Wonka movie this month, I recently rewatched, for the billionth time, the original film — Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Wonka media has been a special interest of mine for the past seven years — -an autism-related term used to refer to topics and subjects that occupy headspace constantly, meaning I know more about Willy Wonka and his crimes against humanity than any sane person really ought to.
While watching the film, I was once again struck by how much I related to the character. His odd mannerisms, his disregard for small talk and social niceties, and his fixation on a self-constructed world all reminded me of a lot of my own experiences growing up as a quiet, book-obsessed, undiagnosed autistic kid. Although I was recently diagnosed at the age of twenty-one (it’s never too late!), the sense that something was always a little off has dogged me since childhood — in my odd tendency to repeat words and phrases, my limited and intense interests, my awkwardness in conversation and struggle to make friends. And as I sat there, watching Wonka spout off nonsensical phrases, constant literary references, and the occasional bit of wisdom, I finally got the urge to lay out, once and for all, what an autistic icon this character is, and has been for the past sixty years. Let’s dive into a world of pure imagination together.
A Little Nonsense
Autism, since it is formally classified as a disorder by the DSM5, has a whole host of medical definitions that try to sum up, in as digestible a form as possible, just what exactly is wrong with you or your child. Instead of pinpointing one definition, I’m going to temporarily throw the psychological jargon out the window and focus on the single term “disorder.” Disorder, classically defined, is a state of confusion or messiness — usually a form of existence that runs counter to broad definitions of harmonic living. Although unintended, I find that the literary definition rather than the scientific one fits my, and Wonka’s, experience of living as autistic. Disorder is chaos, it’s doing things just because.
Take this excerpt from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the rightfully-maligned sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
“I have never met a man,” said Grandma Georgina, “who talks so much absolute nonsense!”
“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men,” Mr. Wonka said.
Many autistic people are told at one point or another that the way they think and act does not make sense. For example, in many adaptations of the story, visiting the chocolate room for the first time leads the parents to question why it came to exist in the first place.
In the original West End musical adaptation, the conversation goes something like this:
Mr. Salt: Well if it isn’t for anything, and it doesn’t make money, then why on Earth does it need to exist at all?
Wonka: You really don’t see, do you?
A painter needs no reason
To make a thing of art
Yes, there’s no switch to stop and start the flow
We live in an unprecedented age of unthinking consumerism — our lives, from the get-go, are predicated on beneficial transactions. If I am to create something, I better be able to justify its usefulness in the language of monetary gain. Entertainment has become inextricably linked to the words content and consumption — creators make content, and we now consume the art we once admired. This implies a one-sided relationship to the way we engage with art — when we consume something it no longer becomes a conversation between creator and viewer, but rather a passively made, ready-to-eat distraction on which the viewer can project anything and everything they like. To make art for art’s sake or simply because we find it beautiful, is, in today’s age, an indicator of disordered living. Thus, Wonka making the chocolate room, or his factory for that matter, just because is, to most people, nonsense.
Again, from The Great Glass Elevator:
“He walked slowly towards the chocolate waterfall. It was an unhappy truth, he told himself, that nearly all people in the world behave badly when there is something really big at stake. Money is the thing they fight over most.”
The us vs. them mindset suggested by the phrase “nearly all people in the world” is one commonly adopted by autistic people, who feel that their perspective and lived experience do not align with that of their peers. Wonka, in creating a world of his own, has effectively made a safe haven for himself where the things he loves can exist without justification — a form of escapism I often engaged in as a child. In Wonka’s factory, the oddities that would make him an outcast in the external world are, to him, “simply second nature” — the name of the song in which he extolls the joys of being different:
It’s no blessing, It’s a curse
No wait…strike that and reverse
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What’s a Social Cue?
In the 2017 Broadway adaptation of the book, Wonka opens the boisterous and breakneck-paced song “Strike that, Reverse It” by, muttering:
“Now let’s get the small-talk out of the way.”
The word “small-talk,” for context, is said as if it is the single most loathsome word in the English dictionary.
Though every adaptation of Wonka is unique in some way, all seem to share a love for their craft that is only rivaled by their hatred of social conventions. From the 2005 Wonka’s disastrous introduction and awkward giggling to the original book Wonka’s fidgety and sporadic movements, none of the Wonkas have exactly come off as approachable. Even the new Wonka, played by Timothée Chalamet, has his moment as he practically screams “You’ve never had chocolate?!” to his sidekick Noodle, who answers his outburst nonchalantly. All of these traits: poor conversational skills, fidgeting, volume control, and a dislike of small-talk are all classic characteristics associated with ASD.
Autistic people also often struggle with echolalia, or the repetition of words and phrases for seemingly no reason. Gene Wilder’s Wonka, with his near-constant rattling off of quotes from classic literature parallels this condition, especially (and most entertainingly) when he pedals a bike in the inventing room.
Similar to symptoms associated with ADHD, many autistic people will also find that their hyperfixations and interests make it difficult to focus on daily tasks for long periods of time. Wonka is so fixated on making chocolate that he has actually built a factory where he does nothing but make chocolate, and has been doing so for decades. Take also these lyrics from “Must Be Believed to Be Seen”:
No magic spells, no potions
Forswear legerdemain
My kingdom’s created from notions
All swirling inside of my brain
The manic delivery of “swirling inside of my brain” in both recordings of the song speaks to the sometimes uncomfortable intensity of creative thinking. I want to note here that I’m aware of the “it’s not that deep” factor that plays into all of this, but I kind of shoved it in the back of my mind the second I decided to write an analytical article about Willy Wonka. Besides, I know I personally struggle with a constant barrage of thoughts here and there — sometimes to the point where I have trouble falling asleep at night. Hence these lyrics from Simply Second Nature:
The mind is such a wonder to explore
And though some nights I dread
All the voices in my head
I’d rather be this way than be a bore
I also made a compilation a while back of the mannnyyyyy (and I mean many) times 2017 Broadway Wonka displays some of the physical symptoms of ASD, often referred to as stimming.
Autistic Solidarity
I know I’ve been harping a little too much on the Broadway adaptation, but I promise there’s a good reason.
In this version of the story, rather than just being a decent kid who, for the most part, minds his own business, Charlie is awarded the factory because he thinks as Wonka does. This kind of connection is also implied in the 2005 adaptation, where Charlie is seen to have built an impressively large model of Wonka’s factory made entirely of toothpaste caps, but is only made explicit in both musical versions. This Charlie draws up fantastical ideas instead of doing his homework and spends his remaining free time endlessly pestering his Grandpa Joe for stories about Willy Wonka. Wonka, to this Charlie, is essentially a special interest — he hardly goes five minutes without bringing his name up, or delivering an excitable song summarizing the man’s life history.
Wonka, of course, sees a lot of himself in Charlie. In the song, “Must Be Believed to Be Seen” there’s a section in the middle where the tempo slows and Wonka wistfully sings:
Despite the man seen at these doors
My childhood home was bland like yours
But I knew how to look, to find
A world that wasn’t colorblind
This is the first time (and only until the end of the show) that Wonka makes a genuine attempt to reach out to Charlie — and he does so with language relating to neurodivergent thinking. The musical doesn’t exactly turn to diagnostic criteria for sourcing lyrics, but the use of the phrase “a world that wasn’t colorblind” is once again suggestive of the us vs. them mindset, offsetting the ordinary blandness of the “normal” world with the vibrancy of the neurodivergent imagination. In the same sequence, Wonka also sings:
But in the end there’s quite a prize
If you can see with more than eyes
Autistic people are often hypersensitive to their environments and engage with the stimuli around them more keenly than their neurotypical peers. Exploring the world with all senses, and often with a detail-oriented mindset literally allows many autistic people to see the world with much more than eyes. Often small and irrelevant elements in an environment become points of interest for those with ASD where they might otherwise be ignored by neurotypicals.
Lastly, I want to finish with a brief discussion of one of my favorite lyrics in the musical, this time from the closing song “The View From Here”, where Wonka takes Charlie up through the atmosphere in his glass elevator:
When a boy has just a touch of odd
And he walks the streets without a nod
He should know that odd is a gift from God
Like this starry blue chandelier
Most neurodivergent people will be the first to tell you that living as they are isn’t easy. For me, I have trouble finding humor in the same things my friends do, making conversation, focusing, following directions, empathizing, etc. Sometimes things that seem easy or mundane to others are nearly impossible for me. Worst of all, these aversions and behaviors are inexplicable too. I cannot put into words why I am what I am, I just know that I have to learn to accept it. However, for every moment I spend hating myself for what I cannot change, I strive to find more moments where I love living as I am.
I listened to “The View From Here” for the first time in many years recently, and I’m not ashamed to say that I cried a little (maybe more than a little). To quantify one’s differences not as a mistake or a joke or a fault — but as a gift is to accept that they let us do impossibly wonderful things. We need to stop looking for ways to fix or mask autism, and instead make society a more accommodating place for neurodivergency to thrive. Only then can autistic kids dream less about faraway places where they can live as they are, and instead live those dreams in the here and now. And we can start by reaching out to that touch of oddness in each other, and recognizing what the embrace of pure imagination can do for us all.
