Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Saira (We Are Lady Parts)

 

*Saira-related spoilers.*

I love seeing wildly different autistic-coded characters just click onscreen. Aziraphale & Crowley, Ted & Beard, Elphaba & Galinda. On paper, they seem like they’d drive each other bonkers, but you see them together, and somehow, it just works. That’s what Saira and Amina are like on We Are Lady Parts.

I’ve already talked about Amina, my dorky, anxious, fluttery beloved. One of the show’s chief joys is watching her address her struggles and fight through them to become radically, beautifully herself. Through that, she gets a lot of help from Saira, who’s also deeply flawed and struggling but in almost entirely opposite ways.

If Amina is nervous and indecisive, Saira is intense and driven. She eats, sleeps, and dreams Lady Parts—not just the band itself, but her vision of what the band represents. She’s penned a manifesto about what they stand for, and even as she wrestles to achieve her various ambitions for the band, she doesn’t want to deviate from her ideals. Whether it’s preparing for a big audition or trying to earn enough cash to pay for studio time, her bandmates are sometimes unable to reach her through her single-minded focus. It’s always the band. Everything else comes second.

That intensity extends to her decision at the start of the series that their sound is missing a lead guitarist. Regardless of what Bisma, Ayesha, or Momtaz think of that, Saira has made her mind up: she needs a lead guitarist. The guitarist auditions are a wash? She’s undeterred. Reconnecting with Amina makes Saira decide that she’s the one, even though she hasn’t heard Amina play since primary school. Amina doesn’t want to be in the band because she has crippling stage fright and gets violently ill if she tries to perform in public? Doesn’t matter—Saira’s sure she can find a way around that.

Saira reminds me a little of the Twelfth Doctor in that she does the caring thing more often than she says the caring thing. She’s prickly and guarded, and her cold fury isn’t something to be messed with. She’s not all that good with touchy-feely stuff or vulnerability, and that can come back to bite her—a big part of why her relationship with Abdullah falls apart is because she simply can’t admit how much she likes him and wants to have him in her life. Yes, she frequently puts the band before him, and that’s a factor, but when he tries to get close to her, she goes cold or freezes instead of opening up. We’re talking about a woman who flicks her casual guy’s nose as a way of declaring them an “official” couple.

But despite her spiky demeanor, Saira is actually very loving. She has a difficult relationship with her mother and has never recovered after losing her sister to cancer, but her bandmates are her family. It’s something she builds for them. In season 1, she never stops trying to help Amina overcome her stage fright—not just because she wants Amina in the band, but because she knows the band is good for Amina and Amina deserves to let herself be heard. She supports her band sisters and wants them to be the best versions of themselves, whatever that might look like. It’d be easy to look at Saira and think she’s just bad with people, like her completely awkward exchanges with her superfan Taifa in season 2, but really, the circle of people she’s comfortable with is just very small. Even if she isn’t a soft person and being vulnerable is hard for her, she badly wants to show up for the people she cares about.

Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Amina Hussain (We Are Lady Parts)

*Amina-related spoilers.*

I’ve been rewatching We Are Lady Parts, which is giving me such immense joy. And, no surprise, a big chunk of that joy is of the autistic variety—in both the way I’ve been singing “Glass Ceiling Feeling” on a loop and the way the main characters resonate with me. Today we’re looking at the one and only Amina Hussain!

One of the first things that comes to mind where Amina is concerned is “people pleaser.” At the start of the series, she has a very particular idea about how her life is supposed to go, and other people’s opinions dictate a lot of what she does. She’s such a square peg, but she’s determined to fit into the round hole that friends like Noor prescribe for her, even though her clumsy attempts to conform just make her stand out that much more.

Joining Lady Parts is antithetical to much of who Amina has told herself she is. The idea of it feels haram to her, and it certainly doesn’t seem like the thing a modest young woman seeking a husband would do. Not to mention, her overwhelming stage fright manifests physically—she either starts puking or goes into a freeze. What’s she doing joining a punk band?

A major part of Amina’s journey is overcoming the pressure and anxiety she feels all the time. Saira does everything in her power to help Amina with her stage fright, but it’s up to Amina to realize that she’s been banging her head against a wall trying to conform to a socially acceptable ideal she can never fit into. Amina comes into her power and embraces her inner punk when she learns she doesn’t have to contort herself for the sake of other people’s version of her.

Crucially, committing to Lady Parts doesn’t automatically turn Amina into a “typical” punk. She stays her dorky, prim, sunshiny self, full of fanciful romantic daydreams and lame enthusiasm. At first, she doesn’t really fit into the band any better than she does with her university friends, but as the others get to know her, the band becomes a safe space for her to explore the parts of herself that she’s denied without changing who she is to fit in. I love that when Amina dramatically declares that she’s in her “villain era,” she means she only responds to work emails during business hours, and I love that she’ll still grin for a photo with an earnest double thumbs-up. She’s doing punk her way, which, to me, actually feels a lot more punk than if she suddenly started acting more like Saira or Ayesha.

I just…she’s so great. She narrates her life like she thinks she’s a Jane Austen heroine. She regularly indulges in over-the-top daydreams. She gets nervous, talks too much, realizes she’s talking too much, and somehow thinks she can fix it by talking even more. With romantic relationships, she either comes on way too strong or completely misses a guy’s flashing signals. She grows so much, backslides, and grows again. She’s silly and anxious and brave, and I adore her!

Big Neurodivergent Energy Shows: 11-15

Mostly sitcoms today. I feel like sitcoms in general lend themselves well to neurodivergent interpretations, with lots of quirky characters who have outsized reactions to things. But there’s a difference between “yeah, I could see that” ND interpretations and “omg, autistic/ADHD AF!!!” ND interpretations. And these shows? Far more the latter!

 

Abbott Elementary

I went into this show knowing that a lot of autistic folks claim Gregory, and he’s positively spectacular—episode about safe foods! Not a drill! But I wasn’t prepared to get bowled over by the rest of the cast, especially my beloved Janine. She and Gregory are my favorite workplace sitcom will-they-won’t-they since Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt (surprise, surprise!) A beautiful show with room for all kinds of brains, including Melissa being canonically dyslexic!

 

Community

It’s not just Abed, which it is. It’s not just some of the other characters, which it is. It’s the lovingly intricate pop culture references and long-game commitment to bits. It’s the theme of broken, lonely people who are better when they’re together. It’s the turn of the jokes and the depth of the existential crises. A beautifully autistic show that’s often brilliant and sometimes messy, one that resonates with me on so many levels.

 

Good Omens

Production on season 3 has paused for now, which is good (ugh, Neil Gaiman, why?), but even if my feelings about the show have grown more complicated due to behind-the-scenes issues, I still really love these characters and their relationship. I love how Aziraphale and Crowley both feel autistic to me in completely different ways, which contributes to them fitting so well together despite having such different sensibilities. Really excited to see these two find their happy ending!

 

The Good Place

Like Community, this is a show with a great “freebie” autistic-coded character in Chidi, but he’s just a gateway to discovering how neurodivergent the show feels as a whole. I love every single one of the characters and how they interact with one another, the wordplay is delicious, and I love the notion that people aren’t “good” or “bad” but are always capable of better, especially with the love and support of those around them. And come on, this is a network sitcom that regularly features ruminations on moral philosophy! You love to see it.

 

We Are Lady Parts

I feel like there’s some strong overlap between neurodivergence and punk, so this show might’ve had Big ND Energy no matter what, but the neurodivergent coding is definitely strong with this one. Most of the characters give off a vibe, but most especially Amina and Saira. Like Aziraphale and Crowley, they have such polar-opposite traits but fit together so well. I love both of them so much, and I adore the show’s heart, bite, and quirkiness.