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Srs Bzns Disability and Ablism Linkspamming
Thinky-thoughts finals week reading, for those of you who like thinky-thoughts.
May 1st was Blogging Against Disablism Day. This post has a link to archives from previous years, and this post links all of this year's entries.
Highlights:
A post about Oracle - or rather, about fan discussions about Oracle.
[T]he majority of this post is going to instead focus on the ablism inherent in the online discussions of Oracle - that is, the arguments over her fitness as a superheroine, her perceived uselessness when being "confined to a wheelchair", and the unapologetic ablist terminology & attitudes that were displayed in these various discussions.
Fictional Heroes with Disabilities
These disabilities aren’t the shiny sparkly sort; you know, the ones that are portrayed as elevating PWD to a ~*~*~*higher plane of existence*~*~*~ — they simply happen to be part of the person’s character (although, being fiction, sometimes these disabilities do take a supernatural form). Sometimes, the character’s perspective as a person with a disability gives them insight into particular issues, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes they do things that aren’t so heroic, not because disabilities lead them down the path to irredeemable evil, but because they are fully rounded characters. The disabilities of these characters aren’t shrugged off as irrelevant, merely a plot point to be overcome (and indeed, they are often central to the characters’ lives), but at the same time, they are not the sum and total of these characters’ existence.
[Editorializing: I really disagree with what Beppie writes about the first character on her list in the post linked above. I mean, if you count Sookie Stackhouse's telepathy as a 'disability' then you have to count like all of the freakin' X-Men as well, and yes of course any fictional character hated and feared for having a superpower does serve as a nice metaphor for the social model of disability - but I mean come on, really? Her disability is a superpower and, uh, no. SuperCrip. No. But, my kneejerk criticism aside, the rest of Beppie's post is freakin' awesome, especially her opening paragraph (quoted above) about how fictional characters with disabilities can be written and portrayed in a way that doesn't suck.]
A Screenshot's Worth a Thousand Words
So why is Ableism of Low Importance? Why does the biggest encyclopedia on earth consider it to be of lesser importance than discrimination against other minorities? Why are sociologists learning and being taught that racism and sexism are The Discriminations, that all others are secondary or tertiary or not really worth bothering about? Why, when a person is both female and PWD, or of colour and PWD, or all three, and/or lesbian, trans, non-citizen, working class, and so on, is ableism automatically ranked as the least important discrimination they’ll encounter? Why are PWD losing this Oppression Olympics, a game we shouldn’t be playing in the first place? (“Intersectionality” hasn’t yet received a rating on the Importance scale at Wikipedia.)
Other topics considered more sociologically important than Ableism (not equal, but more), as far as Wikipedians are concerned, include: est and The Forum in popular culture, Ralph Larkin, Wilhelm Dilthey, Vixen (comics), Stay-at-home dad, Weddings in the United States, Truce term, Friendship Paradox, Heterophobia, Babywise, Boomerang Generation, eHarmony, Lavalife, OkCupid, Yahoo! Personals, Fritzl case, List of UFO religions, Greenbelt Maryland, The Hapa Project, Biosocial criminology, Grand Tour, Speed dating, Blond, Schoolgirl and Hooters.
Dear Author: please, don't heal me.
Your lead was disabled?! And dealt with it? And was allowed to get angry? And she was neither in a Quasimodo caricature, nor like anything Katy ‘I’m-gracefully-accepting-my-school-of-pain’ Carr? (i.e. an obligatory angel, afraid of the burden she places upon others.) She wasn’t either of those and was she able to kick arse with modified moves that made sense? Enough sense to make me overemphasise like the elocution teacher of doom? Yes! Oh, my god. Yes!
…and then you broke my heart.
Secret Disabilities
Just read the whole post.
Teaching All Students
Just read the whole blog.
And finally, not a part of BADD 2010, but still worth linking: Lennard Davis commenting on the casting controversy in Glee:
The issue isn't purely ideological. There are an increasing number of actors with disabilities who have trouble getting parts and for whom these major roles would be a great opportunity. According to a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, out of a total of 600 characters on television shows in a given season, only 12 will have a disability. And of those, most will be played by non-disabled actors. A third of disabled actors have faced active discrimination by being denied auditions or not being cast in a role because of their disability.
Yet every actor knows that there is Academy Award material in playing a disabled part. Think of Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July Jon Voigt in Coming Home, Sean Penn in I Am Sam or Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot. There is a very high frequency of Oscar winning films that depict disability, but very few of those clutching the golden statues are people with disabilities.
There is a standard response on the part of Hollywood and Broadway when this issue is raised. The producers will say that they "tried" (if they tried at all) to use disabled performers but that they couldn't find anyone good enough to play the part. Aside from being a poor excuse, this response should lead us to see a vicious circle. If young people don't see role models in performers with disabilities, they might internalize the obvious message--"Don't go into show business if you have a disability. You'll never get a job!"
[Editorializing: And that is juuuuust the tip of the iceberg in terms of Glee, Artie, and WTF IS THIS EVEN THE 21ST CENTURY I MEAN SERIOUSLY FOX WHAT THE HELL. But I am working on a longer Glee post for soonish and I don't want to start ranting too early.]
May 1st was Blogging Against Disablism Day. This post has a link to archives from previous years, and this post links all of this year's entries.
Highlights:
A post about Oracle - or rather, about fan discussions about Oracle.
[T]he majority of this post is going to instead focus on the ablism inherent in the online discussions of Oracle - that is, the arguments over her fitness as a superheroine, her perceived uselessness when being "confined to a wheelchair", and the unapologetic ablist terminology & attitudes that were displayed in these various discussions.
Fictional Heroes with Disabilities
These disabilities aren’t the shiny sparkly sort; you know, the ones that are portrayed as elevating PWD to a ~*~*~*higher plane of existence*~*~*~ — they simply happen to be part of the person’s character (although, being fiction, sometimes these disabilities do take a supernatural form). Sometimes, the character’s perspective as a person with a disability gives them insight into particular issues, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes they do things that aren’t so heroic, not because disabilities lead them down the path to irredeemable evil, but because they are fully rounded characters. The disabilities of these characters aren’t shrugged off as irrelevant, merely a plot point to be overcome (and indeed, they are often central to the characters’ lives), but at the same time, they are not the sum and total of these characters’ existence.
[Editorializing: I really disagree with what Beppie writes about the first character on her list in the post linked above. I mean, if you count Sookie Stackhouse's telepathy as a 'disability' then you have to count like all of the freakin' X-Men as well, and yes of course any fictional character hated and feared for having a superpower does serve as a nice metaphor for the social model of disability - but I mean come on, really? Her disability is a superpower and, uh, no. SuperCrip. No. But, my kneejerk criticism aside, the rest of Beppie's post is freakin' awesome, especially her opening paragraph (quoted above) about how fictional characters with disabilities can be written and portrayed in a way that doesn't suck.]
A Screenshot's Worth a Thousand Words
So why is Ableism of Low Importance? Why does the biggest encyclopedia on earth consider it to be of lesser importance than discrimination against other minorities? Why are sociologists learning and being taught that racism and sexism are The Discriminations, that all others are secondary or tertiary or not really worth bothering about? Why, when a person is both female and PWD, or of colour and PWD, or all three, and/or lesbian, trans, non-citizen, working class, and so on, is ableism automatically ranked as the least important discrimination they’ll encounter? Why are PWD losing this Oppression Olympics, a game we shouldn’t be playing in the first place? (“Intersectionality” hasn’t yet received a rating on the Importance scale at Wikipedia.)
Other topics considered more sociologically important than Ableism (not equal, but more), as far as Wikipedians are concerned, include: est and The Forum in popular culture, Ralph Larkin, Wilhelm Dilthey, Vixen (comics), Stay-at-home dad, Weddings in the United States, Truce term, Friendship Paradox, Heterophobia, Babywise, Boomerang Generation, eHarmony, Lavalife, OkCupid, Yahoo! Personals, Fritzl case, List of UFO religions, Greenbelt Maryland, The Hapa Project, Biosocial criminology, Grand Tour, Speed dating, Blond, Schoolgirl and Hooters.
Dear Author: please, don't heal me.
Your lead was disabled?! And dealt with it? And was allowed to get angry? And she was neither in a Quasimodo caricature, nor like anything Katy ‘I’m-gracefully-accepting-my-school-of-pain’ Carr? (i.e. an obligatory angel, afraid of the burden she places upon others.) She wasn’t either of those and was she able to kick arse with modified moves that made sense? Enough sense to make me overemphasise like the elocution teacher of doom? Yes! Oh, my god. Yes!
…and then you broke my heart.
Secret Disabilities
Just read the whole post.
Teaching All Students
Just read the whole blog.
And finally, not a part of BADD 2010, but still worth linking: Lennard Davis commenting on the casting controversy in Glee:
The issue isn't purely ideological. There are an increasing number of actors with disabilities who have trouble getting parts and for whom these major roles would be a great opportunity. According to a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, out of a total of 600 characters on television shows in a given season, only 12 will have a disability. And of those, most will be played by non-disabled actors. A third of disabled actors have faced active discrimination by being denied auditions or not being cast in a role because of their disability.
Yet every actor knows that there is Academy Award material in playing a disabled part. Think of Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July Jon Voigt in Coming Home, Sean Penn in I Am Sam or Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot. There is a very high frequency of Oscar winning films that depict disability, but very few of those clutching the golden statues are people with disabilities.
There is a standard response on the part of Hollywood and Broadway when this issue is raised. The producers will say that they "tried" (if they tried at all) to use disabled performers but that they couldn't find anyone good enough to play the part. Aside from being a poor excuse, this response should lead us to see a vicious circle. If young people don't see role models in performers with disabilities, they might internalize the obvious message--"Don't go into show business if you have a disability. You'll never get a job!"
[Editorializing: And that is juuuuust the tip of the iceberg in terms of Glee, Artie, and WTF IS THIS EVEN THE 21ST CENTURY I MEAN SERIOUSLY FOX WHAT THE HELL. But I am working on a longer Glee post for soonish and I don't want to start ranting too early.]
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BoP being cancelled was what got me to quit comics. I loved the character, and I don't think I would have given a crap about Batgirl. She's definitely not useless- and how she handles being disabled is a part of what makes the char great, but not the whole part, which is awesome as well. When BoP comes back, I'll read comics again. (which is really soon)
The fact that I was able to see her is a great character instead of a great disabled character is a sign of how well she has been characterized over the past few years. I just wish they had resolved her and the Joker in the same area.
I also liked the whole bonding thing with her own personal Robin (Misfit)- that was really well done and what hooked in the series for me- then again that may been more Gail Simone then the series itself. That was something I don't think I saw in other comic books.
It's funny how I often disagree with you on so many things, yet when it came to comics- it was the opinions of yourself and like minded individuals that influenced what I liked.
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This, exactly. This is the key right here. A disability should not define a character, but it's important to be realistic and honest about how a disability can impact a character's life.
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I would have loved to see Toph or Teo from Avatar: TLA in there. Or even Bobby Singer from Supernatural, who this season was paralyzed from the waist down, and still kickin' ass (it remains to be seen whether this is a permanent injury). Or hell, Greg House.
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You don't understand his *~sparkly pain~*, you insensitive jerk!
I agree, House definitely deserves to be on that list. Teo and Bobby Singer, too. Toph I'm really ambivalent about, though. She still falls into the "my disability gives me SUPERPOWERS" trap. It's not nearly as blatant as in Monk when Adrian Monk keeps stating that he's a brilliant detective because of his OCD, but Avatar did seem to imply (if memory serves) that Toph became the Bestest Earthbender Ever because of her blindness, which is kind of ick.
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Hmm, it's been a year or so since I watched Avatar, so you may be correct about Toph. Although it may be that she could fight differently due to her blindness (i.e. by feel rather than sight), and she was apparently super-awesome at Earthbending to begin with. For example, I don't think she could have become a Metalbender under any circumstances unless she was already really freaking excellent Earthbender. Although, again, it's been a while since I saw the show, so I may be misremembering her backstory. Oh no, now I'll have to watch Avatar again! Horrors!
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This, exactly. I think that really cuts to the heart of it right there.
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Re: Oracle
*blink* How did I never realize how "confined to a wheelchair" is ablist? Also "wheelchair bound." Wow. Hmm, off the top of my head, I can't think of a term for someone who uses a wheelchair that isn't stealthily pitying or derogatory. I don't like that. Do you know of any?
Re: "Dear Author, Please Don't Heal Me"
The reference to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Johanna Spyri was another *blink* moment. Damn, this really is institutionalized. That insidious "if you're good, you'll get better!" plot device is pretty faily. The Secret Garden and Heidi are such beloved childhood staples of mine-- hell, Secret Garden is one of my favorite childhood books period, and I read several hundred books before I finished elementary school-- that I never really looked at them critically.
Excuses for rereads, excellent!Re: "Secret Disabilities"
YES YES YES THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS This whole post, seriously, omigawd, it has me all aflutter. I'm bookmarking this. I think I'll link it on my Facebook. This is just so relevant to me that it's practically screaming. It's helped me put my disability into more concrete terms.
*blink* Hey, Firefox, why are you saying "ablist" and "ablism" aren't words? *clicks Add to Dictionary*
Hmm~ All this has made me realize I'll have to pay particular attention to how I write one of the protagonists of one of my vague plot ideas. (I have like three nebulous plots that I'm dancing around at the moment, and the one I'm thinking of is very back burner, but it's something to think about.) So thanks for the links. I think I'll be able to prevent some faily writing. At least I was already not even considering healing him, but this will help me make him a balanced character and keep me from wandering into "SuperCrip"-Land. Whenever I do get around to actually writing, I'm going to have to seek out a pre-reader to call me out on fail of all kinds.
Thanks for the brain food!
Edit for HTML fail.
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"Uses a wheelchair" is perfectly fine.
but this will help me make him a balanced character and keep me from wandering into "SuperCrip"-Land.
Yays! ^__^
Another really good example for how to brilliantly avoid the SuperCrip trope is, well, Death the Kid. He's a character with literal superpowers, but he's not a SuperCrip because his natural talents, abilities, and powers have nothing to do with his disability. Or rather, they don't come from/aren't a result of his disability. Instead, his disability is something that he has to cope with and that sometimes hinders his ability to express his talents and skills. Which is exactly the way that it works in real life for people with disabilities. We all have talents and skills. Sometimes disabilities hinder our capacity to express those talents and skills. But in real life disabilities are not always magically "balanced" by resulting in super-special Awesome Talent side-effects. (Think of Adrian Monk as being the classic textbook SuperCrip: His catchphrase is "It's both a blessing and a curse," and the entire premise of his character is that his disability gives him an incredible mental gift which is so many layers of argh!!) Which is why the SuperCrip trope is so infuriating, because sometimes it seems like the only way that it's acceptable for Hollywood to portray a character with a disability is if the disability also gives that character some sort of Super-Special Awesome Talent as well. (This is especially true for almost any fictional portrayal of mental illness ever.)
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Hmmm... would Darth Vader be an aversion of the SuperCrip trope? He's basically a quadriplegic who has mobility and life support through artificial means, but the suit has nothing to do with his pre-existing Force powers. He'd still have those if he was in a wheelchair and had a portable respirator, or if he had his original body. *chinscratch*
It's really bad that pretty much every disabled character I can think of is either a SuperCrip or one of the sweet, good, noble, innocent disabled.
the SuperCrip trope is so infuriating, because sometimes it seems like the only way that it's acceptable for Hollywood to portray a character with a disability is if the disability also gives that character some sort of Super-Special Awesome Talent as well.
Oh, yay, it sounds like I was at least mostly heading in the right direction on my own! My problem is that in my planning I think I am leaning towards making my male lead too "good," or I should say, too "noble." Methinks I'm going to have to be careful to not turn him into a Noble Cripple Gary Stu.
At least I'm early enough in development that I won't be fighting making changes because they'll break the plot. And I have a lot of time to learn about handling these issues since my other story is my top priority. That one requires more research into abnormal psychology so I can make sure my villainess' behavior is consistent with her backstory, on top of many other things.
Sometimes I think I write in order to have an excuse to research random topics.
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ETA: On second thought... I just read this post (http://sqbr.dreamwidth.org/275347.html) which has a different take on Darth Vader. Yeah, he avoids being a SuperCrip, but unfortunately he falls into the "using mechanical aids is a sign of EVIL" trope. Blargh.
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Hmm~ I was going to rebut that with a "But Luke gets the same injury Anakin did and gets a mechanical hand, and HE's good!" But the next time we see Luke, he's wearing black, and I was always put off by how he was suddenly all serious and vaguely creepy in the beginning of RotJ. It's been too long since I saw it to remember more details. Hmm. Anakin's prosthetic hand didn't really look very human-like, either, probably some clever ~symbolism~ that that's the point at which he starts sliding into "more machine than man" land. [Tangent: I just realized that the "more machine than man" line could be metaphorical in addition to literal-- that he shut down his emotions and such when Padmé died and became a tool to be used, basically programmed by the Emperor. *chinscratch* I have to think about that.] And since Luke's prosthetic is made to look like a human hand, he's refusing to let the mechanical aid compromise his ~humanity~.
Oh, boo, and to die redeemed Vader has Luke take off his helmet, which has his respirator. So he has Luke take him off life support to be good again. That's questionable. I can't remember the dialogue, though.
UGH UGH UGH DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT! Avoid one fail, revel in the next. UGH!
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