I know where the Black Stork comes from

[trouble]

Don and I went to see this great romantic comedy a few summers ago. IMDB tells me we saw it in 2008. It's called Easy Virtue, and it's one of those delightful romps where a young upper-class English boy brings home his wild American wife who is older than him, basically to upset his parents. It's set in 1929 and has all those great things that movies have when they're set in that time period - jazz music, flapper dresses, British manners, cigarette smoking as sexy and cool, etc, etc etc.

The take-away message was that if you really love someone with Cancer, you'll kill them if they have to undergo too much chemotherapy.

As this was around the same time as we confirmed Don's cancer diagnosis, you can imagine that this kinda ruined the awesome movie-going experience for us.

When people tell stories about families like mine - the dude in the wheelchair with omg!cancer, the crazy lady who hides under her desk so nothing can get her - they tend to tell three stories: "Bitter Cripple Who Needs To Be Schooled By Abled-Folks About How Their Life Isn't Over Yet", "Overcoming Adversity: A Very Special Lesson", and "It Sucked, And Then He Died". The heroes of these stories are almost always the Able-Bodied (and it is very much a "broken body" trope - narratives of madness are different). There never seems to be fictional narratives about the world-famous scientist who just happens to have neuro-muscular dystrophy, or the renowned US historian with the award-winning books who just happens to use a ventilator, or the actor who, after a disabling injury, refuses to become a director and just happens to land a role in a major television series. If these people showed up in fiction, their disability would be the story. Because that's the story that is told about disability.

Whose life is it anyway?

So I come back to story after movie after very special episode where the person with the disability, the cancer, the catastrophic illness, gets themselves out of everyone's way by killing themselves or begging others to do it for them. I remember every narrative where disability = evil, where disability = faked, where disability = a lesson, a punishment, a blessing in disguise, a test, a momentary difficulty that is healed when the bitterness goes away, because fictional disability never just is.

This continual fictional narrative of disability as trope is what makes me distrustful of disability in fiction. If I want to watch a show that appeals to me and includes people with disabilities treated realistically, I have to go back to Joe Dawson in Highlander. If I want to watch a fun movie romp, I'm back at Sneakers. If I want to have a long conversation about assistive tech, I'm at X-Men and Star Trek: The Next Generation. If I want to watch something that looks even vaguely like our lives, I'm at Joan of Arcadia. If I want to see a show where someone has some power, a love life, and just happens to have a disability, I'm somewhere in Season 2 of The West Wing.

I don't want to play Disability Cliché Bingo every time I try and engage with pop culture. I do not want to watch a medical drama because we have enough medical drama, and with three types of narcotic painkillers in the flat I'm not fond of the addiction narrative. I don't want to watch a show where the creators and show runners cannot type "wheelchair dancer" into YouTube and see what comes up. I cannot stand the idea of watching a show where a secondary character is disabled specifically to punish the main characters. I do not have an interest in football's glories.

Tell me stories about the people with disabilities I know: The ones who work hard every year to ensure an internationally renowned con is accessible to people with disabilities, the one who co-founded a successful social networking site, the ones graduating from university this month, starting it next year, struggling through grad school without enough support, parenting their children, advocating for their rights, organizing support in Chicago, running role-playing games, managing businesses, founding a successful feminist website, writing beautiful poetry, publishing academic papers, doing their rounds at the hospital, planning disability-focused conferences, planning tech-focused conferences, cooking dinner, making documentary films, getting through today, planning tomorrow, arguing with their parents, their children, their spouses, their friends, writing blog posts, drinking tea.

We are so much more than this, so much more than tropes, clichés, or tragedies.

Comments

[ajnabi]

thank you so much for writing this, Anna.

[spiralsheep]

I'm reading a novel which has been highly recommended to me by at least two thoughtful readers. The racial aspects have appeared somewhat dodgy from the beginning but the narrator isn't wholly reliable, it's a long story, and it's the sort of story which twists so I'm bearing with it. And then... almost precisely halfway through... the Big Bad, who was initially presented as motivated by being power-hungry and then afraid of death, is revealed as... Turned Evil By Disability!!1!! I refrained from hurling the book out of the window (partly because the window was closed at the time... ;-) ) but I'm not sure I can stomach reading on to find out if the story's more complex than that.

/Bitter Crip

[spiralsheep]

Also, I think I might've recognised another trope (which I can't remember if the hive-mind has named yet?):

The Innocent Victim Held Hostage In The Tower of Disability!!1!!

Yes, the woman (and all the examples I can immediately call to mind are female) is disabled by the Big Bad, usually through mental/emotional damage but occasionally through physical damage, and then held prisoner either in the Big Bad's lair (especially if she is/was a "love interest" of the Big Bad) or a hospital/care home (always private, always very expensive, often high security, usually owned by the Big Bad) where her life is minimally maintained within the smallest confines possible. Bonus ablist points if her disability has made her a Mad Seeress!!1!! Bonus misogyny points if she is/was a "love interest", i.e. sexual partner willing or unwilling, of either the Big Bad or the Hero (male and temporarily able-bodied*, obv). Bonus everything points if she is then sacrificed or sacrifices herself as a plot point.

* Because then the Big Bad's threats of physical violence rly mean something, because able-bodied men have something physical to lose, unlike people already living with disability!!1!! I mean, how could you threaten someone whose already living with disability... because there's nothing physically worse and death would be a kindly release!!1!!

/Bitter Crip (probably... unless I spam you some more later... ;-P )

[polemista]

The Innocent Victim Held Hostage In The Tower of Disability!!1!!

Sounds like your stereotypical autism narrative. Normal person trapped inside the autism shell, waiting to break out, or waiting for someone to release them from that prison. *sigh*

[sqbr]

Abso-frigging-lutely

[jennifergearing]

in case it wasn't obvious from the tweeting of the link - this is a great post. and yeah, i want those stories too.

[challyzatb]

*applause*

[jesse_the_k]

Claps enthusiastically (also meep!)

[willow]

*hugs*

Don't have much words left atm.

[meloukhia]

This right here; creators of pop culture tell me to 'trust' them? Why the fuck should I? There is no default assumption of trust here, trust has to be earned.

[princess]

You know, I think I watched that movie on cable the other week, and turned it off about half way through before I got to the worst parts of it. I'm glad to know that.

[kairia]

*applause* Thank you so much for writing this. May I link to this?

[trouble]

Yes, feel free to link to any public post I make.

[sasha_feather]

Wonderful post.

[were_duck]

Excellent and right on, as usual. Those tropes are really angry-making, and this post does a great job of explaining why.

[polemista]

How beautifully said. I almost cried towards the end.

[bork]

Great post!

Oh - and don't forget! "Disabled because they don't believe or pray hard enough!" Because spasticity? Not caused by a brain gone haywire, but a lack of faith in Jesus. Someone told me this once. It was not awesomefuntime for them afterwards.

[calystarose]

I've heard some variations on that one, from the new age set. One was something to the effect of "well, they must've been bad in a past life" and the other was that "they chose to learn these lessons in this lifetime". Either way, not good.

[sami]

I suspect other elements about the show would still drive you nuts, but - I was (slightly surprised and) impressed, overall, by Supernatural on this one. (Uh, spoilers ahead.)

Bobby becomes a paraplegic, and we have the arc as he deals with that - he's bitter and angry, because he can't do the things he used to do, and for a little while he's lost... but he adjusts, and life goes on, and he's still awesome. At one point he's kind of suicidal, and he gets talked out of that by Dean, but it's not even a Very Special Lesson about how he's still useful, because that isn't why he's persuaded. It's because he's Bobby, and he's awesome, and he's the closest Dean's got to a father - it's not that "he's still useful, so he should live", it's that "he's still Bobby, and he's loved". Which keeps him going while he comes to terms with it, himself.

It's just so rare to see disability handled with that kind of narrative - that it's not about still being helpful to the able-bodied, it's about being important because you're you. To the extent that Dean's making the case that Bobby should live because Dean needs him, Dean needs him because he loves him, and Dean's life sucks and he doesn't know how to handle it without Bobby.

By the end of the season, it's just a thing that's there, that clearly doesn't dominate Bobby's life any more. He was upset, it was difficult at first, but he adjusted.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Beautifully put.

[annaham.livejournal.com]

*applauds wildly*

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.