Abstract
Within the life sciences, dis/ability is a continuous topic. The life sciences produce knowledge about individuals, classifying certain states as ‘disabled’ and ‘non-disabled’. The discourses in specific disciplines are not independent from the discourse of everyday knowledge, or from the discourses that are constructed via popular culture. Below we will analyze how popular culture deals with the topic of dis/ability. Therefore, we will rely on theories that discuss the construction of dis/ability not as an essential given but as an on-going process that ascribes certain meanings to certain somatic and psychic phenomena. We start by contrasting three different models of ‘disability’, after which we will describe the connection between the modern biological and medical discourses and the ‘freak shows’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Freak shows were one essential element to allow specific bodily attributes to be highlighted as ‘abnormal’. Not only in such shows, but also in all kinds of popular culture, individuals marked as ‘disabled’ can be found. We will highlight the circumstances which led to the possibility of using ‘disability’ in such a sense at all. Afterwards we will analyze what stereotypes are reproduced again and again. Finally, on the one hand we will discuss possibilities to think about ‘disability’ beyond the discursive connotation of a lack or deficiency. One the other hand we will question the opportunities to disrupt the seemingly fixed dichotomy between ‘disabled’ and ‘non-disabled’ as well as the technologisation of disability in current media representations.
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- 1.
We use the spelling ‘dis/ability’ to underline that ‘disability’ and ‘ability’ are two elements of the same categorization, and one cannot be explained without the other.
- 2.
This does not mean that there would be no physical materiality of the ‘body’, but the way we perceive and treat something as a ‘body’ is dependent on the discourse (Butler 1993).
- 3.
Before that time, some phenomena which are contemoporarily labelled as ‘disability’ (e.g. epilepsy) were in Europe considered a symbol of sinfulness; for example a ‘disfigured’ child being a punishment for the blasphemous parents (Stiker 1999). On the other hand, people that would be considered ‘mad’ in Europe were claimed to be holy in different regions in South Asia (McDaniel 1989; Linrothe 2009).
- 4.
While Garland-Thomson’s concept of the ‘normate’ has some plausibility, she does not acknowledge the relevance that statistics would have in the discourse constituting ‘normality’ (Garland-Thomson 1997: 8). As Anne Waldschmidt (2006) has shown in reference to Link (2004), the discursive grounding of ‘normality’ in statistics enabled a more flexible definition of what could be counted as ‘normal’.
- 5.
In the last few years, several scientific works concerned with the representation of ‘disability’ in literature, photography, film, television and news reports have come into existence. Less has been written about the connection between dis/ability and music. Digital games, although a trending element in popular culture, are still overlooked in academic works. In the following, depending on the medial form, different styles are used to specify the creator of a work. For novels, the name of the author and the first date of publication are used. For films, the director (d), the country of origin and the release date are given. For TV shows, the creator (cr.) and the running time are stated. For digital games, the developing studio (dev.) and the release date are indicated. In effect, every medium makes use of ‘dis/ability’ in its genuine way of storytelling, but we will not discuss the different mediality at this point.
- 6.
This is a different approach to the one questioning the possibility of using disability as a metaphor. One could argue that the aforementioned approach is closer to the cultural model, while the now discussed analyses of stereotypes are closer to the social model of disability.
- 7.
Most studies to date have focussed on the representation of white characters marked as disabled. This is problematic because the representation of characters marked as people of colour differs from characters represented as white, i.e. being unmarked (Chow 1993; Dyer 1997). Yet, in this article we will rely mostly on the extant disability literature. Some analyses of the entanglement of race and dis/ability can be found in Bell (2011) and Erevelles (2011).
- 8.
Within disability studies literature, these scholars’ approach has been termed the ‘negative-image school of criticism’. As Mitchell and Snyder (2000: 20) point out, the evaluation of a representation as good or bad is dependent on one’s cultural background. Therefore, some representations which nowadays are considered negative may have been positive during its origin.
- 9.
Barnes (1992) analysed 11 types of media representations, which is so far the most detailed categorization: “The Disabled Person as Pitiable and Pathetic”, “as an Object of Violence”, “as Sinister and Evil”, “as Atmosphere or Curio”, “as Super Cripple”, “as an Object of Ridicule”, “as Their Own Worst and Only Enemy”, “as Burden”, “as Sexually Abnormal”, “as Incapable of Participating Fully in Community Life”, and “as Normal”.
- 10.
If we speak about an undefined individual as in the case of stereotypical representation, we use the term “they” as a gender-neutral grammatical third person form.
- 11.
Being completely independent is the ultimate goal. This is consistent with the discourse of the autonomous subject. This model of subjectivity is still the hegemonic paradigm, although it ignores the dependency of human beings on each other. The pursuit of autonomy as portrayed here is the epitome of the dominant individualistic-liberal discourse, and at the same time neglects the social relations within which all human beings are interwoven (Butler 2005).
- 12.
Different dimensions of discrimination came into effect as well: “Particular children were singled out because they were photogenic: attractive, cute, and perfect in every way (in other words, lived up to the mass-media representation of the typical person) except for their disability. The children featured were almost exclusively middle class, well groomed, white, and attractively attired […]” (Bogdan 2012: 45).
- 13.
Very important in the contemporary discourse are the fund-raising videos of the organisation Autism Speaks. Here, autism is pictured as a miserable tragedy for the family. It has to be mentioned that the board of directors does not include any people diagnosed with autism. The organisation is criticised harshly by people who identify as autistic (Waltz 2013: 136–166).
- 14.
Here one also has to differentiate who is talking: While making fun of someone from a position of power reifies these power structures, a person who ridicules her own ‘deficiencies’ can subvert these structures by exposing the common paradigm (Rossing 2015).
- 15.
The phrase originates from the Roman poet Juvenal and can be translated as “a healthy mind in a healthy body”.
- 16.
In digital games, with their medial focus on performative actions by the playing subject, the loss of autonomy is a continuing theme. Within Resident Evil 4 (dev.: Capcom Production Studio, JP 2005), BioShock (dev.: 2K Australia/2K Boston 2007) or Deus Ex: Human Revolution (dev.: Eidos, USA 2011), at certain points, the generic enemies are a threat to the player because they are no longer in control of themselves. At the same time, they are visually represented as ‘deformed‘, once again evoking the stereotype of the evil disabled (Carr 2009; Ledder 2015).
- 17.
We use ‘asexual’ here as a label that some people identify with and live a joyful life. We do not want to play out different sexualities against each other.
- 18.
This entanglement of ‘disability’ and ‘asexuality’ can be criticised on many levels. For once, most people with disabilities do have sexual desires. Most of them are able to use their genitalia as well. But even if one cannot or does not want to use their genitalia in sex, this does not mean that these people are asexual. The seemingly obligatory connection between genitalia and the act of sex just reproduces certain aspects of heteronormativity; ignoring the diverse ways in which people engage in sexual practices.
- 19.
Of course this is also a matter of sexual objectification in general. Nondisabled feminists especially criticised Stohl for participating at all in this form of objectification, while disability groups supported her decision. Eli Clare, who identifies as white, disabled and genderqueer, points out this ambivalence. On the one hand: “Most frequently grounded in a white, middle-class, single-issue version of feminism, this argument takes on the generic objectification of women, meaning middle- and upper-class, white, heterosexual, nondisabled women” (Clare 2015: 132). On the other hand: “We will never, as Ellen so gracefully does, meet the dominant culture’s standards for beauty and sexual attractiveness. Even if we did, I do not want Playboy to define anyone’s sexuality—regardless of gender or disability” (ebd: 134).
- 20.
Judith Butler (1990: 5) coined the term “heterosexual matrix”: the contemporary hegemonial discourse in which the existence of two and only two sexes is legitimate, where body and identity have to be coherent to these categories, and one’s sexual desires have to be towards the ‘opposite’ sex within this construct.
- 21.
The term ‘feebleminded’ had been used to describe very different phenomena concerning cognitive abilities, and the classification is once more entangled with class, race, and gender.
- 22.
Michelle Jarman (2012: 99) has pointed out the racialized aspect of the discourse: “By the 1920s and 1930s, however, as eugenicists became more concerned with “morons”—borderline “feebleminded” individuals who could pass for normal—they began sounding an alarm against the imminent sexual threat posed by these purported predators. Again, untarnished white women were invoked as the targeted prey of ‘deviant’ and feebleminded men.” At the same time, the white ‘feebleminded woman’ was depicted as promiscuous. This was explained either by her own desires, or by her innocence that would conceal her right to refuse sexual affordances (Block 2000). In either way the consequences, the eugenicists argued, would be in producing more offspring with the same dispositions for ‘feeblemindedness’, resulting in a ‘degenerating’ nation. This was popularized within newspapers (Rembis 2011), or even theatre plays (James 1998). Those women were put under special custodial care and were forbidden to raise families on their own.
- 23.
Referring to movies like The Green Mile (d: Frank Darabont, US 1999) or Unbreakable (d: M. Night Shyamalan, US 2000), Agosto (2014: 12) points out: “the Black, dis/abled male is less likely to overcome and more likely to be marginalized from mainstream society as he is imprisoned [...], institutionalized […], or homeless […].”
- 24.
The supercrip becomes even more prominent in relation to contemporary technological developments, as we will show in the penultimate section of this chapter.
- 25.
In the economic realm, this can be seen in the new concept of diversity management (DM). Though there is no homogeneous approach, the different strands of DM share some bases in their aim. This consists mainly in using difference as a resource—increasing workers’ satisfaction, binding workers to a corporation, minimizing sick notes and quitting, benefiting from the diversity approach as advertisement in customer acquisition—to maximize the corporation’s profit. In short: Recognizing the economic potential of difference and using it in lucrative ways. At the same time some forms of DM reify those differences and void the sociohistorical specifics that establish those differences in the first place (Bendl et al. 2008).
- 26.
This should not be considered an optional activity: In a lot of total institutions sports are obligatory.
- 27.
We could argue that this is a prolongation of the connection between ‘disability’ and ‘technology’ that has been used before. Already in the 1970s and 1980s disability was the rationale behind technological enhancement, e.g. in The Six Billion Dollar Man (cr.: Martin Caidin et al. ABC, USA 1974–1978) or The Lawnmower Man (d.: Brett Leonard, US 1992). In the cyberpunk genre the substitution and ‘improvement’ of organs are a self-evident matter. In the twenty-first century, however, this perspective has become even more mainstream.
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Ledder, S., Münte, C. (2019). Dis/ability: The Construction of Norms and Normality in Popular Culture. In: Görgen, A., Nunez, G.A., Fangerau, H. (eds) Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90677-5_16
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