Where’s My Narrative?
After dithering about whether or not to start this blog and how the best way to do it would be I’ve finally decided to just take the leap. Rather than fill in a lot of back story about me I’ll trust you can figure it out as we go along. Without further adieu....
Where’s My Narrative?
My wife and I have been rewatching the television series Buffy and as we’re want to do spending a lot of time analysing and discussing each episode. As a feminist writer my wife has focussed a lot on the depictions of women in the series and what messages, both deliberate and unintended are being sent. We’ve also talked about the representation of people of colour and noted some of the issues, especially for a series that’s set in southern California.
All of this has lead to me banging my head against a wall. Buffy, for all its flaws is attempting to provide a narrative of strong, independent women who are powerful in their own right. It broke new ground in providing an empowering, positive narrative for women. Lord knows it was long over due and still has a great deal of ground to make up.
As a person with serious physical disabilities I’m still waiting for the narrative that speaks to me. While I’m not a huge TV or movie person I’ve been struggling to even think of narratives that include charters with disabilities. So far I’ve come up with a character on the series Oz who was in a wheelchair, I believe permanently. There are three characters from sci-fi/fantasy series who have lost an eye, G’Kar in Babylon 5 and Colonel Saul Tigh in the new Battle Star Galactica as well as Xander from Buffy, in each case there’s a distinct lack of consequences to this loss. The only other examples I’ve been able to come up with are movies like Born on the Fourth of July and one or two others that are deliberately “issue” narratives.
There are probably other examples out there but what it comes down to is a distinct lack of narratives that speak to someone with disability. There are no narratives about couples, where the husband stays at home because he’s disabled and can’t work rather than some no good slob. There aren’t romances or adventure movies where the protagonist uses a cane or crutches or is confined to a wheel chair.
Its hard to pretend that popular culture like movies and television don’t shape the perceptions of people a great deal. Whether they were written to do so or not they send a message of how things are supposed to be. Apparently people who have disabilities that can’t be ignored should be invisible or occasional focusses of pity. Apparently we have no other role in the world.
I wish I could say that people don’t actually think that way but the truth is that a lot of people do. A lot of people are happy enough to pity me once and a while. A lot of people don’t want to see me trying to juggle my wallet, purchases and my cane in thee check out line. They don’t want to see anyone who walks strangely.
As anyone with a disability or a loved one who has a disability knows, we’re not invisible, we’re not a focus of pity. We have all the traits as people that make for good protagonists, we love, we hate, we behave nobley and ridiculously. Our strength may not be that of the sword swinging action hero but we are still strong. So where are our narratives, where are our movies and television shows?
Where’s My Narrative?
My wife and I have been rewatching the television series Buffy and as we’re want to do spending a lot of time analysing and discussing each episode. As a feminist writer my wife has focussed a lot on the depictions of women in the series and what messages, both deliberate and unintended are being sent. We’ve also talked about the representation of people of colour and noted some of the issues, especially for a series that’s set in southern California.
All of this has lead to me banging my head against a wall. Buffy, for all its flaws is attempting to provide a narrative of strong, independent women who are powerful in their own right. It broke new ground in providing an empowering, positive narrative for women. Lord knows it was long over due and still has a great deal of ground to make up.
As a person with serious physical disabilities I’m still waiting for the narrative that speaks to me. While I’m not a huge TV or movie person I’ve been struggling to even think of narratives that include charters with disabilities. So far I’ve come up with a character on the series Oz who was in a wheelchair, I believe permanently. There are three characters from sci-fi/fantasy series who have lost an eye, G’Kar in Babylon 5 and Colonel Saul Tigh in the new Battle Star Galactica as well as Xander from Buffy, in each case there’s a distinct lack of consequences to this loss. The only other examples I’ve been able to come up with are movies like Born on the Fourth of July and one or two others that are deliberately “issue” narratives.
There are probably other examples out there but what it comes down to is a distinct lack of narratives that speak to someone with disability. There are no narratives about couples, where the husband stays at home because he’s disabled and can’t work rather than some no good slob. There aren’t romances or adventure movies where the protagonist uses a cane or crutches or is confined to a wheel chair.
Its hard to pretend that popular culture like movies and television don’t shape the perceptions of people a great deal. Whether they were written to do so or not they send a message of how things are supposed to be. Apparently people who have disabilities that can’t be ignored should be invisible or occasional focusses of pity. Apparently we have no other role in the world.
I wish I could say that people don’t actually think that way but the truth is that a lot of people do. A lot of people are happy enough to pity me once and a while. A lot of people don’t want to see me trying to juggle my wallet, purchases and my cane in thee check out line. They don’t want to see anyone who walks strangely.
As anyone with a disability or a loved one who has a disability knows, we’re not invisible, we’re not a focus of pity. We have all the traits as people that make for good protagonists, we love, we hate, we behave nobley and ridiculously. Our strength may not be that of the sword swinging action hero but we are still strong. So where are our narratives, where are our movies and television shows?
posted by Disabled Giant | 2:59 AM
1 Comments:
Series that spring to mind you might like:
Character who uses a cane: Dead Zone the TV series - has 5 seasons available on DVD, the first four are top notch.
Character who uses a wheelchair:
Dark Angel: Science Fiction futuristic show done by James Cameron and set in a post EMT blast Seattle - the main male character in the second show is shot in the spine and spend the rest of the time in a wheelchair (include some episodes where he is taken out of the wheelchair by baddies and it shows how frustratingly helpless he is)
Friday Night Lights Season 1: Quarterback Jason Street, based on a real person, in episode one makes a tackle and becomes a quad; instead of dropping the character by episode 6 or 7 he is one of the four main characters as we see him struggle through rehab, through moving back home, the financial costs, his attraction toward wheelchair rugby and his other attempts to create a "new stability" instead of being the person everyone viewed him as (highly recommended)
In Joan of Arcadia (two seasons), the older brother Kevin has an accident and is wheelchair bound, the two seasons follow the arc of family loss, personal frustration, attempts at getting a job, etc
Other characters with eye injury: The Angelina Jolie character Captain in Sky Captain and World of Tomorrow.
Snake Plissken in Escape from New York (you can't get cooler than that!)
Hmmmm...sorry, that's all that comes to mind now, though I know, I know about other TV series I just can remember them.
Hey, I'm 6'3" and in a hospital bed and wheelchair and I found out from my night time worker who does my transfers that it says on my file: "Client is 6'3": DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LIFT OR TRANSFER" - geez, a little hieght discrimination maybe?
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