(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

Today we got around to representations of disability.

Rather depressing really.
Invisible, marginalised, stereotyped - keywords for the unit.

We saw a video questioning representation in charity advertising, and also with some segments actually by disabled people. All the same show. On BBC2 in the 90s. I'm left wondering if that is it. Shall have to poke research.

I'm also looking for more examples from fandom.



First, Highlander - Joe fans
I'd really like to have a couple of minutes of video to show how awesome Joe is. Action hero! Blues man! Coincidentally happens to not have legs.
I can't carry a whole episode on my... what are those pen looking things called? I could on my laptop but not from there to college computers. And even if I did have an episode, I wouldn't have anyone's attention that long.
So I'm thinking, songvid.
There has to be a songvid of Joe Dawson = awesome.
But I haven't a clue where to start looking.


I'll go ask in communities later when I can phrase it better.



Second I'm looking for a couple things I'm sure I've seen before but my google-fu failed me on today.
1) Comics characters with disabilities
given the attention to detail of fans, somebody somewhere made a list, right?

2) History of Oracle's wheelchairs
I know I've seen this. It showed all the different chairs she's been put in, and complained about it, and chose a RL chair that would best suit her needs. Fannish attention to detail at its best. Yet today, I cannot find it.



Other fandom characters with disabilities would be cool.

Spike in a wheelchair... does that count? I mean he got out of it again pretty fast.
And Giles was only blind very briefly.

I tend to read the werewolf or vampire or ghost things as metaphor-disability anyway, but that would be outside the scope of the essay by a bunch.
Though there is a thing where disabilities are connected to moral qualities, and disabled people are more often portrayed as monsters.
Like, Hook.


I am of a sudden very tired and possibly babbling.


I think I contributed usefully today, and I don't think I was rude. Much. So another day of coolness.

Comments

[beccaelizabeth]

http://www.jimbyrnes.org/bio.htm

lost both legs in auto accident

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Some thoughts:

Sands? Although he only gets blinded towards the end of the film. Goes with El Mariachi becoming a vigilante because he can't play guitar any more? But by the third film he's playing again.

Various one-armed bad guys.

I'm sure I remember a couple of stories from girls' comics in the eighties where the heroine lost either her sight or a leg, but regained her independence because of her pony.

The blind woman in Early Edition. And I've never seen it, but Sue Thomas FBEye -- Googling that one brought up this page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/columnists/damon/030205.shtml). Ironside. Kids TV shows tend to have more disabled characters than grown-up shows.

I'll see what else I can think of.

[calime]

Other fandom characters with disabilities would be cool. In addition to Joe Dawson, Dr. Greg House comes to mind.

[makd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was going to say Greg House - and: Spike as ADHD afflicted? and Xander as visually-impaired.

[beccaelizabeth]

*realises has been repressing the Xander thing*
(ouched! bad!)
(also I think in my head Xander stays about 17 anyway.)

Spike... open to interpretation.


House I haven't seen, just heard of.

[sparklebutch.livejournal.com]

Just yesterday got to watch a movie with Marlee Matlin.

[spacedoutlooney.livejournal.com]

Professor X from X-men is in a wheel chair. Now that I'm thinking of it, I'm sure to come up with more.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

The study of Babs' wheechairs is by brown_betty, here (http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/3164.html). One of my favorite fannish research things ever, and since I've read it I keep *noticing* wheelchairs. :D

I know I've read discussions of disability before, but there's always the problem that so many characters get only a *temporary* case of something that would be incurable on a normal person ... Batman was paralyzed for a while too, after all.

[beccaelizabeth]

thankyou, very helpful linkage


yeah, the temporary thing bugs me

it also leaves it looking really bad when one character is left with something permanent. I mean its obvious its the writers leaving her that way, not something necessary within the constraints of that world. makes it weird.

[spacedoutlooney.livejournal.com]

There's the cop friend on Family Guy who's in a wheel chair.

Daredevil is blind. But he's got supersight or something, so maybe that doesn't count.

If you want to get into mythology, there's Hephaestus (god of fire and smithys) who got thrown off Mt. Olympus as a baby and ended up in leg braces.

Superheroes all have some source of weakness that's, while not a typical RL handicap, can be seen as a metaphor as such. Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite (which doesn't bother anyone else) for example. Or the same thing can be both a gift and a handicap. Like Cyclops blasty vision can destroy things, but he can't see even close to normal without his special glasses. Or Rogue can drain other people's life force by touch, but that means that she can't ever experience normal contact with other people.

Also, Geordi on ST:TNG is blind and can only see with the visor thing.


It seems like it's the Villians a lot of times who are disabled. And always very bitter about it. Darth Vadar is dependent on his life support. And sometimes injured by the Hero. Like when Batman dropped the Joker into the vat of acid that messed him up, or whatever.

[beccaelizabeth]

I guess in my mind characters who are called blind but can actually see, with super sonar or visors or whatever, are sort of a different category. I mean it isn't exactly like wheelchairs or normal helpful tech, its that weird thing where they're blind yet better off. Strangeness.

Disabled villains there are indeed many of. Is very annoying.

I remember Hephaestus.

Superhero specialised weaknesses... kryptonite could be kind of like an allergy, but all it ever seems to do is make him as weak as a normal person, so I'm not so much seeing that as a disability as such.