::Looks askance at her icon:: Well, yes. But sometimes, the stupid is just too much.

[capri0mni]

[Edit to add: The icon is a picture of a television, with the caption "I like to watch" on the screen]

I know I said (To myself, if not "out loud" here on my LJ) that I was going to go on a bit of a vacation from thinking and talking about Disability Issues, because I can feel myself wearing a rut into my brain, and I don't like getting stuck in this particular rut. But I seem to be failing at that.

You see, sometime last week (or maybe it was a couple, or a few weeks back), someone on my f'list pointed out how misogynist The Mentalist is (Was it you, kynn?) -- that, by the end, it always turns out that it's the woman that's the murderer.

So, last night, I decided to tune in for the last fifteen minutes of the show, to see if, once again, it was the woman who was hauled away in handcuffs.

Not only was it the woman who was hauled off in handcuffs, she was hauled off as the accomplice to the murderer (or she was one of two murderers -- I only tuned in for the denouement) who almost got away with it by faking his disability for six months, "confining" himself to a wheelchair for all that time.

And the way Our Hero knew the faker was faking? He sneaked a look at the bottom of the guy's shoes, and saw that they were (omg!) scuffed.

Because we all know (don't we, my honey-blossoms?) that once a person becomes disabled and needs a wheelchair, his bottoms of his shoes will never again touch the solid, honest, earth.

---

And then, tonight, again looking for escapism, I flipped on Lie To Me. The drama in this week's episode was about a copycat to a rapist who forced his victims to watch videos of him raping previous victims, and then he would blind them with acid.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there was a scene where a cop-like woman goes to visit a recent victim, to see if she can get more information about who the copycat might be. The victim breaks down and cries:

"My life is over! I'm 23 and no one will ever love me!"

And the cop-like lady doesn't say anything, just looks all sad and pitying.

That same two seconds of screentime could have her saying something like: "I know it seems like that, now. But you can't let this scum rob your life." Or whatever other platitudes are used on cop shows with rape victims. But because this woman was now disabled, her comment about life being over was left unchallenged.

I think I put the cart before the horse in my BADD entry, this year. I should have written about why honest disabled protagonists are so important, and how harmful portrayals like these two are.

*sigh* Maybe I should start taking notes...

Comments

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Not me! I never seen it.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder why my memory pinned your name to that observation... Though that would explain why I couldn't find the comment in your recentish posts. ;-)

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Aha! Cuz I was quoting from a post by notrafficlights, which is here!

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

aha! Mystery solved!

I actually had some hope for The Mentalist when it first started, because the central character was written as an atheist with feelings, who also had a moral code. And the lead actor is pretty to look at.

But it's pretty badly written. I mean, solving a murder based on whether the soles of the suspect's shoes are scuffed? Really?

[elfycat.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not sure that the disability (in Lie to Me) would have changed much about the cops response. The second episode of Lie to Me dealt with rape in an equally bad stereotypical way. And honestly, some of the reactions I've gotten about my own experiences have been similar (including people telling me that I can never have a normal relationship, that being raped turned me into a lesbian; neither of which are true) without any disability to speak of. I think that this may be more of a reflection of the way that our culture deals with rape rather than disability (I could be wrong). Yes, in a lot of cop shows (particularly the SVU types) there are more sympathetic reactions, but a lot of shows (Buffy, Veronica Mars, Dollhouse, Lie to Me, etc) use rape as drama and then handle the after effects (particularly in Buffy, I still can't watch season 7) very poorly and very tritely. It's like, they get to that point and then don't know what to do with the characters except either to have them and everyone else act like it didn't effect them at all, or have the character have a complete breakdown and the majority of the rest of the characters think that the person is overreacting.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just projecting my personal issues onto this.

I also want to say that I very much enjoy reading your posts and find them interesting and enlightening. Please don't take this as an attack on your opinion, as it is not meant to be.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Please don't take this as an attack

Far from it. I find your insights and experiences to be fascinating as well. Different points of view are why talking to other people is more fun than just talking to myself.

I just started thinking about this when my aide Audrey tried to counter my objections to portrayals of disability in our culture, by citing guest appearances, and characters on shows that were canceled 20 years ago (and Ironside, which was canceled close to 40 years ago). Oh, and House, who fits both the Super!Crip and Bitter!crip tropes in one fell swoop.

There's something wrong if you have to go back that far to get just five examples. So I'm thinking, that if I want to get enough examples to get a meaningful sample of pop culture attitudes for next year's essay, I should keep note of all the less than secondary characters starting now.

I liked the first season of Veronica Mars, but the later seasons were full of fail. I think it was just a one-season series.

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

The thing about House, and this episode of Lie to Me, for that matter.. is that these are people who were not always disabled. The drama in -these- things comes from a non disabled person suddenly having a life altering event happen to them. House is disabled, and in a great deal of pain. He's angry about that, not only because he is in constant pain and unable to live his life the way he remembers doing it.. but because the diagnosis came too late to save his leg, and because now people have trouble taking a lot of things he says seriously (despite his genius), because he is a drug addict-something he uses to keep himself out of pain.

In order to make the kind of show you are looking for, a writer would have to have an understanding of a point of view that most of them don't have- how it is to be permanently disabled, and always be that way. I don't think it's impossible, I just think most writers aren't stretching for it. Once and a while you see Deaf folk treated well (West Wing, L word) by writers, but I do agree it has a way to go. A lot of stuff does. Not many tv execs are willing to go deep.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I didn't reply to this right away because I didn't want to make a snap -- and therefore snippy -- reply. But twenty-four hours and change later, and it's still kinda bothering me. Since it won't roll off my back, I guess I better spit it out:

The drama in -these- things comes from a non disabled person suddenly having a life altering event happen to them. House is disabled, and in a great deal of pain. He's angry about that, not only because he is in constant pain and unable to live his life the way he remembers doing it.. but because the diagnosis came too late to save his leg, and because now people have trouble taking a lot of things he says seriously

Um, yeah.

The fact is: you've just described (in general terms) the experience of most people who get slapped upside their life with disability. I, who was born with my condition, and for whom it has always been "normal," am in the distinct minority. A lot of people are in daily pain, and everyone who has had their life changed by disability has to deal with letting go of their old life, learning how to do everything differently, and coping with the fact that no one takes them seriously, any more, despite their genius.

But not everyone becomes the living example of the Angry!Crip Trope, especially if, like House, they've had years of experience with it under their belts. As a matter of fact, I think the AngryCrip is relatively rare (because, frankly, being that angry takes a hell of a lot of energy, and if you do have an acquired disability, your energy is best spent elsewhere).

And no, I don't believe you must to have always been disabled to have a balanced outlook on life. That's another ablist assumption: if you became disabled after having been "A success," you'll turn bitter and resentful toward the world over what you've lost. And the other side of that assumption: that if your impairment has always been part of who you are, you will go through this world cheerfully acting as an After-School Special for any curious stranger who approaches.

Um, no.

Yes, the writers need to have an understanding of life with a disability. But it's not like disabled people are as rare as the ivory-billed woodpecker. I bet you, dollars to donuts, that these writers have someone in their own family, or in their neighborhood who's disabled. Disability is much a part of the human condition as birth, death, old age and twists of fate.

Really.

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

We finally watched our taped episode of Lie to Me. I didn't see it that way. She's a psychologist, and she's used to listening to people. I don't think it would be in her make-up to give a pep-talk speech like that. She's listening to this woman's pain, and letting her talk.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, that may be true.

But still, it's discouraging when nearly every depiction of someone disabled on television also happens to occur when there's also reason for them to be self-pitying and/or suicidal. I mean, the cultural effects are cumulative. You know?