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capri0mni1 Robert David Hall is an actor who walks with two cyborg prosthetic legs and a forearm crutch. For the last 11+ television seasons, he's played the chief medical examiner on the series 'CSI:.' For nearly all of those 12 seasons (except for rare, blink-and-you'll-miss-it shots), he's only been seen standing behind an autopsy table, and never walking down the hall (as every other member of the cast is been seen doing as routine).
Until December 14th of last year. In that episode, his character's wife is a prime murder suspect, and so the investigators go into his house and photograph his bathroom, where he parks his manual chair, and you see his spare legs propped up in the corner. His colleague, while snapping said photographs, makes the requisite comment about how inspiring "Doc" is to go to work every day, even though he needs to "put on his legs." And the chief of police assumes that the wife has been having an affair with the murdered man (with the implication that the motivation is because it's so hard to be married to a disabled person).
But no such sentiment is ever put into the script of the wife herself, or the doctor. And I have no doubt that that's because the actor who lived that reality was there to talk back to the writers, and point out that neither pity nor self-pity would ever pass his lips (In the storyline itself, it turns out that there was an affair in the marriage's past -- and it was the disabled dude who had one. Because, guess what? Disabled people are sexual beings, too.) If that same character had been played by a TAB actor, in cripface, you can bet your bippy that (based on that series's track record) every melodramatic disability stereotype would be played to the hilt.
And you know what? Ever since that episode, when the existence of the wheelchair and crutches was finally acknowledged, that character has been seen walking down the hall, and visiting the crime scenes, and even crouching down to get a closer look at the ground.
So yeah, in addition to giving good actors who happen to have disabilities access to good work, hiring disabled people to play disabled people gives the audience better stories.
2 Cerebral Palsy has no single cause, and no two people with the condition have the same abilities or symptoms. Doctors and therapisits, however, have come up with a classification system for "rating" the severity of a person's C.P.. What follows is my own translation of the system from Medicaleze to Conversational English:
Level I: "You mean there's a reason I've always been the biggest klutz in my neighborhood?"
Level II: "Yeah, I can walk across town just fine, but I may have to take a breathalizer test if a cop sees me."
Level III: "Whatcha mean -- I can't walk? Give me crutches (or walker), and I can walk okay."
Level IV: "I can't walk, but give me wheels, and I can get where I need to go under my own volition."
Level V: "I can't push my own chair, but I have people to help me with that."
Now the received wisdom of the "Experts" is that about a third of people with C.P. are mentally retarded, and the rate of retardation increases with the severity of C.P.. In 1980, in a small mountain village in Nepal, Jhamak Kumari was born with Level V Cerebral Palsy, and is unable to speak. She was deemed unteachable, and never sent to school. But she wanted to be a writer, so she taught herself to read and write. And last year, she was awarded Nepal's top literary prize (the Madan Puraskar) for her autobiography.
You see, now, why I'm beginning to doubt that cerebral palsy "causes" any retardation? I'm not saying some people with C.P. might also have intellectual disabilities. But then again, some people with C.P. can also be deathly allergic to peanuts, or be blind. Doesn't mean there's any actual correlation.
3 The television series "Chuck" aired its final episode last month -- 92 hours (five years) of storytelling. It was a show that had been "on the bubble," and slated for cancellation since the end of year one. But it stayed on the air because fans of the show stood up for it. They'd go into stores that advertised on the show and told the employees "We're here because you advertise on 'Chuck.' They wrote letters to the station saying that even though they may not be part of the small sample of families on which the ratings are based, that they were still there, and they still mattered.
And you know what? For all it's slapstick humor, "Chuck" was still one of the smartest-written shows I've ever gotten hooked on. Each character entered the show with his or her 'fatal flaw,' and each of them got a chance for that flaw to drive an element of the plot over the five-year story arc. You know that "rule" of fiction writing, that if there's a gun on the mantelpiece at the beginning of the story, it has to get fired by the end?
Well, in "Chuck," the gun on the mantel piece got fired, the candle on the mantel piece got lit, the bouquet of flowers got watered at first, then wilted, and by the final season, we also learned why the gun, candle, and flowers were there... and it all made sense.
My greatest wish is that the Network Execs everywhere would take the fans' passion for this show as a sign that if they want a really loyal prime time audience, they'll give us stories that continue to be as complex and intelligent even while being lighthearted, rather than caving in to advertisers' fear of intelligence and complexity.
But I'm not holding my breath.
4 While surfing the Mudcat Forums, yesterday, I saw the news that Davy Jones-- the Brit Teen heart-throb from the 1960s' sitcom The Monkees, died Wednesday from a heart attack at age 66.
Yes, people can say they weren't a "Real band" -- they were a group of actors who were hired to play members of a rock band on a TV show. But the actors were hired, in part, because they actually could sing, even if they couldn't (at least at the beginning) play the instruments very well.
I was a toddler during The Monkees first broadcast run, And the teenager next-door neighbor, who was my baby sitter, was one of the fans for which the show was famous. So I got to see a lot of the early episodes, even if I don't remember every detail, it (and young Davy) are still etched in my memory as part of the real world (rather than a memory reported by someone else, or seen only in syndication, after the fact).
5 So, last year, NaNoWriMo began a spin-off of their main even called "Camp NaNoWriMo," and held over two months in the summer. And I'm thinking of signing up.
I know I use the regular event as my psychological fortress during November, but at "camp," to get to participate in a virtual "cabin" with other writers, either in your age group, or writing in your genre, or both. And I'm thinking I may use that opportunity to "cheat" and take a second stab at the NaNo novel I still kind of like, but failed to reach the goal on: My monster teddy story.
*looks back over five.*
I guess this can be summed up as Good Writing=Good ??
Until December 14th of last year. In that episode, his character's wife is a prime murder suspect, and so the investigators go into his house and photograph his bathroom, where he parks his manual chair, and you see his spare legs propped up in the corner. His colleague, while snapping said photographs, makes the requisite comment about how inspiring "Doc" is to go to work every day, even though he needs to "put on his legs." And the chief of police assumes that the wife has been having an affair with the murdered man (with the implication that the motivation is because it's so hard to be married to a disabled person).
But no such sentiment is ever put into the script of the wife herself, or the doctor. And I have no doubt that that's because the actor who lived that reality was there to talk back to the writers, and point out that neither pity nor self-pity would ever pass his lips (In the storyline itself, it turns out that there was an affair in the marriage's past -- and it was the disabled dude who had one. Because, guess what? Disabled people are sexual beings, too.) If that same character had been played by a TAB actor, in cripface, you can bet your bippy that (based on that series's track record) every melodramatic disability stereotype would be played to the hilt.
And you know what? Ever since that episode, when the existence of the wheelchair and crutches was finally acknowledged, that character has been seen walking down the hall, and visiting the crime scenes, and even crouching down to get a closer look at the ground.
So yeah, in addition to giving good actors who happen to have disabilities access to good work, hiring disabled people to play disabled people gives the audience better stories.
2 Cerebral Palsy has no single cause, and no two people with the condition have the same abilities or symptoms. Doctors and therapisits, however, have come up with a classification system for "rating" the severity of a person's C.P.. What follows is my own translation of the system from Medicaleze to Conversational English:
Level I: "You mean there's a reason I've always been the biggest klutz in my neighborhood?"
Level II: "Yeah, I can walk across town just fine, but I may have to take a breathalizer test if a cop sees me."
Level III: "Whatcha mean -- I can't walk? Give me crutches (or walker), and I can walk okay."
Level IV: "I can't walk, but give me wheels, and I can get where I need to go under my own volition."
Level V: "I can't push my own chair, but I have people to help me with that."
Now the received wisdom of the "Experts" is that about a third of people with C.P. are mentally retarded, and the rate of retardation increases with the severity of C.P.. In 1980, in a small mountain village in Nepal, Jhamak Kumari was born with Level V Cerebral Palsy, and is unable to speak. She was deemed unteachable, and never sent to school. But she wanted to be a writer, so she taught herself to read and write. And last year, she was awarded Nepal's top literary prize (the Madan Puraskar) for her autobiography.
You see, now, why I'm beginning to doubt that cerebral palsy "causes" any retardation? I'm not saying some people with C.P. might also have intellectual disabilities. But then again, some people with C.P. can also be deathly allergic to peanuts, or be blind. Doesn't mean there's any actual correlation.
3 The television series "Chuck" aired its final episode last month -- 92 hours (five years) of storytelling. It was a show that had been "on the bubble," and slated for cancellation since the end of year one. But it stayed on the air because fans of the show stood up for it. They'd go into stores that advertised on the show and told the employees "We're here because you advertise on 'Chuck.' They wrote letters to the station saying that even though they may not be part of the small sample of families on which the ratings are based, that they were still there, and they still mattered.
And you know what? For all it's slapstick humor, "Chuck" was still one of the smartest-written shows I've ever gotten hooked on. Each character entered the show with his or her 'fatal flaw,' and each of them got a chance for that flaw to drive an element of the plot over the five-year story arc. You know that "rule" of fiction writing, that if there's a gun on the mantelpiece at the beginning of the story, it has to get fired by the end?
Well, in "Chuck," the gun on the mantel piece got fired, the candle on the mantel piece got lit, the bouquet of flowers got watered at first, then wilted, and by the final season, we also learned why the gun, candle, and flowers were there... and it all made sense.
My greatest wish is that the Network Execs everywhere would take the fans' passion for this show as a sign that if they want a really loyal prime time audience, they'll give us stories that continue to be as complex and intelligent even while being lighthearted, rather than caving in to advertisers' fear of intelligence and complexity.
But I'm not holding my breath.
4 While surfing the Mudcat Forums, yesterday, I saw the news that Davy Jones-- the Brit Teen heart-throb from the 1960s' sitcom The Monkees, died Wednesday from a heart attack at age 66.
Yes, people can say they weren't a "Real band" -- they were a group of actors who were hired to play members of a rock band on a TV show. But the actors were hired, in part, because they actually could sing, even if they couldn't (at least at the beginning) play the instruments very well.
I was a toddler during The Monkees first broadcast run, And the teenager next-door neighbor, who was my baby sitter, was one of the fans for which the show was famous. So I got to see a lot of the early episodes, even if I don't remember every detail, it (and young Davy) are still etched in my memory as part of the real world (rather than a memory reported by someone else, or seen only in syndication, after the fact).
5 So, last year, NaNoWriMo began a spin-off of their main even called "Camp NaNoWriMo," and held over two months in the summer. And I'm thinking of signing up.
I know I use the regular event as my psychological fortress during November, but at "camp," to get to participate in a virtual "cabin" with other writers, either in your age group, or writing in your genre, or both. And I'm thinking I may use that opportunity to "cheat" and take a second stab at the NaNo novel I still kind of like, but failed to reach the goal on: My monster teddy story.
*looks back over five.*
I guess this can be summed up as Good Writing=Good ??
no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 04:30 pm (UTC)Good post then. :-D
no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 05:36 pm (UTC)