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capri0mniIn the real world, the disabled have to fight for the right to safety, education, employment, freedom of assembly, and self-determination. So does the way disabled characters are portrayed in stories we tell really matter? I think of myself as a storyteller, so perhaps it is both unsurprising and self-aggrandizing for me to say I believe it matters most of all.
Human beings are a storytelling species – the ritual of storytelling occurs in every known culture and in every period of history. And if we take time to actually observe this ritual, we can get a sense of just how powerful it can be, and its great potential for shaping attitudes and prejudices.
First, the audience gathers. The gathering may be as small as one or two around the fireside or office water cooler, or as large as several million, in the case of commercially produced movies and television shows. Then, the social chatter ceases and is replaced by a sense of shared and focused anticipation, which sets the stage for the storyteller to begin. This dynamic (as far as I can tell), is unique to the human animal; lots of creatures gather in large groups for the shared activities of migration, mating, and the rearing of young, but the chatter and communication continues between small groups within that gathering: tweets and grunts, snorts, snuffles, and flashes of meaningful color. I've never seen a flock of birds, a school of fish, or herd of cows or horses become as still as a human audience. After the hush descends, the storyteller begins the tale. Then, if she or he is skilled enough, the magic (and that is really only thing I can call this) begins: the members of the audience fall into a trance-like state.
If you've been lucky enough to have ever been in the audience for a really wonderful story, you've felt this magic from the inside. You're no longer aware of the seat you're sitting in, or that scratchy tag in the neck of your sweater; the events of the story unfurl in your mind with such clarity it's as if you're there – inside the world the storyteller is creating for you. In a very real sense, members of the audience temporarily surrender their imaginations to the storyteller for the sake of a shared experience.
The fact that this ritual is both unique to, and universal within, human society is, I think, a sign that it is somehow vital to our survival as a species – and is probably connected to how we learn and how we understand our surroundings. My mother had a favorite saying: "When we read, we don't learn, we recognize;" she meant, I think, that everything we read is colored by the things we've experienced. But there's also a flipside to that observation: we tend not to notice, or give credence to, our own experiences until they are reflected back at us through stories. The Evangelist Christian who accosts me on the street with the promise to pray for me sees me not as I am, but as a character in the Gospel tales of Jesus. The "Santa's helper" in the elf uniform who thrusts a candy cane at me sees me, not as I am, but as a stand-in for Dickens' character Tiny Tim. And I could not easily contemplate writing disabled characters into my own fiction until after I joined in the disability community online – sharing my own stories, and perhaps more important, learning the stories of others; that's why events such as BADD are so powerful.
The question is, therefore: how should we judge the quality of the disabled characters in stories, either fiction or nonfiction? I think a good template to use as a starting point is the Bechdel Test, which has, in the last ten years, or so, been a useful framework for feminist critique of literature.
In 1985, Allison Bechdel introduced "The Rule" in her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," a litmus test for judging the role of women in movies (and later, other forms of media). The power of this test lies in its simplicity, and also its broadness:
1) there are at least two named women
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.
This test makes no demands that the women in the story defy stereotype or are admirable in any way, and yet the fact that so few movies, comic books, and other mass media pass this test demonstrates how strong the bias toward male-centered narrative actually is.
So – I've been wondering for a while now: Is it possible to come up with a test to expose the common biases against the disabled in narrative? Simply pasting "disabled character" into the Bechdel test in place of "women" wouldn't work very well. The Bechdel test addresses the primary bias that women exist as accessories to men's lives. And, frankly, that doesn't really reflect the social barriers the disabled face. We may be a substantial segment of society, but we are rarely 50% of the population – often, we are the only disabled people within our nuclear families. So requirement 1 is out. And it is often assumed (whether rightly or not) that we live together in some sort of institution or group home. So requirement 2 is superfluous. And while it would be nice to have a disabled character with any speaking lines, whether they speak about their disability or ability specifically wouldn't necessarily counter any stereotypical beliefs.
And yet, whenever I'd see a disabled character pop up on a TV show, I could feel my jaw start to clench in anticipation of the same, tired, overused plot devices. So I knew there was something basic, and repetitive, going on… If only I could put what was bothering me into words.
Finally, this past winter, after watching one too many cop shows where a disabled character only appeared on-screen as the mute, and nameless, motive for a family member's crime, my personal litmus test crystallized in my mind:
1) there is a disabled character
2) who wants something
3) (besides revenge, cure, or death)
4) and tries to get it.
In the Bechdel test, having two women engage in any conversation on subjects other than men represents both the ability of women to form their own social bonds, and also a wide range of intellectual interests they are able to hold, all within the universal narrative element of "dialogue."
In the real world, we disabled often have to fight three primary cultural biases, each of which, I've tried to address in this test.
The first is the bias that discredits our ability for personal autonomy. That's why I want the disabled characters in my fiction to want something for themselves – it doesn't even need to be a big, powerful, plot-driving thing: even showing someone in the background of the crowd scene buying a newspaper, or flying a kite, would satisfy me.
The second cultural bias defines the disabled only in terms of being less than the culturally-accepted "norm." This is why I believe the third item on my list is important. So often in fiction, the disabled character is so embittered by their "lack" that they lose touch with their own sense of self-worth and moral compass – filled with rage and shame – and this reaction is almost always seen as "perfectly natural," and is never even challenged by any of the other characters in the story. So that the only "happy ending" can either be the erasure of the disability itself via cure, or the erasure of the character via death ("at least they're free from suffering, now").
The third bias in our culture is that the disabled are dependent, and in constant need of charity. And that's why the final requirement on my list is that the character makes their own effort to get what they want, rather than being there for an able-bodied character to rescue. This does not mean, however, that the character should be some type of super-Crip, and do everything themselves, but only that they take some initiative in getting their goals met, even if that's "just" to speak out and ask for help.
So… That's the test that I've come up with for evaluating the stories I create and consume. But I don't expect this to be a perfect litmus test – I do hope, however, that it's a useful starting point for discussion.
What do you think?
---
[E.T.A: Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013 archive ... So many articles to read! I hope to post a review entry sometime soon...]
Human beings are a storytelling species – the ritual of storytelling occurs in every known culture and in every period of history. And if we take time to actually observe this ritual, we can get a sense of just how powerful it can be, and its great potential for shaping attitudes and prejudices.
First, the audience gathers. The gathering may be as small as one or two around the fireside or office water cooler, or as large as several million, in the case of commercially produced movies and television shows. Then, the social chatter ceases and is replaced by a sense of shared and focused anticipation, which sets the stage for the storyteller to begin. This dynamic (as far as I can tell), is unique to the human animal; lots of creatures gather in large groups for the shared activities of migration, mating, and the rearing of young, but the chatter and communication continues between small groups within that gathering: tweets and grunts, snorts, snuffles, and flashes of meaningful color. I've never seen a flock of birds, a school of fish, or herd of cows or horses become as still as a human audience. After the hush descends, the storyteller begins the tale. Then, if she or he is skilled enough, the magic (and that is really only thing I can call this) begins: the members of the audience fall into a trance-like state.
If you've been lucky enough to have ever been in the audience for a really wonderful story, you've felt this magic from the inside. You're no longer aware of the seat you're sitting in, or that scratchy tag in the neck of your sweater; the events of the story unfurl in your mind with such clarity it's as if you're there – inside the world the storyteller is creating for you. In a very real sense, members of the audience temporarily surrender their imaginations to the storyteller for the sake of a shared experience.
The fact that this ritual is both unique to, and universal within, human society is, I think, a sign that it is somehow vital to our survival as a species – and is probably connected to how we learn and how we understand our surroundings. My mother had a favorite saying: "When we read, we don't learn, we recognize;" she meant, I think, that everything we read is colored by the things we've experienced. But there's also a flipside to that observation: we tend not to notice, or give credence to, our own experiences until they are reflected back at us through stories. The Evangelist Christian who accosts me on the street with the promise to pray for me sees me not as I am, but as a character in the Gospel tales of Jesus. The "Santa's helper" in the elf uniform who thrusts a candy cane at me sees me, not as I am, but as a stand-in for Dickens' character Tiny Tim. And I could not easily contemplate writing disabled characters into my own fiction until after I joined in the disability community online – sharing my own stories, and perhaps more important, learning the stories of others; that's why events such as BADD are so powerful.
The question is, therefore: how should we judge the quality of the disabled characters in stories, either fiction or nonfiction? I think a good template to use as a starting point is the Bechdel Test, which has, in the last ten years, or so, been a useful framework for feminist critique of literature.
In 1985, Allison Bechdel introduced "The Rule" in her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," a litmus test for judging the role of women in movies (and later, other forms of media). The power of this test lies in its simplicity, and also its broadness:
1) there are at least two named women
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.
This test makes no demands that the women in the story defy stereotype or are admirable in any way, and yet the fact that so few movies, comic books, and other mass media pass this test demonstrates how strong the bias toward male-centered narrative actually is.
So – I've been wondering for a while now: Is it possible to come up with a test to expose the common biases against the disabled in narrative? Simply pasting "disabled character" into the Bechdel test in place of "women" wouldn't work very well. The Bechdel test addresses the primary bias that women exist as accessories to men's lives. And, frankly, that doesn't really reflect the social barriers the disabled face. We may be a substantial segment of society, but we are rarely 50% of the population – often, we are the only disabled people within our nuclear families. So requirement 1 is out. And it is often assumed (whether rightly or not) that we live together in some sort of institution or group home. So requirement 2 is superfluous. And while it would be nice to have a disabled character with any speaking lines, whether they speak about their disability or ability specifically wouldn't necessarily counter any stereotypical beliefs.
And yet, whenever I'd see a disabled character pop up on a TV show, I could feel my jaw start to clench in anticipation of the same, tired, overused plot devices. So I knew there was something basic, and repetitive, going on… If only I could put what was bothering me into words.
Finally, this past winter, after watching one too many cop shows where a disabled character only appeared on-screen as the mute, and nameless, motive for a family member's crime, my personal litmus test crystallized in my mind:
1) there is a disabled character
2) who wants something
3) (besides revenge, cure, or death)
4) and tries to get it.
In the Bechdel test, having two women engage in any conversation on subjects other than men represents both the ability of women to form their own social bonds, and also a wide range of intellectual interests they are able to hold, all within the universal narrative element of "dialogue."
In the real world, we disabled often have to fight three primary cultural biases, each of which, I've tried to address in this test.
The first is the bias that discredits our ability for personal autonomy. That's why I want the disabled characters in my fiction to want something for themselves – it doesn't even need to be a big, powerful, plot-driving thing: even showing someone in the background of the crowd scene buying a newspaper, or flying a kite, would satisfy me.
The second cultural bias defines the disabled only in terms of being less than the culturally-accepted "norm." This is why I believe the third item on my list is important. So often in fiction, the disabled character is so embittered by their "lack" that they lose touch with their own sense of self-worth and moral compass – filled with rage and shame – and this reaction is almost always seen as "perfectly natural," and is never even challenged by any of the other characters in the story. So that the only "happy ending" can either be the erasure of the disability itself via cure, or the erasure of the character via death ("at least they're free from suffering, now").
The third bias in our culture is that the disabled are dependent, and in constant need of charity. And that's why the final requirement on my list is that the character makes their own effort to get what they want, rather than being there for an able-bodied character to rescue. This does not mean, however, that the character should be some type of super-Crip, and do everything themselves, but only that they take some initiative in getting their goals met, even if that's "just" to speak out and ask for help.
So… That's the test that I've come up with for evaluating the stories I create and consume. But I don't expect this to be a perfect litmus test – I do hope, however, that it's a useful starting point for discussion.
What do you think?
---
[E.T.A: Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013 archive ... So many articles to read! I hope to post a review entry sometime soon...]
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 01:08 am (UTC)Of course there will be wonderful works of fiction which do not pass any given version of the test. For instance, a work with only one character would not pass the standard Bechdel test, even if that character were a woman.
I like your version of the test. I also like another version I read somewhere, which might or might not have been from
1. The work includes at least two disabled characters, who
2. Have a conversation
3. That isn't meant to inspire the CND audience.
Not every work should pass that test, but some works should. If a story has a very large number of people talking to each other, then it's worth asking why it doesn't pass. Considering the prevalence of disability, groups of five characters should include one disabled character around half the time. Do they?
No, of course not.
I feel like a Bechdel test is not useful as a measure of quality, but as a measure of whether a work is actively contributing to better representation.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 02:00 am (UTC)Indeed. Perhaps "litmus test" was not the best term for me to use, here, except that's how it was used in Alison Bechdel's original strip: one character says to another, as they are contemplating how to spend the evening, that she will only go see a movie if it "passes" her test...
The fact that she hadn't seen a movie since Alien was the the punchline (if I recall correctly). It's in the impractically of taking "the Rule" as a hard and fast guideline which makes it so powerful as a piece of satire.
Not every work should pass the test, but some works should.
*Nod*
Considering the prevalence of disability, groups of five characters should include one disabled character around half the time.
Ooh, I love your math-talk! Which is one reason I've allowed for "appearance in the crowd" as a criteria for "passing." ... Chuck, which was one of my favorite television series of recent years, centered on a group of five (-ish, depending on how you define "central character") who were elite super spies -- in the genre of James Bond films: running, leaping, and karate-chopping their way to victory each week. So it's fairly reasonable that none of the main characters, themselves, had a disability.
But the "home-base" for the show, between all the buckling of swashes, was a computer mega-store in a strip mall -- there were plenty of opportunities to show a glimpse of someone with a disability getting their Geek on. And yet, the only time a wheelchair appeared on-screen was when one of the weaslier characters tried to run a charity scam for money. If I recall, I let a flew expletives fly, right about then...
This is along the right lines
Date: 2013-05-02 09:52 am (UTC)I've seen folk try to Bechdel race in stories, with something along the lines
1. There must be two people of colour.
2. They must talk to each other.
3. About something non-stereotypical.
Obviously 3 is very tricky and difficult to define. But it is still shocking the number of films which might be set somewhere like Los Angeles, where the population is only 50% white, where there is only one non-white character to be seen.
If you're into cop shows, the Wire is pretty good with disabled characters; Butch's blindness is absolutely incidental to his character (and is played by a blind actor). Meanwhile, Councilman Watkins is a very rare character who uses a powerchair who is good and whose impairment is never mentioned, let alone explained (usually the powerchair is a sure-fired sign of villainry).
When there are two disabled characters in a show or film, you can hear woops of joy from our house!
Re: This is along the right lines
Date: 2013-05-02 07:50 pm (UTC)Just so.
To put the Bechdel Test into English-Major Other Words: "A work passes the Test if female characters are shown engaging in intellectual pursuits which can be defined in terms other than the male-female dichotomy."
To put this Test into English-Major Other Words: "A work passes the Test if a disabled character is shown resolving a conflict which can be defined in terms other than the Disabled-Abled dichotomy."
So, they're allowed to be a villain, so long as they're not a villain building a cyborg army so they don't have to live in their ailing body any more.
Somewhere in the depths of this journal's archive is a rant I posted about the Doctor Who story "Genesis of the Daleks" -- how, on rewatching it several years after my first viewing, it occurred to me that Davros was deliberately creating the Daleks to be more disabled than he is ... so he can therefore be their able-bodied-in-comparison Ruler (not to mention the whole problematic subplot with the "Mutoes" in Skaros' wilderness). So, yes... that is a trope which should die the death of a thousand fires...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 11:04 am (UTC)I'd also appreciate it if, when a previously non-disabled character becomes disabled in fiction, the other characters' interactions don't become focused around revenge/cure/death and that healthy acceptance and accommodation happens instead of an arc-long railing against what has happened. I see this as being similar to character interactions for other forms of Bechdel tests; there should be female characters who aren't sex objects and have male friends. There should be characters of color who interact with white characters without the entire focus revolving around race.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 06:47 pm (UTC)Hear, hear! Yes, yes -- a thousand times yes!
Of course, when I protest against such stereotypes in popular media (especially in the police- and medical procedurals, where they're a staple), I can usually count on someone answering with: "Well, that's easy for you to say -- you've lived with your disability a long time, and have had time to adjust. This character is newly-disabled, and their reaction is totally realistic! There's no other believable way to write it!" And the same could be said for able-bodied kith and kin reactions...
Well, okay. But at least have someone speak up and say: "This is wrong." In real life, I've seen families react to disability with the cure-obsession... and the Web is full of ads for law firms encouraging parents to file malpractice suits because their babies were born with CP. So those cure and/or revenge arcs are "realistic." But the protests of the disabled people themselves are equally realistic, when they try to remind their families that they don't want a cure, and they're not interested in revenge....
no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 09:02 pm (UTC)People with disabilities who deal with the messages of "donate now to help fix these precious angel babies" and "got a defective kid? Sue the hospital, we can help" day in and day out? May just want to write the story about the kid whose parents never even had the thought that there was something "wrong" with her.
I think the idea that "portraying the worst behaviours of humanity" = "realism" comes from the literary fiction clique, because fictional/ized suffering is their bread and butter. Those of us who were raised on speculative fiction and never fell for the idea that literary fic is somehow a higher goal don't have that delusion.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 11:22 pm (UTC)Well, except for the fact that it comes up in discussions of history and present-day social justice, as well: how pacifists are just fooling themselves, because war and killing will always be inevitable (as will slavery, rape, and genocide...). But you know what? For as long as there has been slavery and war, there have also been people speaking out -- and acting out -- against it. That's equally as real...
Which is why I chuckled at this line from Tolkien's essay On Fairy-Stories:
Those of us who were raised on speculative fiction and never fell for the idea that literary fic is somehow a higher goal don't have that delusion.
Well, except that spec-fic is often the worst offender when it comes to ableist attitudes (*cough* *gag* The Ship Who Sang *shudder*), and the total erasure of PWD is often a staple of the futuristic "Utopian" sci-fi genre...
The Dave Test
Date: 2013-05-02 08:45 pm (UTC)Re: The Dave Test
Date: 2013-05-02 11:29 pm (UTC)I think the more we comment on this, and discuss it, the better...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 08:48 pm (UTC)I really dislike the after school special about the Brave Disabled Kid, and being able to say: yes, that's because it's within the framework of a certain stereotyped and harmful set of tropes
*Nod* The After-School Special narrative falls down at the first critical point -- that is, the BDK never has any conflicts of their own to overcome... They're always there only for the purpose of Teaching the Moral to the Able-Bodied Protagonist, and thus, to the Audience (and, naturally, the writers of said specials never think there are actually any disabled kids in the audience)...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-15 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-15 11:59 pm (UTC)Hiring a disabled actor to play a character (with that same disability) is certainly worthy of extra credit, though. Not only do disabled actors need the work, but are less likely to get it, having that person at the script read-through gives them a chance to catch ableist BS the writers throw in there...