I've had a "Bechdel Style" Test in my head for Disability Rep. in my head for a whle, now.

[capri0mni]

The question is: can I write a story that passes this test?

I did a journal search just a few minutes ago, and it looks like the last time I wrote about this was 2014, and the test has had minor tweaks since then. So here's a refresher:

1) There’s Disabled Character
2) Who’s an active participant in resolving their own conflict*
3) That conflict does not center on their disability.
4) They’re still alive and disabled at the end.

Now, back in 2005, I had a brief run at writing original Literary wonder tales (fairy tales) for people, on commission. And one of my first gigs was to write a story for a young man, for his 21st birthday; he too, had CP (cerebral palsy), and during my visit with him, to learn what sort of story he wanted, he told me that he did not want any characters in the story to have CP, and that "C.P. Doesn't belong in fairy tales."

And at the time, I agreed with him -- wholeheartedly. I mean, I've seen that kind of representation shoehorned into stories, and it never turns out well -- it oversimplifies the disability, and

But as the years have passed, I began to question that. After all, there are all sorts of people represented in fairy tales: butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, kings, and beggars, and shepherds and thieves, soldiers, sailors, old women, young girls, etc. Why should we exile ourselves from the genre?

So, for last year's NaNoWriMo, I set out to write a wonder tale with a protagonist with C.P. -- not naming it as such, but accurately describing C.P. (that she can't walk, that "her tongue is slow in her mouth," etc.). And, as usual, I got to the 50K mark, but did not end up with a finished story.

So Camp NaNoWriMo is starting in a couple of days, and I woke up this morning and just decided to try and write this story as a shorter 10K novella.

The thing is: the goal she wants (even if she can't articulate it to herself at the beginning) is to get her family (which by the end of the story. is just her sister and herself -- because their parents were elderly when they were born) out from under the oppression of the neighbors' ableism and superstition.

Part of me thinks that does pass point 3 of this test. But my Inner Critic thinks maybe it doesn't...

I'll keep you posted.

*[E.T.A.: Forgot the footnote to point 2: unlike, say: Tiny Tim, who's only there to inspire Scrooge to be better, or Stevie, from Malcolm in the Middle, who's only there to illustrate that Malcolm is cooler than the other kids, because he deigns to be Stevie's friend, etc.]

Comments

[mesotablar]

Is the neighbour only suspicious? I've been reading many tales recently and if the crisis is not centred on love then it comes down to land in many cases. Infringing on each other's land, stealing land, buying land, marrying into land, inheriting land.

Being clueless about the details of your story the moment your mentioned the word 'neighbour' my brain jumped to land conflict as a crisis point.

[capri0mni]

Well, actually, it's the whole village.

Since I'm using fairy tale motifs, the protagonist is a "wish-born" child -- born to older parents, and one of fraternal twins, and premature. The thing is: the twins' birthday fell on the same day as the youngest princess's presentation day (think "Sleeping Beauty"), which the villagers see as bad luck -- and the fact that one of the daughters is a cripple just confirms it in a lot of people's minds, especially since the family they were born into is relatively poor.

And then, later, when the princess is enchanted with a Sleeping-Beauty-like spell, the hostility toward the family increases.

After NaNoWriMo, I summarized the story into 25 beats -- right up to before the princess's rescue (~ 1,400 words) I should probably add that, under a cut.

[mesotablar]

That is much more complex than the things I've been reading recently, which are old documented oral folk tales. Most are very bare bones.
I think writing the story is sort of more important than if it passes your test 100%, which critically I would say it is more important to see the twins united against ableism than the story conflict being partially rooted in the disability.

Just thinking of my own recent reading I think 'The Bone Collector' passes your test criteria. If not for the main character in the book, then the female police officer who has rheumatoid arthritis.

[capri0mni]

Yes -- this genre is called a "Literary Wonder Tale"

'Wonder tales" are broader than fairy tales, in that they're stories which are built around any sort of "supernatural" happenings -- not always dealing with Otherworld creatures like fairies, or trolls. And it's "literary" because it's a polished, literary, work with a known author. Hans Christian Andersen's work is the most readily-known example of this genre I can think of. And, in modern times, there's Terri Windling and Ursula Vernon, under the pen name T. Kingfisher (I recommend both highly)

As for passing my test, like the Bechdel test, I set the bar very low. The disabled person in the story doesn't even have to have any lines, or a name -- just to be, wanting (and trying to get -- whether or not they succeed) something unrelated to their disability. In a movie or TV show, that could just be an anonymous someone in a crowd, buying a newspaper at a newspaper stand, or in a crowd scene in the background of a restaurant, having dinner. As how the Bechedel test puts a spotlight on how rarely women have thoughts of their own, in stories, my intent was to put a spotlight on how rare it is for disabled people to simply exist in stories as their own people, rather than a vessel for moral lessons.

BTW, the fairy tales I'm borrowing motifs from for this are

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Sleeping Beauty and

The Water of Life (A Grimm tale)

(The recurring motif of being seen or not seen is also inspired by the Grimm tale "Thumbthick" (often translated into English as "Tom Thumb"), because the "running gag" of Thumbthick never being seen except by the people who know him rang true to me as a kid growing up with a disability.)

Mostly, I want to challenge myself to past this test because I want to clean out the spare Lego pieces of internalized ableism from the sofa cushions of my mind, ya know? (I think this does, because Apple Red's goals cannot be summarized as "Because of her disability" -- I've written more about this over on this post, over on Tumblr)

(All links but the last go to Wikipedia)

[mesotablar]

thanks for all the info!
I must say I think my mind was reading more into your test that you had written because I did not pick up on the whole "The disabled person in the story doesn't even have to have any lines, or a name -- just to be, wanting (and trying to get -- whether or not they succeed) something unrelated to their disability." I thought main/supporting character, says words not about disability, and other stuff I read into the between the lines spaces. So I was bummed out that in my 4 years or so of serious tracking of my reading I could only come up with one title. Which made me feel that I must have an entire Lego castle hiding in the couch cushions of my mind because I read all these stories and if they have a character with a disability they fail this test. Generally on point 4. (Like, I finished 'Burnt Offerings' by Robert Marasco 2 days ago and it fail point 4 on literally the last line of the book!)

I'll have to grab my Grimm collection and read the original Thumbthick. I have been fleshing out my traditional folk tale books with audio books from Librivox (where there is a large range of international stories for free), so I've neglected the classics for far too long.

[capri0mni]

Yeah -- sounds like you were conflating the Bechdel Test (that there be two named women in the story) with this one. I chose to only require one disabled character (though there can be more), because often, in current fiction trends, disabled people are shown in institutional settings, where we're all grouped together in a "Disability World". And also, to allow them to be simply in the background because they're never seen as just part of the population -- especially in fictional TV shows -- because casting directors don't even consider looking for disabled people to hire as extras in crowd scenes.

Anyway:

For just about a year, from April 2011-July 2012, I tried doing a Blogspot blog dedicated to disability as depicted in folktales and literature, up to World War 1 (I picked that as my cutoff date, because that's where I see "Modern Literature" starting, thanks to the dashed expectations in civilization that the Great War brought about).

I eventually gave it up because after a while, all the disability motifs repeated themselves, and I was running out of new things to say, as well as getting depressed

But "Thumbthick" (or Thumbling) remains one of the few non-depressing stories in the bunch, and was one of my first posts: The Tale of Thumbling: Making your way through a world that doesn't fit. This story does past my test, because Thumbling's goals are: first "Be a contributing member of my family" and second, "Get back home," instead of: "I want to be big."

In contrast, there's the story "Hans-my-Hedgehog," which starts with the same motif of an elderly couple getting exactly the child they wished for, but this story does not past my test, because Hans gets his "happy ending" (according to fairy tale rules, that is -- for me, it pisses me off) by being cured of his "ugliness" and being made fully human. I wrote about that story here: Hans-my-Hedgehog: when disabled children are hidden for shame

Enjoy!

[mesotablar]

Thank you, those were both good reads, and I can definitely understand how it would get depressing fairly fast.
I'm not a person who comes up with original analysis ideas by myself, but now you have given me the relationship between disability and folklore I know I will be reading many stories through new eyes.

[capri0mni]

Heh. I got my college degree in English Lit. (many years ago), and it ingrained a certain way of thinking that has stuck with me. I may gotten out of academia over twenty years ago, but I'm still an English Major (the non-military kind).

Anyway, it was the fact that both Hans and Thumbthick were born after being wished for that I decided to make my (primary) protagonist a "Wish-born Child"... And that would contribute to the villagers' suspicious feelings toward the whole family.