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Thinking about fairy tales and disability for 16+ years
Back in 2005, I tried my hand at writing original, personalized, fairy tales on commission, and one of my first was for a young man with C.P.’s 21st birthday.
First, I met with him at his home, to talk about the story he wanted, and what kinds of themes he wanted. Then, I flailed for about a week trying to pin it down before I realized I could email him and ask for clarification.
This is the reply he sent back:
And that No CP in Fairy Tales has haunted me, ever since.
I agreed with him, when I met up with him for that first conversation, because nothing stings worse than having that aspect of yourself that marks you apart being treated as “special” and your one defining feature.
But it wasn’t long after I finished that story, and sent it off to him, before I started wondering: Why the Hell can’t we have CP in Fairy Tales?
After all, fairy tales have shepherds, and shipwrights, and kings, and cobblers, and beggars, and merchants, and old women, and young girls, and fools, and wise men -- every class and creed of humanity. And people with (what will later be called) “Cerebral palsy” have been part of humanity since the beginning (it’s a congenital condition that has many causes, results in life-long disability, but is also -- often -- survivable. So there’s no reason for people with the condition to not be part of the world.**
So, a couple of NaNoWriMos ago, I set out to write an original fairy tale with a protagonist who had “C.P.” for myself -- but I never used that term, I just described her as a person: what she could do, what she couldn’t, how she and her family improvised adaptive tools for her, etc., with a healthy soak of genre-appropriate magic for a sauce.
The result was my par-for-the-course 50K word salad. But I think there’s a good story in there, somewhere, that actually works.
Back when I was working on that story, I told myself that I was avoiding the specific term “Cerebral Palsy” because my genre’s setting was vaguely medieval/Renaissance Europe, and the medical term wouldn’t have been coined for another few centuries.
Anyway, the other morning, I woke up with a realization:
But that’s not the reason the phrase “cerebral palsy” should stay the hell out of literary fairy tales, whichever milieu they’re set in.
It’s because “Cerebral Palsy” is a medical attribute. And the medical model of disability (and the medical model of everything, really) sets the individual apart from the world they live in, as broken exception, in need of being fixed. And in Fairy Tales, the characters (and especially the protagonists) are there to represent the human condition for everyone.
So it’s not so much: “No CP in fairy tales,” but “no medical diagnoses” in fairy tales.
But in other genres (particularly in modern forms of literature), where the story does rely on a finely detailed individual (Say, for example: in a "One vs. Society," story arc), actually naming their disability would be better than avoiding the name. Otherwise, it would feel like you're treating it as something shameful, that shouldn't be named.
(And now, I'm wondering if it's possible to write something that is clearly a fairy tale, but set in an industrial, or post industrial world like our own. It's a thought.
*That's Fionn, as in the Irish hero, Fionn MacCumhail, BTW
**In fact, I think the Anglo-Saxon word “crypel” was simply a descriptive term for those people -- like “short,” or “tall,” “fair,” or “dark”; it didn’t get used in an insulting way until the 1600s.
First, I met with him at his home, to talk about the story he wanted, and what kinds of themes he wanted. Then, I flailed for about a week trying to pin it down before I realized I could email him and ask for clarification.
This is the reply he sent back:
I think about being a normal hero named Michael. He needs clothes like
fionne. Be like Fionne* but be me with Zena the warrior princess as his
friend. There should be the Lost Boys from Neverland but by another name as his friends, too. No CP in fairy tales.
Xena should need me as a healer after fighting. she needs a friend like me,
too.
thanks.
Mike
And that No CP in Fairy Tales has haunted me, ever since.
I agreed with him, when I met up with him for that first conversation, because nothing stings worse than having that aspect of yourself that marks you apart being treated as “special” and your one defining feature.
But it wasn’t long after I finished that story, and sent it off to him, before I started wondering: Why the Hell can’t we have CP in Fairy Tales?
After all, fairy tales have shepherds, and shipwrights, and kings, and cobblers, and beggars, and merchants, and old women, and young girls, and fools, and wise men -- every class and creed of humanity. And people with (what will later be called) “Cerebral palsy” have been part of humanity since the beginning (it’s a congenital condition that has many causes, results in life-long disability, but is also -- often -- survivable. So there’s no reason for people with the condition to not be part of the world.**
So, a couple of NaNoWriMos ago, I set out to write an original fairy tale with a protagonist who had “C.P.” for myself -- but I never used that term, I just described her as a person: what she could do, what she couldn’t, how she and her family improvised adaptive tools for her, etc., with a healthy soak of genre-appropriate magic for a sauce.
The result was my par-for-the-course 50K word salad. But I think there’s a good story in there, somewhere, that actually works.
Back when I was working on that story, I told myself that I was avoiding the specific term “Cerebral Palsy” because my genre’s setting was vaguely medieval/Renaissance Europe, and the medical term wouldn’t have been coined for another few centuries.
Anyway, the other morning, I woke up with a realization:
But that’s not the reason the phrase “cerebral palsy” should stay the hell out of literary fairy tales, whichever milieu they’re set in.
It’s because “Cerebral Palsy” is a medical attribute. And the medical model of disability (and the medical model of everything, really) sets the individual apart from the world they live in, as broken exception, in need of being fixed. And in Fairy Tales, the characters (and especially the protagonists) are there to represent the human condition for everyone.
So it’s not so much: “No CP in fairy tales,” but “no medical diagnoses” in fairy tales.
But in other genres (particularly in modern forms of literature), where the story does rely on a finely detailed individual (Say, for example: in a "One vs. Society," story arc), actually naming their disability would be better than avoiding the name. Otherwise, it would feel like you're treating it as something shameful, that shouldn't be named.
(And now, I'm wondering if it's possible to write something that is clearly a fairy tale, but set in an industrial, or post industrial world like our own. It's a thought.
*That's Fionn, as in the Irish hero, Fionn MacCumhail, BTW
**In fact, I think the Anglo-Saxon word “crypel” was simply a descriptive term for those people -- like “short,” or “tall,” “fair,” or “dark”; it didn’t get used in an insulting way until the 1600s.
no subject
Not the best example, but I thought I should comment while I remembered that much!
as for industrial/post-industrial, I guess it depends on how realistic you go? There has been quite a bit of success with steampunk industrial settings.
no subject
As for a modern-day setting for a fairy tale, I was thinking more philosophically: Not just in terms of magic realism (where the "world of the fae" is just on the other side of a very thin veil, and keeps crossing over into every day lives (J.R.R. Tolkien defined a story as a "Fairy Tale" as a story that deals with an Other-World of magic, not necessarily a story with actual fairies flitting about), but a story that also treats its characters and setting more as metaphors for the human condition than discrete examples of individuality.
(After all, when Perrault penned his version of Cinderella, the social convention of royal balls and carriages and footmen was all contemporary.)
no subject
A fair proportion of the steampunk tales I have read deal with machine intelligence, or artificial life. They aren't just Snow White and the 7 Steam Engines (Though now I have thought of it I would love to read Snow White and the 7 Solar Panels!). The industrial Victorian/Edwardian just mirrors the aged-ness familiar with other fairy tales, but they deal with moral issues that have started arising in only the last 50 years or so.
no subject
Are you familiar with the writing of Ursula Vernon / T. Kingfisher (the latter is her pen name for stories she writes for an adult, rather than kid audience)? Or (starting 40 years ago, by now --yipes!) Terri Windling? That's the kind of genre I'm thinking of.
no subject
I've actually just started 'The Wood Wife'! ...though I'm also reading about 4 or 5 other books as well
no subject
She's pretty great. I'm think of carefully rereading her novella retelling (as T. Kingfisher) of Beauty and the Beast titled Bryony and Roses, just so I can figure out how she did it.