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yukieI've been meaning to write this for a while but I never ended up doing so because I kept flaking out. But - yeah, it's gnawing my mind.
So.
Before I start, I want to link a couple things. Thing One is Derailing for Dummies, which is a gloriously sarcastic examination of the kind of condescending stuff that privileged people who have no idea will spout off to - oh, anyone in a minority group. I'm also going to link to its deeply awesome predecessor. Finally, I'm going to link to this article, which discusses markedess/unmarkedness, concepts I'm going to touch on when I get going. Most of these resources deal with discrimination based on ethnicity, which is NOT exactly the same as the discrimination I am discussing - but it's born of the same flawed societal baggage. Intersectionality!
What I'm going to be on about is depiction of people with disabilities (PWD), and why this can seem risky. It's really not, BUT you have to slow down a bit and consider what your work might be saying, whether accidentally or not.
...I should touch on accidental fail here. Because we live and grow up in this society, and we take in its messages from the get-go, we've all 'drunk the kool-aid' (so don't bother with the dance of the fabulous iconoclast. I learned many a glorious smackdown for that kind of hipster silliness at my goddamn hippie university for artfreaks, so yeah), and we transmit the messages we took in without thinking. A friend of mine used this analogy for accidental fail: you're carrying seven boxes of kung po chicken downstairs en route to a gaming session, and you're stoked and in a giddy mood so you're ding the Cuban pete dance and not paying attention to the fact that the stairs are uneven and the rug at the bottom is torn. So you catch your foot on the rug, and PRESTO! Your GM is now covered in kung po chicken. You didn't mean to pelt your GM with chicken, but the fact remains - because you weren't watching your step as you ought to have been, your GM got covered in laser chicken sauce, which if it hits right REALLY burns. The right thing to do at this point is apologize and help clean up and make the effort to watch your step from here on out. Getting all defensive and wailing about why the GM was sitting where they were and why it shouldn't be such a big deeeeeal is POINTLESS. It's also hella babyish. YOU threw the chicken, whether you meant to or not. YOU are the badass ninja who has to clean up the mess because you were not taking care and using common sense.
Accidental failure is like tripping with chicken. Even if you didn't mean to fail, you did, and getting defensive does nothing but make you look immature and full of yourself, so don't. It's normal to feel bad and be mortified, but the only cure - the ONLY CURE for that guilt is 'you know, I fucked up and I'm sorry, I'll be more careful from now on'. No but-yous. Stuff your ego, it doesn't matter. Your hurt feelings because the GM yelled at you for chickenpelting them? They don't matter. You may have had the best of intentions, but that doesn't matter. I'm not saying this to be mean, or to say that you-the-metaphorical-chicken-flinger are morally bankrupt. I'm saying this because you are not the party who is covered in chicken, so you really have no business complaining about the meanness of the person who IS.
Okay, enough with the poultry metaphor, on with the bulk of this post. I have no doubt people are going to wonder about my qualifications and why I have any business writing this post. Well, I have a genetic lung/digestive system issue as well as a learning disability. Also, I have family members with mobility issues and physical disabilities, my father's got the same learning disability as me, I was a Leader-in-Training at an Easter Seals camp for one summer and because of how my brain works, I WATCH A LOT OF SHIT and SEE A LOT OF SHIT. I'm not just plunking my lower cheeks on someone's desk and pulling an Ace Ventura ("ASSHOLE-A-MIO~") - I have actual experience with disability. So please refain from telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, or accusing me of making shit up or attention whoring or overreacting. You can disagree with me, for sure, but do not speak to me as if I were a stupid three-year-old.
That sort of behaviour is oft called 'splaining in the blog circles I run in. You can have dudesplaining (wherein an arrogant guy decides that it's his job to educate a woman about how her life and experiences REALLY are), whitesplaining (see previous example, though sub in white person telling Black or Asian or Middle Eastern or any other person with melanin how it REALLY is and criticizing their sensitivity - see D4D about THAT one), hetsplaining (straight person preaching at LGBTTQI people), and yes - there is ablesplaining. Do people do this because they are mean at heart and just plain dicks? No, they don't. They do it because of how society treats marked people - people outside the 'default'.
For this society, the 'default' is a particular type of white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual guy. This is a very very narrow category and I don't know anyone who fits into it without his feet sticking out or his head popping the lid off the box. The 'default' dude probably doesn't exist. But this is what society has decided over the years is our default. We came to this point because our history's full of colonialism and racism and other grody shit (see The Unapologetic Mexican's the haunted land for a better explanation than I could ever give about a big chunk of this phenomenon - and I want to reiterate AGAIN that racism and ableism are not exactly the same thing and that my experiences with discrimination don't mean I totally totally understand T.U. Mexican's experiences with racism). Along with the innate racism and sexism of society, you get a lot of other baggage that's based on the same shaky grody platform of the hand-me-a-barf-bag parts of our history (and they are legion).
Society thinks that I, as a PWD, am worth less than someone who's able bodied. It thinks that I am demanding special rights when I say that people should be allowed to stay home when they are very ill because 'powering through' hurts me and others who have to inhale my snot vapour when I sneeze (I am eternally grateful that I have a boss who will tell me to go the hell home when I'm sick). It thinks it has the right to come up to me out of the blue and without even KNOWING me, demand I never ever have children because I am weakening the gene pool by doing so (I beg to differ - I'll get into WHY later XD). It thinks it has the right to flip the fuck out and scream when I mention that I have a libido - and man, do they ever flip the fuck out and scream MORE when they find out that men and women in wheelchairs can also have a libido. It thinks that since I have a physical issue, and a learning disability with associated anxiety issues, that I must be COMPLETELY STUPID and mentally undeveloped and that it therefore has the right to talk to me like I'm a stupid baby.
I'm not exaggerating. I'm not making shit up or looking to get offended (yeah because being offended is FUN - what the hell are you smoking~?) or blah be bleedly berh bloo (yes, I am making fun of that attitude, and I don't really care how 'mean' that is). I'm really, really not shitting you. Perfect strangers have told me I shouldn't have children. They've told me that my existence is a strain on the economy (it's usually some loser who's scamming and abusing the dole doing this too - bud, I have a job, get bent) because the government covers my medication (again - my meds are why I can work, so I'm not spanking the economy to death, o ye pearl clutchers). I'm not the only one this has happened to AT ALL. One of my cousins has CP; his mobility's affected by an odd gait but he's broken records sprinting. He is a flippin' paralympic athlete. He's also damn smart and hilarious but people will watch him walk and then when they talk to him they start in with the loud slow monosyllables. The campers at Merrywood said the same (I cannot call them kids, as a lot of them were older than me-at-fourteen) - they joked like hell about it, made fun of stupid people, shared stories of how they owned jackasses. And I know a lot of people are going to get ANGRY about this - about the tales of owning. They'll take it personally somehow!
Let me reiterate: you're not the one covered in kung po chicken.
A lot of people will treat PWD poorly. They will honk at visually-impaired folks crossing the road and mess with working dogs, bitch when the bus has to kneel and ramp out to accept a wheelchair and whine when they have to give up their seats (I don't have any scorn for people with knee issues or ankle issues or sore backs who are upset, but rather able-bodied folks who have just been deprived of a seat and won't be in pain at all from standing) and complain about THOSE PEOPLE taking THEIR MONEY and accuse everyone with an invisible disability (*raises hand* HI) of lying because they can't SEE what's wrong with them and they've never HEARD of that condition so BAW, spout off about how mentally ill people are all dangerous criminals or fakers or weaklings who need to suck it up, talk to anyone and everyone with any disability in that infuriating condescending 'splaining tone, tell us that we are wrong about our experiences, tell us that we are being childish, tell us that we need to watch our tone (see D4D again in re: the Tone Argument), and generally act like fucking douches.
Not everyone is like this, but a lot of people are.
So if I sound cranky - that's why. if some PWD are annoyed by your offer of a helping hand - that's why. Do NOT even bother going off all boohoohoo boohooohoohoo about your hurt feelings and how PWD are all such UNGRATEFUL DICKS. You may have meant well, your tone of voice may have been benign, you may have been respectful and addressed them as an equal but you were probably the unlucky person who came in after a DAY OF RAGING BULLSHIT. It's not a personal attack. You are not a bad person. You just were unlucky enough to be the decent person after a wall of dicks, and after dealing with a wall of dicks it's really hard to see the good side of people. No, nobody's got the right to smack another person with a baguette because they're unhappy, but neither does someone have the right to up and decide that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN A MARKED CATEGORY SUCKS AND SHOULD DE AND DOESN'T DESERVE THEM AS AN ALLY BECAUSE THE ONE DUDE THAT ONE TIME WAS MEEEEAAAAAAAAN. You-the-able-bodied-person are the one with privilege here. You don't generally have to deal with hearing pudgy old dudes in bad suits huff about their tax dollars being wasted on your life and well being. You have every right to wonder what the fuck, but you do not have the right to scold and stomp and fume and huff and piss and be a jerk. You don't. You wouldn't do it to an able-bodied person, so don't do it to one of us.
We are not worth less than you.
It comes down to society genuinely seeing us as 'less'. I mean, for crying out loud, people make stupid unfunny jokes about STEPHEN HAWKING and he's got an IQ somewhere out in the stratosphere. He's EPIC but there's all these numbnuts all going hur hur hur he talks with a computer and has robotvoice let's make fun of that and imply that because he can't talk he's a fuckin' freak - it's like, the fuck. You really cannot treat people badly and then call them ingrates when they tell you to knock it off and have some respect.
So don't even bother writing some straw-PWD into your work so you can teach the rest of us a lesson about how we should behave and vicariously punish us for not giving you the cookies you think you have coming. Like - this is SO pathetically common. PWD in writing and media usually exist to be straw people or ~*Lessons*~ to an able-bodied character. The only PWD I can think of on TV right now who is actually A CHARACTER IN THEIR OWN RIGHT is House. House is a genius and a dick and he's based on Sherlock Holmes and he walks with a cane. He's the star of the show. it's HIS SHOW. it still kind of boggles my mind that he's treated as a CHARACTER and not a VERY SPECIAL LESSON or a straw-whatever or a plot device. And when he's a dick it's dealt with as it would deal with an UNMARKED-CATEGORY character being a dick. Now, if House was a woman she'd probably be called a raging byotch but that's another rant for another time. So yeah. We have House. He's the only one I can think of. He's allowed to be pissed off. The issues he has with pain and mobility are SHOWN. The show isn't perfect by any means but I was surprised at the fact that this cranky dude with a cane was THE HERO OF THE SHOW and the writers didn't do that sappy-dappy-doo businss that usually surrounds PWD characters. House isn't relegated to a Very Special Episode. He's not just THERE to teach another character a lesson about a warm-n'-fuzzy concept.
I really wish more depictions were like that. I mean, shit - in many of the books I've read, PWD are either cured in the end or they die (*annoyed muttering about people-are-not-plot-devices-goes here*). The idea that PWD can have happy, long, fulfilling, FUN lives WHILE STILL HAVING A DISABILITY is just so completely fucking BEYOND some people's grasp! That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the day they can cure my issues, but in the meantime - yes, I am living a happy life. I have to do more work to maintain my health, but it's a small price to pay for me. (As an aside: I am allowed to say that for me, personally, something is a small price. I'm not going to speak for other people. Also, a privileged person should avoid saying that [blahbleeglugnargh] is a small price to pay/a necessary evil, because chances are that person has no fucking idea what the price is and aren't subject to the evil.)
So yeah. The reason it seems risky portraying PWD in media is because of the society we live in. it's not that we are sensitive/mean/looking to be offended/jerks. (Well, some of us are jerks, but some of ANY group are jerks.) We do not have to be grateful for condescension and insults. We don't have to be happy that you bothered to consider us at all. We really don't. If you're writing anyone as an insulting caricature (intentionally or not) and your work is et up with unexamined stereotypes, and people get rightly annoyed with you because you're participating in dehumanizing them by proxy (art imitates life imitates art and by perpetuating crappy stereotypes in media we normalize them and foster their persistence)...YOU THREW THE CHICKEN.
Most privileged people absolutely do not mean to be *ist. They do not want to be jerks. They do not MEAN to be jerks. They want to do the right thing. They want to treat people with respect. They are generally decent - it's just that the problematic stuff in media usually doesn't jump out at them because they're not the subject of it. And if it's pointed out, denying its existence is useless.
Please note that someone saying 'your work is problematic' is not them saying 'you suck and need to die'. Please also note that it is not worse for people to point this out than it is for you to have produced it. The idea that pointing out fail is the REAL problem is bunkum and I'm shocked that so many adults use this "NUH UH! NUH UH! YOU SMELL!" tactic. Pointing out racism is not racist. Get real and grow up. You're embarrassing yourself by having tantrums about this. Clean up the chicken and apologize and move on.
Society's bigotry is not 'over'. We've come a long way, yes, but we have a long way to go, so lecturing the marked folks about how they should be grateful when they point out current fail is just absurd. Seriously, Kurt Schwitters's Dada poetry makes more sense than that argument, and its stankier cousin the 'WE GAVE YOU YOUR RIGHTS AND IF YOU DON'T BEHAVE WE'LL TAKE THEM AWAY YOU INGRAAAAATES' rant.
Yes, one DOES have to pay more attention in portryaing someone in a marked category. Because we're not the default - it's like this. One straight able-bodied white dude in media is not interchangeable with another straight able-bodied white dude, because he's unmarked - straight white dudes as a whole are,one straight white dude does not represent them all - so you can have a bunch of white dudes running in circles singing the Tiki Bird song and wearing lampshades on their heads, and any one of those guys is usually unlikely to be seen as representative of all white guys anywhere ever. Conversely - one black guy in a movie is a stand-in for all black guys. He's not the 'default'. The black guy in the movie is the 'ambassador' for all black guys. Ditto female characters (see - if I just said 'character' a lot of people would assume 'dude', this is how this works). And - aside here - THIS is one reason why female characters are subject to such hardass critique. Another reason is society's epic sexist undercurrents, of course. Back on track - because one marginalized-person character is the stand-in for all people of that type, the ambassador to the 'normal people's world' (these are big fat sarcastic air quotes)...well, in depicting that type of character in a problematic manner, you're by extension saying ALL people of type X are like Y.
You are probably not doing it on purpose, but this is what is happening.
So yes, I do have a right to be annoyed if you're vicariously smacking me down via Uppity PWD Bitch #3 who gets what's coming to her and learns to be properly grateful! I do have a right to be irritated at authors who are whining through their work about those mean people in wheelchairs! it's not problematic in and of itself to depict a PWD as flawed, but for the love of $deity - make sure your PWD is a CHARACTER, okay? Don't give me this paper-doll bulltinky. Write a character who happens to have a disability. WE ARE NOT OUR DISABILITIES. I HAVE cystic fibrosis (and yes I am doing well, my lungs are good, thanks ^^), it does not define who I am. I personally take issue with some aspects of the CCFF (which is largely run by people without CF - we're in thee but not the majority last I checked), and I know that there are people who will call me ungrateful for that. I'm not; I take issue with some aspects of it. There is a big difference. But I digress.
I will not accept being held to unreasonable standards with ever-moving goalposts because of a chromosomal fart. I will not accept seeing other people held to this type of standard because of their level of ability, their gender, their sexual orientation, or their ethnicity. The same system that sucks so much ass at me sucks at them and the suck is DIFFERENT SUCK but it's based upon the same flawed, cruel, stupid, ancient bullsnarl. All bigotry stems from the idea that such-and-such type of person is LESSER. I don't HAVE to accept that. I have the right to say 'knock it off, what you're doing affects me personally in this manner'. And I will speak up when I see other kinds of fail ricocheting around, or do my best to (because some days I just have a big lack of spoons and I really can't deal emotionally with shit and I don't like exploding into this tiny supernova of squirrely wrath and tearing people down and eating their ego with cheese sauce when I can't deal with shit and thus setting off yet another round of 'oh those people are MEAN!', so on spoonless days I sit on my hands and wait, and try to speak out when I am spoon'd again), because it connects to the issues that affect me.
And even if it didn't, I should say something anyhow, because why the fuck are we SETTLING for bullshit? Why are we settling for media that depicts dudes as stupid and wang-led and incapable of housework and self control! - that shit does NOT come out of progressive camps, okay, Homer Simpson is not a product of the progressives. He's Fred Flintstone's spiritual successor, and if anyone tells me that dirty feminists and stuff ran the media in 1960...yeah, I'm going to LAUGH. Like, the mainstream media, for the most part, DEPICTS US ALL AS STUPID WORTHLESS ASSHOLES! WHY are we settling for this!? It's ridiculous!
That's why I 'make such a big deal'. Because I do think people deserve to be treated with respect - ANY people, anyWHERE. And for the most part, in media, we aren't. And, as anywhere, some animals are more equal than others.
Depicting stereotypes perpetuates them. Kicking the shit out of them and refusing to depict them unthinkingly (if you're going to depict them BOY HOWDY you better work hard at deconstruction) stops them from being normalized.
I do not have to deal with being told to behave myself or I'll be punished and ignored and so will all others of my group. I am not a child. I am not a lesser being. I could drink horrible water and not get cholera at ALL and possibly skip a shit ton of other badness because of how my body works - from my cell membranes to my stomach acid (it's really quite epic and I have to take pills to buffer it some, so I suspect that it FRIES most invaders) and I think that's fucking cool and you now what, PEOPLE WHO CARRY THE GENE FOR CF ALSO DON'T GET CHOLERA VERY OFTEN EITHER. So my kung fu is superior. (This is when I get a bit silly, but my point remains.) And even if that wans't the case - so the fuck what? I deserve to have the same quality of life as someone without CF. So does any other PWD deserve to have the same quality of life as an able bodied person. So, too, does any marginalized person have the right to a life just has happy and fulfilling as that of a privileged person.
I was not born with a disability because I sinned in a past life or my parents were awful. That 'generational curse' shit is beyond offensive and for the love of circus peanuts it even SAYS IN THE BIBLE THAT DISABILITY ISN'T PUNISHMENT FOR SIN, AND THIS COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BIG J HIMSELF. (Yes, I know parts of the bible are contradictory; I read it when I was bored in elementary school yay Catholic classrooms always having a bible - and this post isn't about the bible anyhow, so.) So knock that off. Misfortune is not a result of someone being a bad person. The idea that someone is marginalized because they did something to deserve it is a giant lie that needs to expire in a fucking pit of flames and then be beaten into a pulp with a giant rocket-powered wrench made out of ants. And then pulverized with a steamroller dropped from on high by Dio Brando himself. That idea is BULLSHIT. Not all perks and drawbacks are deserved. This is not X/1999, our destiny is not foreordained. Life is not fair and balanced yet. Not by far.
Until it is, we have to pay more attention. Treat people as they would like to be treated (and if anyone - ANYONE complains about 'special treatment' here I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh at the point-misisng and privileged wankery...wanting the same rights as a privileged person isn't wanting special treatment and if you're judging an entire group by one diva you're being a childish, unreasonable, naive, unrealistic individual who needs to get with the program; you don't get to punish the rest of us because one snowflake was a dick, Sunny Jim). If you say you want to treat people with respect, walk the talk. Show your intent. DO IT. Discuss it. Call it out. Make it right. Listen. Act like a grown-up, and don't treat marginalized folks like children.
The only way to not be called out for fail is not to fail. (I just revealed myself to be a huge nerd here.) Watch your step on the stairs and you won't end up bombarding people with metaphorical kung po chicken. FORGET your ego, it's not important. (Ego is not the same as confidence.) The only cure for the guilt is action. Apologize, and do more better next time.
Do I fuck up in depictions of marginalized people too? Oh, you bet your pants, Mytho, but I learned through trial and error (lots of error) that my work is not ME PERSONALLY, that I can say stupid things and not BE stupid, and that the only cure for that stomach-turning quease you get when fail is pointed out? Is listening up and fixing it.
If you are not willing to do the homework, don't present yourself as a serious writer/artist. And even if you don't WANT to be one of those, there's really no excuse for being critically lazy. Google is a wonderful thing. So is listening to your friends who know about these things. Yeah, some critiquers ARE just doing it to be jerks but whining like Ozzie at Magus is only going to make them mock you MORE so just go 'well damn okay' and let the trolls stew. And don't paint all critiquers as trolls. XD
I'm never any good at concluding these things, so I'll just stop here and reiterate: listen to the people who know these things, and treat others with the respect you'd want. Watch your step on the doom stairs and you won't lose your chicken.
So.
Before I start, I want to link a couple things. Thing One is Derailing for Dummies, which is a gloriously sarcastic examination of the kind of condescending stuff that privileged people who have no idea will spout off to - oh, anyone in a minority group. I'm also going to link to its deeply awesome predecessor. Finally, I'm going to link to this article, which discusses markedess/unmarkedness, concepts I'm going to touch on when I get going. Most of these resources deal with discrimination based on ethnicity, which is NOT exactly the same as the discrimination I am discussing - but it's born of the same flawed societal baggage. Intersectionality!
What I'm going to be on about is depiction of people with disabilities (PWD), and why this can seem risky. It's really not, BUT you have to slow down a bit and consider what your work might be saying, whether accidentally or not.
...I should touch on accidental fail here. Because we live and grow up in this society, and we take in its messages from the get-go, we've all 'drunk the kool-aid' (so don't bother with the dance of the fabulous iconoclast. I learned many a glorious smackdown for that kind of hipster silliness at my goddamn hippie university for artfreaks, so yeah), and we transmit the messages we took in without thinking. A friend of mine used this analogy for accidental fail: you're carrying seven boxes of kung po chicken downstairs en route to a gaming session, and you're stoked and in a giddy mood so you're ding the Cuban pete dance and not paying attention to the fact that the stairs are uneven and the rug at the bottom is torn. So you catch your foot on the rug, and PRESTO! Your GM is now covered in kung po chicken. You didn't mean to pelt your GM with chicken, but the fact remains - because you weren't watching your step as you ought to have been, your GM got covered in laser chicken sauce, which if it hits right REALLY burns. The right thing to do at this point is apologize and help clean up and make the effort to watch your step from here on out. Getting all defensive and wailing about why the GM was sitting where they were and why it shouldn't be such a big deeeeeal is POINTLESS. It's also hella babyish. YOU threw the chicken, whether you meant to or not. YOU are the badass ninja who has to clean up the mess because you were not taking care and using common sense.
Accidental failure is like tripping with chicken. Even if you didn't mean to fail, you did, and getting defensive does nothing but make you look immature and full of yourself, so don't. It's normal to feel bad and be mortified, but the only cure - the ONLY CURE for that guilt is 'you know, I fucked up and I'm sorry, I'll be more careful from now on'. No but-yous. Stuff your ego, it doesn't matter. Your hurt feelings because the GM yelled at you for chickenpelting them? They don't matter. You may have had the best of intentions, but that doesn't matter. I'm not saying this to be mean, or to say that you-the-metaphorical-chicken-flinger are morally bankrupt. I'm saying this because you are not the party who is covered in chicken, so you really have no business complaining about the meanness of the person who IS.
Okay, enough with the poultry metaphor, on with the bulk of this post. I have no doubt people are going to wonder about my qualifications and why I have any business writing this post. Well, I have a genetic lung/digestive system issue as well as a learning disability. Also, I have family members with mobility issues and physical disabilities, my father's got the same learning disability as me, I was a Leader-in-Training at an Easter Seals camp for one summer and because of how my brain works, I WATCH A LOT OF SHIT and SEE A LOT OF SHIT. I'm not just plunking my lower cheeks on someone's desk and pulling an Ace Ventura ("ASSHOLE-A-MIO~") - I have actual experience with disability. So please refain from telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, or accusing me of making shit up or attention whoring or overreacting. You can disagree with me, for sure, but do not speak to me as if I were a stupid three-year-old.
That sort of behaviour is oft called 'splaining in the blog circles I run in. You can have dudesplaining (wherein an arrogant guy decides that it's his job to educate a woman about how her life and experiences REALLY are), whitesplaining (see previous example, though sub in white person telling Black or Asian or Middle Eastern or any other person with melanin how it REALLY is and criticizing their sensitivity - see D4D about THAT one), hetsplaining (straight person preaching at LGBTTQI people), and yes - there is ablesplaining. Do people do this because they are mean at heart and just plain dicks? No, they don't. They do it because of how society treats marked people - people outside the 'default'.
For this society, the 'default' is a particular type of white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual guy. This is a very very narrow category and I don't know anyone who fits into it without his feet sticking out or his head popping the lid off the box. The 'default' dude probably doesn't exist. But this is what society has decided over the years is our default. We came to this point because our history's full of colonialism and racism and other grody shit (see The Unapologetic Mexican's the haunted land for a better explanation than I could ever give about a big chunk of this phenomenon - and I want to reiterate AGAIN that racism and ableism are not exactly the same thing and that my experiences with discrimination don't mean I totally totally understand T.U. Mexican's experiences with racism). Along with the innate racism and sexism of society, you get a lot of other baggage that's based on the same shaky grody platform of the hand-me-a-barf-bag parts of our history (and they are legion).
Society thinks that I, as a PWD, am worth less than someone who's able bodied. It thinks that I am demanding special rights when I say that people should be allowed to stay home when they are very ill because 'powering through' hurts me and others who have to inhale my snot vapour when I sneeze (I am eternally grateful that I have a boss who will tell me to go the hell home when I'm sick). It thinks it has the right to come up to me out of the blue and without even KNOWING me, demand I never ever have children because I am weakening the gene pool by doing so (I beg to differ - I'll get into WHY later XD). It thinks it has the right to flip the fuck out and scream when I mention that I have a libido - and man, do they ever flip the fuck out and scream MORE when they find out that men and women in wheelchairs can also have a libido. It thinks that since I have a physical issue, and a learning disability with associated anxiety issues, that I must be COMPLETELY STUPID and mentally undeveloped and that it therefore has the right to talk to me like I'm a stupid baby.
I'm not exaggerating. I'm not making shit up or looking to get offended (yeah because being offended is FUN - what the hell are you smoking~?) or blah be bleedly berh bloo (yes, I am making fun of that attitude, and I don't really care how 'mean' that is). I'm really, really not shitting you. Perfect strangers have told me I shouldn't have children. They've told me that my existence is a strain on the economy (it's usually some loser who's scamming and abusing the dole doing this too - bud, I have a job, get bent) because the government covers my medication (again - my meds are why I can work, so I'm not spanking the economy to death, o ye pearl clutchers). I'm not the only one this has happened to AT ALL. One of my cousins has CP; his mobility's affected by an odd gait but he's broken records sprinting. He is a flippin' paralympic athlete. He's also damn smart and hilarious but people will watch him walk and then when they talk to him they start in with the loud slow monosyllables. The campers at Merrywood said the same (I cannot call them kids, as a lot of them were older than me-at-fourteen) - they joked like hell about it, made fun of stupid people, shared stories of how they owned jackasses. And I know a lot of people are going to get ANGRY about this - about the tales of owning. They'll take it personally somehow!
Let me reiterate: you're not the one covered in kung po chicken.
A lot of people will treat PWD poorly. They will honk at visually-impaired folks crossing the road and mess with working dogs, bitch when the bus has to kneel and ramp out to accept a wheelchair and whine when they have to give up their seats (I don't have any scorn for people with knee issues or ankle issues or sore backs who are upset, but rather able-bodied folks who have just been deprived of a seat and won't be in pain at all from standing) and complain about THOSE PEOPLE taking THEIR MONEY and accuse everyone with an invisible disability (*raises hand* HI) of lying because they can't SEE what's wrong with them and they've never HEARD of that condition so BAW, spout off about how mentally ill people are all dangerous criminals or fakers or weaklings who need to suck it up, talk to anyone and everyone with any disability in that infuriating condescending 'splaining tone, tell us that we are wrong about our experiences, tell us that we are being childish, tell us that we need to watch our tone (see D4D again in re: the Tone Argument), and generally act like fucking douches.
Not everyone is like this, but a lot of people are.
So if I sound cranky - that's why. if some PWD are annoyed by your offer of a helping hand - that's why. Do NOT even bother going off all boohoohoo boohooohoohoo about your hurt feelings and how PWD are all such UNGRATEFUL DICKS. You may have meant well, your tone of voice may have been benign, you may have been respectful and addressed them as an equal but you were probably the unlucky person who came in after a DAY OF RAGING BULLSHIT. It's not a personal attack. You are not a bad person. You just were unlucky enough to be the decent person after a wall of dicks, and after dealing with a wall of dicks it's really hard to see the good side of people. No, nobody's got the right to smack another person with a baguette because they're unhappy, but neither does someone have the right to up and decide that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN A MARKED CATEGORY SUCKS AND SHOULD DE AND DOESN'T DESERVE THEM AS AN ALLY BECAUSE THE ONE DUDE THAT ONE TIME WAS MEEEEAAAAAAAAN. You-the-able-bodied-person are the one with privilege here. You don't generally have to deal with hearing pudgy old dudes in bad suits huff about their tax dollars being wasted on your life and well being. You have every right to wonder what the fuck, but you do not have the right to scold and stomp and fume and huff and piss and be a jerk. You don't. You wouldn't do it to an able-bodied person, so don't do it to one of us.
We are not worth less than you.
It comes down to society genuinely seeing us as 'less'. I mean, for crying out loud, people make stupid unfunny jokes about STEPHEN HAWKING and he's got an IQ somewhere out in the stratosphere. He's EPIC but there's all these numbnuts all going hur hur hur he talks with a computer and has robotvoice let's make fun of that and imply that because he can't talk he's a fuckin' freak - it's like, the fuck. You really cannot treat people badly and then call them ingrates when they tell you to knock it off and have some respect.
So don't even bother writing some straw-PWD into your work so you can teach the rest of us a lesson about how we should behave and vicariously punish us for not giving you the cookies you think you have coming. Like - this is SO pathetically common. PWD in writing and media usually exist to be straw people or ~*Lessons*~ to an able-bodied character. The only PWD I can think of on TV right now who is actually A CHARACTER IN THEIR OWN RIGHT is House. House is a genius and a dick and he's based on Sherlock Holmes and he walks with a cane. He's the star of the show. it's HIS SHOW. it still kind of boggles my mind that he's treated as a CHARACTER and not a VERY SPECIAL LESSON or a straw-whatever or a plot device. And when he's a dick it's dealt with as it would deal with an UNMARKED-CATEGORY character being a dick. Now, if House was a woman she'd probably be called a raging byotch but that's another rant for another time. So yeah. We have House. He's the only one I can think of. He's allowed to be pissed off. The issues he has with pain and mobility are SHOWN. The show isn't perfect by any means but I was surprised at the fact that this cranky dude with a cane was THE HERO OF THE SHOW and the writers didn't do that sappy-dappy-doo businss that usually surrounds PWD characters. House isn't relegated to a Very Special Episode. He's not just THERE to teach another character a lesson about a warm-n'-fuzzy concept.
I really wish more depictions were like that. I mean, shit - in many of the books I've read, PWD are either cured in the end or they die (*annoyed muttering about people-are-not-plot-devices-goes here*). The idea that PWD can have happy, long, fulfilling, FUN lives WHILE STILL HAVING A DISABILITY is just so completely fucking BEYOND some people's grasp! That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the day they can cure my issues, but in the meantime - yes, I am living a happy life. I have to do more work to maintain my health, but it's a small price to pay for me. (As an aside: I am allowed to say that for me, personally, something is a small price. I'm not going to speak for other people. Also, a privileged person should avoid saying that [blahbleeglugnargh] is a small price to pay/a necessary evil, because chances are that person has no fucking idea what the price is and aren't subject to the evil.)
So yeah. The reason it seems risky portraying PWD in media is because of the society we live in. it's not that we are sensitive/mean/looking to be offended/jerks. (Well, some of us are jerks, but some of ANY group are jerks.) We do not have to be grateful for condescension and insults. We don't have to be happy that you bothered to consider us at all. We really don't. If you're writing anyone as an insulting caricature (intentionally or not) and your work is et up with unexamined stereotypes, and people get rightly annoyed with you because you're participating in dehumanizing them by proxy (art imitates life imitates art and by perpetuating crappy stereotypes in media we normalize them and foster their persistence)...YOU THREW THE CHICKEN.
Most privileged people absolutely do not mean to be *ist. They do not want to be jerks. They do not MEAN to be jerks. They want to do the right thing. They want to treat people with respect. They are generally decent - it's just that the problematic stuff in media usually doesn't jump out at them because they're not the subject of it. And if it's pointed out, denying its existence is useless.
Please note that someone saying 'your work is problematic' is not them saying 'you suck and need to die'. Please also note that it is not worse for people to point this out than it is for you to have produced it. The idea that pointing out fail is the REAL problem is bunkum and I'm shocked that so many adults use this "NUH UH! NUH UH! YOU SMELL!" tactic. Pointing out racism is not racist. Get real and grow up. You're embarrassing yourself by having tantrums about this. Clean up the chicken and apologize and move on.
Society's bigotry is not 'over'. We've come a long way, yes, but we have a long way to go, so lecturing the marked folks about how they should be grateful when they point out current fail is just absurd. Seriously, Kurt Schwitters's Dada poetry makes more sense than that argument, and its stankier cousin the 'WE GAVE YOU YOUR RIGHTS AND IF YOU DON'T BEHAVE WE'LL TAKE THEM AWAY YOU INGRAAAAATES' rant.
Yes, one DOES have to pay more attention in portryaing someone in a marked category. Because we're not the default - it's like this. One straight able-bodied white dude in media is not interchangeable with another straight able-bodied white dude, because he's unmarked - straight white dudes as a whole are,one straight white dude does not represent them all - so you can have a bunch of white dudes running in circles singing the Tiki Bird song and wearing lampshades on their heads, and any one of those guys is usually unlikely to be seen as representative of all white guys anywhere ever. Conversely - one black guy in a movie is a stand-in for all black guys. He's not the 'default'. The black guy in the movie is the 'ambassador' for all black guys. Ditto female characters (see - if I just said 'character' a lot of people would assume 'dude', this is how this works). And - aside here - THIS is one reason why female characters are subject to such hardass critique. Another reason is society's epic sexist undercurrents, of course. Back on track - because one marginalized-person character is the stand-in for all people of that type, the ambassador to the 'normal people's world' (these are big fat sarcastic air quotes)...well, in depicting that type of character in a problematic manner, you're by extension saying ALL people of type X are like Y.
You are probably not doing it on purpose, but this is what is happening.
So yes, I do have a right to be annoyed if you're vicariously smacking me down via Uppity PWD Bitch #3 who gets what's coming to her and learns to be properly grateful! I do have a right to be irritated at authors who are whining through their work about those mean people in wheelchairs! it's not problematic in and of itself to depict a PWD as flawed, but for the love of $deity - make sure your PWD is a CHARACTER, okay? Don't give me this paper-doll bulltinky. Write a character who happens to have a disability. WE ARE NOT OUR DISABILITIES. I HAVE cystic fibrosis (and yes I am doing well, my lungs are good, thanks ^^), it does not define who I am. I personally take issue with some aspects of the CCFF (which is largely run by people without CF - we're in thee but not the majority last I checked), and I know that there are people who will call me ungrateful for that. I'm not; I take issue with some aspects of it. There is a big difference. But I digress.
I will not accept being held to unreasonable standards with ever-moving goalposts because of a chromosomal fart. I will not accept seeing other people held to this type of standard because of their level of ability, their gender, their sexual orientation, or their ethnicity. The same system that sucks so much ass at me sucks at them and the suck is DIFFERENT SUCK but it's based upon the same flawed, cruel, stupid, ancient bullsnarl. All bigotry stems from the idea that such-and-such type of person is LESSER. I don't HAVE to accept that. I have the right to say 'knock it off, what you're doing affects me personally in this manner'. And I will speak up when I see other kinds of fail ricocheting around, or do my best to (because some days I just have a big lack of spoons and I really can't deal emotionally with shit and I don't like exploding into this tiny supernova of squirrely wrath and tearing people down and eating their ego with cheese sauce when I can't deal with shit and thus setting off yet another round of 'oh those people are MEAN!', so on spoonless days I sit on my hands and wait, and try to speak out when I am spoon'd again), because it connects to the issues that affect me.
And even if it didn't, I should say something anyhow, because why the fuck are we SETTLING for bullshit? Why are we settling for media that depicts dudes as stupid and wang-led and incapable of housework and self control! - that shit does NOT come out of progressive camps, okay, Homer Simpson is not a product of the progressives. He's Fred Flintstone's spiritual successor, and if anyone tells me that dirty feminists and stuff ran the media in 1960...yeah, I'm going to LAUGH. Like, the mainstream media, for the most part, DEPICTS US ALL AS STUPID WORTHLESS ASSHOLES! WHY are we settling for this!? It's ridiculous!
That's why I 'make such a big deal'. Because I do think people deserve to be treated with respect - ANY people, anyWHERE. And for the most part, in media, we aren't. And, as anywhere, some animals are more equal than others.
Depicting stereotypes perpetuates them. Kicking the shit out of them and refusing to depict them unthinkingly (if you're going to depict them BOY HOWDY you better work hard at deconstruction) stops them from being normalized.
I do not have to deal with being told to behave myself or I'll be punished and ignored and so will all others of my group. I am not a child. I am not a lesser being. I could drink horrible water and not get cholera at ALL and possibly skip a shit ton of other badness because of how my body works - from my cell membranes to my stomach acid (it's really quite epic and I have to take pills to buffer it some, so I suspect that it FRIES most invaders) and I think that's fucking cool and you now what, PEOPLE WHO CARRY THE GENE FOR CF ALSO DON'T GET CHOLERA VERY OFTEN EITHER. So my kung fu is superior. (This is when I get a bit silly, but my point remains.) And even if that wans't the case - so the fuck what? I deserve to have the same quality of life as someone without CF. So does any other PWD deserve to have the same quality of life as an able bodied person. So, too, does any marginalized person have the right to a life just has happy and fulfilling as that of a privileged person.
I was not born with a disability because I sinned in a past life or my parents were awful. That 'generational curse' shit is beyond offensive and for the love of circus peanuts it even SAYS IN THE BIBLE THAT DISABILITY ISN'T PUNISHMENT FOR SIN, AND THIS COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BIG J HIMSELF. (Yes, I know parts of the bible are contradictory; I read it when I was bored in elementary school yay Catholic classrooms always having a bible - and this post isn't about the bible anyhow, so.) So knock that off. Misfortune is not a result of someone being a bad person. The idea that someone is marginalized because they did something to deserve it is a giant lie that needs to expire in a fucking pit of flames and then be beaten into a pulp with a giant rocket-powered wrench made out of ants. And then pulverized with a steamroller dropped from on high by Dio Brando himself. That idea is BULLSHIT. Not all perks and drawbacks are deserved. This is not X/1999, our destiny is not foreordained. Life is not fair and balanced yet. Not by far.
Until it is, we have to pay more attention. Treat people as they would like to be treated (and if anyone - ANYONE complains about 'special treatment' here I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh at the point-misisng and privileged wankery...wanting the same rights as a privileged person isn't wanting special treatment and if you're judging an entire group by one diva you're being a childish, unreasonable, naive, unrealistic individual who needs to get with the program; you don't get to punish the rest of us because one snowflake was a dick, Sunny Jim). If you say you want to treat people with respect, walk the talk. Show your intent. DO IT. Discuss it. Call it out. Make it right. Listen. Act like a grown-up, and don't treat marginalized folks like children.
The only way to not be called out for fail is not to fail. (I just revealed myself to be a huge nerd here.) Watch your step on the stairs and you won't end up bombarding people with metaphorical kung po chicken. FORGET your ego, it's not important. (Ego is not the same as confidence.) The only cure for the guilt is action. Apologize, and do more better next time.
Do I fuck up in depictions of marginalized people too? Oh, you bet your pants, Mytho, but I learned through trial and error (lots of error) that my work is not ME PERSONALLY, that I can say stupid things and not BE stupid, and that the only cure for that stomach-turning quease you get when fail is pointed out? Is listening up and fixing it.
If you are not willing to do the homework, don't present yourself as a serious writer/artist. And even if you don't WANT to be one of those, there's really no excuse for being critically lazy. Google is a wonderful thing. So is listening to your friends who know about these things. Yeah, some critiquers ARE just doing it to be jerks but whining like Ozzie at Magus is only going to make them mock you MORE so just go 'well damn okay' and let the trolls stew. And don't paint all critiquers as trolls. XD
I'm never any good at concluding these things, so I'll just stop here and reiterate: listen to the people who know these things, and treat others with the respect you'd want. Watch your step on the doom stairs and you won't lose your chicken.
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Date: 2010-07-21 12:59 am (UTC)XD the chicken thing is - yeah, I love that guy's brain. And it WORKS too, it's - yeah.
I'm glad i did no fale XD