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Eassy on sterotypes about disability into media
Society's views on disabilities
Societies attitudes towards individuals with disabilities
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During this speech, I learned a lot of elements about disability. Smith says that disability is something we want to see. I thought of the Walking Dead. Even though I am not a die-hard fan, the fact that some of the zombies may or may not have limbs intrigues me. I focus on their movements and wonder how they are going to get in contact with the characters. Smith states that moving images often manipulate disabilities to produce an unable feeling. Amputation is shown as bad thing. It is often shown as a dragging, crawling or depressing inferiority. They are often shown as not being able to convey anger because they are helpless. The example of a man being angry and falling from his chair in Forest Gump was a great representation of this. The disable moves are shown as depressed, sad and only drag and or fall. The viewer feels distance from the amputee because they don’t have what would be considered to be abled body. It is displayed as inferior to regular movement. One man shared his story of not having legs and used crawling as an uplifting experience. He also had a very intellectual profession which showed that he was not a helpless man because of this lack of having legs. He was just like any normal …show more content…
bodied person. He should not have been looked down upon or pitied because we look at him as having a disadvantage. We should embrace that he is able to do things in his own manner. There is a trend of amputees on television.
I think this is because of the feeling it evokes, this has become an up and coming trend in media being produced. Smith wants the disabled bodies to be centered on television in order to open up new ways of thinking. She wants a positive reference from the amputee to the audience. She believes that disability is in our future. I would have to agree with her. Disabilities are exploited in television and seen as a horrible element to have. If we change the way that we portray these characters, this will open new doors to how we see and view amputees. Maybe if they are welcomed into the media, it will be a norm to see them in the real world. This could possibly reduce the stares and uncomfortably people have around
amputees. The actors that portray these characters are usually non amputee characters. Able bodied actors imitate what they feel an amputee actor would do. That movement is not natural and does not show reality and there should be more roles that empower the amputee body without “curing” it. Editing techniques such as digitally inserting and removing a table from a scene as the actor moves his full body around it is used to create the illusion of amputation. There are some cases where digital editing cannot portray an accurate movement, such as in Spiderman, when he was punching the Sandman. They used an amputee to do the punch and edited the end of the arm coming out of the back of the Sandman’s body. This movement could not have been done without the disabled body because the natural body, the body that is considered normal is incapable of doing it. It is shown that the amputee cannot adjust with its amputation. It is shown in media that the character must somehow get back normal and get a prosthetic. The cure for enhancing happiness from not having a limp is by having a fake limb. Media exploits then erases the disabled bodies. This is wrong and I think there need to be more positive portrayals of people that may have advantages or disadvantages. This speech opened a whole new way of looking at things and from now on when I watch media, I will no longer feel sorry for the people in the scenes, I will embrace the amputee body and focus more on what it can do rather than what it cannot do.
In her essay “On Being a Cripple,” Mairs describes her path of acceptance of her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis by declaring that she is a “cripple” in alternative to the more broadly acceptable terms: disabled or handicapped. Her essay is written with humor, satire, an open heart, and open eyes. Mair’s purpose is to describe her acceptances of her condition by using rhetorical elements and appeals, such as ethos and pathos, in order to allure her audience.
It is Nancy Mairs choice that she is comfortable with. She states that, “perhaps I want them to wince,” when she talks about people’s reaction to the word cripple. Mairs puts her image and dignity on the line, but smartly repeats that she doesn’t discredit anyone from having their own opinion. She does this rather than telling or expecting her audience to convert; she knows everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Nancy Mairs is completely straightforward with her condition throughout the entire passage.
She told her readers that she has a muscle-wasting disease and she could only move three fingers on her right hand. She wrote that the reactions she got from most people were “Decidedly negative” (Johnson p.98) She wrote that she would hear thing such as “I admire you for being out; most people would give up.” And “You don’t let the pain hold you back do you?” (Johnson p.98) There is often talk about how popular culture teaches people to both see and not see the people with disabilities. Comments such as these are an example of such blindness. When a child sees a disabled person a parent’s first reaction would be to tell them not to stare. We teach children that it is impolite to be curious about people who live life differently than others. We carry the “its-not-polite-to-stare” idea into adult hood therefore when we come across a disabled we try not to make eye contact not as if we are being rude but because we are taught that it would offend them. All curiosity and attempts to understand are shut down at a young age for fear of offending someone. Therefore, any attempt to encourage is met with a deep misunderstanding of how the life of someone with disabilities truly works. Just because a person has a disability does not mean they are incapable of enjoying
Nancy Mairs, born in 1943, described herself as a radical feminist, pacifist, and cripple. She is crippled because she has multiple sclerosis (MS), which is a chronic disease involving damage to the nerve cells and spinal cord. In her essay Disability, Mairs’ focus is on how disabled people are portrayed, or rather un-portrayed in the media. There is more than one audience that Mairs could have been trying to reach out to with this piece. The less-obvious audience would be disabled people who can connect to her writing because they can relate to it. The more obvious audience would be physically-able people who have yet to notice the lack of disabled people being portrayed by the media. Her purpose is to persuade the audience that disabled people should be shown in the media more often, to help society better cope with and realize the presence of handicapped people. Mairs starts off by saying “For months now I’ve been consciously searching for representation of myself in the media, especially television. I know I’d recognize this self becaus...
“I am a Cripple,” when people typically hear these words, they tend to feel bad for that person, but that is exactly what Mair does not want. She prefers that people treat her the same way they would if she did not have the disease. Throughout the essay, Mair discusses her disease openly. She uses an optimistic tone, so that the reader will not recoil with sadness when they hear her discuss the disease and how it affects her life. In Nancy Mair’s essay “On Being A Cripple,” Mair uses her personal stories, diction, and syntactical structures to create an optimistic tone throughout the essay, so that the audience can better connect with the story.
This lack of depiction is perhaps the most accurate depiction of disability possible. Most of the time, I never think about my disability. Sure, it make my life a little different, but for the most part life as a disabled person is exceedingly normal. I loved that Friday Night Lights made Street a character who was so much more than his accident and his disability.
This tone is also used to establish an appeal to pathos which he hopes to convince the audience of the fact that handicapped people are still people and not less than anyone else. A very prominent example of Peace’s emotion is displayed when he says, “Like many disabled people, I embrace an identity that is tied to my body. I have been made to feel different, inferior, since I began using a wheelchair thirty years ago and by claiming that I am disabled and proud, I am empowered,” (para. 15). This declaration demonstrates to his audience that Peace is honored by who he is and what disabled people can do and that he is tired of being oppressed by the media. Peace also makes this claim to support his thesis in the first paragraph that states, “The negative portrayal of disabled people is not only oppressive but also confirms that nondisabled people set the terms of the debate about the meaning of disability,” (para. 1). This is Peace’s central argument for the whole article and explains his frustration with society’s generalization of handicapped people and the preconceived limitations set on them. Peace’s appeal to pathos and tone throughout are extremely effective in displaying to his audience (society) that those who have disabilities are fed up with the limits that have been placed in the
Disability is a ‘complex issue’ (Alperstein, M., Atkins, S., Bately, K., Coetzee, D., Duncan, M., Ferguson, G., Geiger, M. Hewett, G., et al.., 2009: 239) which affects a large percentage of the world’s population. Due to it being complex, one can say that disability depends on one’s perspective (Alperstein et al., 2009: 239). In this essay, I will draw on Dylan Alcott’s disability and use his story to further explain the four models of disability being The Traditional Model, The Medical Model, The Social Model and The Integrated Model of Disability. Through this, I will reflect on my thoughts and feelings in response to Dylan’s story as well as to draw on this task and my new found knowledge of disability in aiding me to become
Disabilities can include physical marks, deformities, and diseases. All disabilities have their own generic meaning. For example, Foster states, “Richard, as morally and spiritually twisted as his back, is one of the most repugnant figures in all time” although it sounds demeaning, to use a disability against one person, it is a great way to show a character’s personality through their being. Employing symbolism in this way is not often noticed in many works. Scars are another disability used in literature to draw interest toward a character.
Imagine being disabled because you were in an accident and had to have a limb amputated. Your life would change drastically because you would be missing an arm or a leg that you had all your life. You would have to change your way of life because you wouldn’t be able to do the activities you did because they would because much more difficult. You would have to settle for a prosthetic limb that is made out of some dense metal that doesn’t move easily and that won’t break easily but it will make you stand out.
The Walking Dead, a television show about surviving in the zombie world, is based on the comic book with the same name created by Robert Kirkman. In this show Rick Grimes, a sheriff's deputy, awakes from his coma and finds himself in a hospital. He soon discovers that while he was in a coma the world had become infected, turning humans into flesh-eating zombies later called Walkers by the characters. As Rick sets out to find his family he encounters many other survivors such as Glenn, Daryl, Carl, Maggie, Carol, Sasha, Hershel, Beth, and Michonne, among many others who have died along the way. Rick and the survivors have been through a lot throughout the show, such as having to move from place to place to avoid being eating by walkers. After walking a longs way, they finally find shelter in an old prison where they now live. Although The Walking Dead shows a lot violence, it sends many positive messages to the viewers that teach them about survival, religion and betray and how each of these can be beneficial in the real world
Comedy is an integral category of the entertainment business. From 1995 to 2013 comedy films had a total box office revenue of $54.88 million in North America (Movie 2014). That is a whopping $12.55 million more than the next highest grossing genre; adventure films (Movie 2014). People are clearly willing to spend money for the chance of a good laugh. If such a large portion of the population is watching comedy the genre must be relatable to a large portion of the populations’ everyday lives, however that is not the case for one of America’s most marginalized groups. As recorded in the 2010 census, 56.7 million people living in the United States were reported as having a disability (Brault 2012). People with a disability represent about 18.7% of the United States’ population, yet they are underrepresented and often misrepresented within comedic entertainment (Brault 2012). Disability representation in comedy has little diversity, addresses disability from a medical model perspective, and minimizes the potential of those with disabilities.
Although disabled characters are uncommon in many TV shows, Game of Thrones not only distinguishes itself by being the exception to that rule, but the show also explores how disability affects the personal and social identities of its characters. Almost every single character in Game of Thrones is disabled in some way, both literally and in a metaphorical sense; Tyrion suffers from dwarfism, Jaime gets his hand cut off, Brandon becomes paralyzed, Jon is a bastard, etc. The episode, Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things, goes further than most episodes by showing that some of the characters have soft spot for the disabled despite the social stigma.
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...
Stories have a tendency to parallel each other and make a revelation about human nature. When comparing the book Lord of the Flies to the television show/comic series The Walking Dead, the reader can see how the ‘trapped’ characters progress in difficult situations. Lord of the Flies and The Walking Dead prove that hard times can change your beliefs and often causes people to lose their humanity.