Schwartz, Karen, Zana Lutfiyya, and Nancy Hansen. “Dopey’s Legacy: Stereotypical Portrayals of Intellectual Disability in the Classic Animated Films” Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability. Cheu, Johnson, ed. McFarland, 2013. Print. The authors examine how the roles with intellectual disabilities in Disney animated movies are described and how they are linked to ways through with people with intellectual disabilities are treated in realistic world. Concentrating on the stereotypies used in Disney movies to depict characters with mental disabilities, their main claim that the portrayals of those stereotypies in Disney films are imbedded with prejudicial assumptions and reinforced in a …show more content…
negative way. Their first sub-claim is that characters with mental disabilities are always depicted to have animal-like behaviors.
To prove this sub-claim, they first analyze the figure of Dopey the seventh dwarf in Snow White. Their evidence is that the producer consider Dopey“not as an elf or as an innocent or as a child but as a ‘human with dog mannerisms and intellect’” (203). They also find evidence in the movie as the outlooking and behaviors of Dopey are just like a dog. The second sub-claim is that Dopey was depicted as the “other”. Their evidence is that Dopey is always the one who is left behind when being chased and pushed forward when there are dangers ahead, which proves that Dopey is the most dispensable character. The third sub-claim is that the movie depicts Dopey to be incompetent as he always fails to accomplish the simplest tasks at work. Gus in Cinderella and Lefou in Beauty and the beast are also analyzed in the same way by the authors. After acknowledging the fact of these three characters, the authors make response that these inaccurate portrayals can lead to potentially misunderstanding for the public about individuals with mental disabilities in their community, since the movies are main sources for people to …show more content…
form their opinions and assumptions towards disabilities. The authors also claim that producers should create these characters without clearly reference to their brain states and that the audience should reconsider the purpose and portrayals of these characters with respect and acceptance. Karen Schwartz is a research facilitator at University of Manitoba with specialization in intellectual disabilities.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 2011. Zana Lutfiyya is a professor at the University of Manitoba, and she obtained her Ph.D from Syracuse University. Nancy Hansen also works at the University of Manitoba. She is director of the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Disability Studies, and she is previous president of the Canadian Disability Studies Association. Being the colleagues at the University of Manitoba, Lutifiyya, Schwartz, and Hansen began a study in 2003, which focuses on how individuals with intellectual disabilities understand, learn and exercise their human rights, and this article is one of their research results. So this article is credible since it is written by three scholars in the field of Disability Studies. Their purpose is to critically examine the stereotypical depictions of characters with intellectual disabilities in Disney films and relate them with disable people in real world. The intended audience is the scholars who study in the same field, the filmmakers who are responsible for the creation of disabled actors, and the viewers of Disney animated films who form prejudicial attitudes due to the misrepresentation of intellectual disabilities portrayed in these movies. The limitation of this article is that the authors focus on characters with mental disabilities, while the character Quasimodo in the
Hunchback of Notre Dame has physical disabilities. Another limitation is that the three characters with intellectual disability discussed in this article, Dopey, Gus, and Lefou are so alike that they may not be representative enough. This article illustrates the stereotypes that are imposed on disabled characters by the cultural context, which helps me understand cruelty from a new perspective. Instead of being physically cruel, the portrayals are also ideologically cruel. The portrayals don’t construct characters based on who they are, but on the predetermined assumptions of people with disabilities. So this source assists me to develop me second sub-claim concerning ideological cruelty. It can be considered as specific examples of the research paper of Lawson and Fouts since this article also discusses the verbalizations used to describe characters with disabilities. I will first use this source to analyze my first sub-claim about physical cruelty, since Quasimodo is child-like and identifies as “otherness” in the film as the pattern described in the article. So I will also use my primary source to find evidence for the treatments received by Quasimodo. Then I will use this source to analyze my second sub-claim about ideological cruelty since the disabled characters are only valued by their disabilities based on the stereotypes.
While the novel Of mice and men and the film What’s eating Gilbert Grape have different plots and settings, the themes of the two stories are very comparable. The stories depict how taking care of people with disabilities is very challenging and the problems they encounter in their day to day activities. Gilbert (What’s eating Gilbert Grape) has the task of taking care of Arnie his brother and George (Of mice and men) takes care of his childhood friend Lennie. Both of this characters Arnie and Lennie have mental disabilities and rely on their caregivers in life. The responsibility of taking care of Arnie and Lennie is frustrating but George and Gilbert still love them. This paper aims to compare and contrast the novel Of Mice
All these and more evidences used in the book support Peterson’s thesis and purpose—all of them discuss how having a disability made Peterson and others in her situation a part of the “other”. Her personal experience on media and
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...
An excellent example of this view of the mentally handicapped can be found in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, with the character Lennie. The other characters in this novel such as George and Curley treat Lennie as if he were a child all throughout the novel. George never lets him do any of the talking when t...
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
In 1987, Nancy Mairs argued that physical disabilities are not represented correctly in the media and television. And recently, Rosie Anaya disagrees by explaining that mental disability is suffering worse representation than physical disability. People with mental disabilities are not realistically portrayed on television. Thus, this unrealistic portrayal results in a negative stigma on mental disability and can further isolate those with disabilities.
The two essays “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs and “A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris are excellent pieces of work that share many similarities. This paper would reflect on these similarities particularly in terms of the author, message and the targeted audience. On an everyday basis, people view those with disabilities in a different light and make them conscious at every step. This may be done without a conscious realisation but then it is probably human nature to observe and notice things that deviate from the normal in a society. In a way people are conditioned to look negatively at those individuals who are different in the conventional
Rosina Lippi-Green's article "Teaching Children How to Discriminate - What We Learn From The Big Bad Wolf" (1997) examines the discrimination and stereotypes toward different race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality and region that Disney presents in their animated films. Lippi-Green also points out the use or misuse of foreign accents in films, television and the entertainment industry as a whole. Such animated films are viewed mainly by children. Lippi-Green makes a central argument in which she says that children are taught to discriminate through the portrayal of the different accented characters in Disney films.
District 9 is a film that takes us into a realm of a different world from the one that we know now. It combines extraterrestrial life with immense science fiction to illustrate a story we could only imagine to ever actually occur. Although it was created for entertainment purposes, the motion picture can be compared to many different types of individuals and situations. District 9 displays many underlying concepts throughout the movie about racism, prejudice and discrimination. While studying and analyzing the plot and characters, these concepts became more translucent to me, the viewer. This paper will discuss the treatment of District 9 residents and equate their treatment to people with disabilities.
In today’s modern age, young children are being raised by their TV screen. Reining from the original tales of Perrault and the Grim Brothers, the Disney princess line has been a staple on the screens since the 1930s (Do Rozario 1). However, these princesses have gone through dramatic changes to remain relevant to todays youth. The effects that can be influenced by the roles expressed in these types of films send mixed messages to the audience, causing them to ask themselves whether or not they should believe what the princess is expressing on the screen.
Within different franchises, there are many diverse reboots that pose as positives and negatives towards the overall quality of the certain media or toy text. Focusing on the article: “The Production of Meaning through Peer Interaction: Children and Walt Disney’s Cinderella,” written by Lori Baker-Sperry, we get an overview of the different gender stereotypes seen throughout Disney productions. With the information taken from the article, the correlation between Winnie-the-Pooh and gender stereotypes is proven. These stereotypes are present throughout each adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh, and make an impact on children, both positively and negatively. They demonstrate unrealistic expectations of the roles each gender should be taking on, however,
As a talented young author, “Tito” Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay proves to the general public that people with autism are severely underrated. Tito is undoubtedly a capable autistic writer, but could also rival with adult authors of today. In this challenging memoir, Tito displays poetic skills as an eight year old. During a span of several years, the growing boy expresses the emotions in daily life…the struggle of learning to read and write, to go to a gym, to swim. All these diminutive acts that children don’t realize are so important. Tito draws to light the reality of the daily challenges that many children and even adults don’t even think about. In truth, autistic people and others with conditions impairing certain abilities shouldn’t be referred to as disabled. Actress Terry Ann “Teri” Garr believes that, “When you hear the word 'disabled,' people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can't find joy in life and are bitter.” ("Teri Garr Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.) Will Tito’s message ever be heard? Will autistic people ever be accepted? It all depends on the individuals of today’s
Routledge: New York : New York, 2001. Shakespeare, T (2013) “The Social Model of Disability” in The Disability Studies Reader Ed Davis, L D. Routledge: New York.
Comedic entertainment includes disability in a way that sees the disability as an issue that must be fixed. This view represents the medical model, while a complete social model of disability of comedy would expect movies, television shows, fictional characters, and children’s cartoon characters with disabilities to be as equitably represented as those without disabilities (Gliedman 1980). Comedy oppresses those with disabilities by applying a medical model that labels disability negatively. This negative view is revealed in the way comedy depicts its characters overcoming their disabilities. This depicti...
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...