Disabled Childhoods? by Allison Boggis

Author:Allison Boggis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Absence and Resistance

The categories of representation examined throughout this chapter have been highlighted primarily because the portrayal of disability within them is problematic. They imply that disability is a deficit: something that is malevolent, to be pitied or to be risen above. Highlighting such imagery is vital in order to contest the normative constructions of subjects and bodies. It must also be noted however that popular culture does contain some more nuanced and subtle images that more accurately represent the diversity of the embodied disability experience. Harnett highlights the inclusion of disability as a normative part of identity and young people’s friendship groups in the 1991 film Boyz in the Hood and its normative inclusion in the 1994 romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. The popularity of the comedy show The Last Leg that premiered on UK Channel 4 in 2012, hosted by disabled comedian Adam Hills, signifies perhaps emerging shifts in the inclusion of disability as more than stereotypes and tropes and as part of normative subjecthoods. Disability in more progressive representations that avoid damaging tropes is thus relevant and irrelevant, a challenge, a cause for celebration and a ‘normal’ part of the continuum that is the human experience. The critically acclaimed and immensely popular fantasy television drama Game of Thrones (2011–Present) received a Media Access Award in 2013 for its portrayal of disability as a feature of humanity, celebrating characters strengths, flaws and complexities. In the giving of the award it was stated ‘…Game of Thrones is not commonly thought of a show that “deals with disability”—it is something even better: a show that embraces the reality that no one is easily definable’ (George RR Martin 2013).

Examples like the very few highlighted above demonstrate the potential for a positive trajectory in representations of disabilities across various media. Just as popular culture serves to refiy normality and perpetuates ableism it can play a powerful role in challenging dominant discourses. Mitchell and Snyder (2001) point to the disruptive potential of disability in challenging normative prospective ideals, values and norms that are imposed upon the body. Televised and cinematic imagery as well as the static image and the internet meme provide the opportunity for audiences to gaze upon and confront society’s culpability in ‘labelling, ostracising and delimiting …. disabled people whom we choose to other’ (Donnelly 2016). It is not possible to confront such imagery however, if it is absent. It is worth noting that the two films and the television comedy and drama cited in the paragraph above are all accessible to a young adult audience. In the worlds of younger children however, with notable exceptions such as the 2014 introduction of wheelchair user Hannah Sparkes in Fireman Sam, the introduction of a young girl with autism, Julia in Sesame Street in March 2017, the online presence of BBC Ouch since 2002 and the CBeebies production based on Makaton that began in 2003, Something Special, there remains a significant absence of disability. We do not find disability in immensely

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