N.B. Condescension

Reading Roger Ebert’s review for Children of a Lesser God (for posterity’s sake, because I’m sure this blog is going to outlive me, we were assigned to read this for class; I don’t necessarily go about checking on Ebert’s thoughts for too many movies) I was struck in particular by one line regarding how often movies about the disabled are condescending. In Children’s case (which I have not seen yet, so am really no authority on the level of its condescension) Ebert claimed that the film was condescending by “conferring greater moral authenticity on the handicapped character”. This is a standard Hollywood trope and one that I’ve found myself writing on over and over somehow this school year (it’s almost as if all the Humanities professors are teaching similar concepts…concepts regarding some sort of human-y condition thing). What seems funny (not funny ha-ha) to me is that no matter how the disabled are portrayed in Hollywood films it almost always comes off as condescending and yet, for as out of touch as Hollywood is with reality, this is perhaps the most realistic reaction they could have toward the disabled.

That is not to say that Hollywood is correct in these portrayals, but simply from personal observation it’s clear that most non-disabled Americans I’ve seen treat the disabled with either extreme discomfort and anxiety or that voice that one adopts when one is telling a child how marvelous their handprint turkey painting is. It’s a reaction that is mirrored in major motion pictures’ very tone.

So far this year I’ve found myself writing about the insulting caricature of Forrest Gump, the misguided (if [possibly] well-intentioned) portrayal of disabled veterans in Tom Cruise’s Born on the Fourth of July, and—no less than three times—the film Murderball. Murderball is the only one that seems unwilling to present the disabled in as cloying a way as possible. It is (or seems, who am I to say?) an honest portrayal. It is hobbled (is this insensitive?) by its very format though. As a documentary it—let’s be honest—does not have the opportunity to reach a large audience. Also, by the nature of being a documentary it cannot help portraying wheelchair-rugby players realistically (though an interesting conversation could be had re: the false narratives that are enforced on every documentary; did Murderball come off as subversive of Hollywood norms [and thus more realistic] only because the narrative device imposed on it [that of a traditional sports film] has nothing to do with disability and in fact often precludes disability from having any part of the narrative, thereby creating the illusion of sub/inversion of Hollywood tropes or was it an accurate portrayal? That is, have we reached a point where we hold Hollywood’s veracity in such disdain as to deem a film realistic so long as it subverts Hollywood or is the film accurate because it is, actually, accurate?)

Anyway, the point of the above is that while Murderball is an interesting film (“Shoreline professors recommend it constantly and consistently” is, I believe, written on the back of the DVD case, though the quote remains uncredited) it is hardly indicative of either common filmic portrayal of the disabled or of prevailing notions regarding them. Which fact itself is pretty bleak yes? But then the question comes down to what can we do about this? Not just the films that is (because frankly I would not mind if we just scrapped the Hollywood disabled-person narrative and started fresh, mostly because those films are never ever ever good but I have to go for months after they are released being told how inspiring they are) but the prevailing notions that they reflect.

And unlike the other problems we’ve discussed in this class (which mostly boil down to our fear of the “Other”, a fear that easily breaks down with increased exposure to that “Other”) our condescension towards the disabled indicates to me a deeper American fear, which is the fear of the self. Because I remain convinced that the reason we marginalize the disabled is that they remind “us” too much of “ourselves”. They force introspection (i.e. what would it be like to be blind? etc. etc.) on a people that have grown to despise it. It’s why we inundate ourselves with entertainment that says “The disabled aren’t like us, don’t worry! They are almost like us but more noble/bitter/enlightened/whatever”. You will notice perhaps that while film acts as a form of escapism for most people, there are not films anymore that ask us to escape from the reality of there being black Americans, or female Americans or what-have-you. But there are films that ask us to escape from the reality that there are disabled Americans.

This though, is where my post gets disappointing, because our fear of any sort of honest self-appraisal is a problem that may be way too big to tackle. I know in a class like this we’re not supposed to think of a problem as too big to tackle, believe me. But realistically how do we change an ideology? We can change reactions, we can model acceptance and tolerance, but can we learn to be honest with ourselves? And if so, how? And then when? And…I have yet to find answers for these questions.