This lecture, starting with disability rights\u2019 iconic \u201cnothing about us without us,\u201d and leaping into discussion of the deep need for disabled voices in representation of mental illness, forced me to reevaluate some of my own thoughts and feelings on tropes I had normalized growing up.
I have always been inherently bothered by tropes of disturbed, mad, or mentally ill villains for the obvious perpetuation of neurodivergence as criminal, so when she made reference to the romanticization of the Joker character, I was entirely on-board. That stereotyping has real live consequences\u2014just look at how many laws there are that ask the state to identify mentally ill individuals by their danger level first, humanity second! When she made reference to the demonization of asylums via Arkham Asylum, though, I was entirely unsure of my own feelings. I am by no means anti-psychiatry or against any other accessible, nontoxic form of healthcare, for that matter; obviously so much of disability rights activism has been centered around the right to access these institutions. I suppose the most annoyance I ever truly got out of demonizing institutions in fiction is that it has allowed unaffected individuals\u2014namely, neurotypicals\u2014to distance themselves, finding the medical tortures and abuse to be a thing of the past, if real at all. Maybe it even deepens that fear neurotypicals have of disability because they feel that such maltreatment is the only option? I truly do not know; I cannot identify the tropes as the cause of the disconnect between myself and others when I would describe the horrendous things doctors had gotten away with right before my own eyes\u2014that surely has more to do with an inability to empathize with a lived experienced outside their own, one that their privilege kept them from seeing\u2014but it definitely helped widen the gap. However, in dissecting popularized depictions of medical institutions and mentally ill characters, I feel more understanding of the ways in which creating such tropes can demonize institutions for those that need it and interfere with their right to treatment.
In the past couple days, I seem to be coming back to the thought that these portrayals, while potentially based in some reality, cannot be the only representation available. It has linked in my mind as similar to the way deinstitutionalization activists had to fight for the right to treatment and the right to refuse treatment. Many felt that fighting for the \u201cnegative\u201d right detracted from the \u201cpositive\u201d right and vice versa; positive representation of healthcare may seem unrealistic, even if in an effort to destigmatize the experience for some (or even if simply in an effort to imagine a world where healthcare is not so taxing) it may be seen as taking away from the negative experiences portrayed, and the negative portrayals may be stigmatizing or depressing the individuals needing some positive representation. In the same way that disabled creators should be allowed to express their experiences of maltreatment and abuse through fiction without bearing the weight of having to imagine better institutions, disabled creators should also be allowed to express their positive (imagined or otherwise) experiences with institutions through fiction without feeling responsible for the general ignorance of neurotypicals. I suppose this is simply another situation in which polarizing depictions can only be resolved by more diverse, authentic representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WC: 573
\nI pledge: Rebekah Stone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This lecture, starting with disability rights\u2019 iconic \u201cnothing about us without us,\u201d and leaping into discussion of the deep need for disabled voices in representation of mental illness, forced me to reevaluate some of my own thoughts and feelings on tropes I had normalized growing up. I have always been inherently bothered by tropes of … Continue reading “Bekah\u2019s Response to Elizabeth Donaldson\u2019s Psychographics: Graphic Memoirs and Psychiatric Disability (4\/9\/19)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,46],"class_list":["post-1453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cpr-series-mad-lectures","tag-extra-credit-response"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-nr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}