Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Superhero Movies: Stop Using Disabilities as Plot Devices
The Mary Sue: Villains are a critical part of superhero movies. After all, there wouldn’t be any heroes or vigilantes without villains to vanqiush, but superhero movies have a lengthy history of exploiting disabled people and vilifying disabilities themselves in an effort to provide their villains with motivation. Usually, these instances aren’t as obvious as making chronic arthritis the source of a villain’s angst, but the way superhero movies handle a character’s disability can have a heinous impact on how people perceive real-life disabilities.
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4 comments:
Although I was aware of issues surrounding this topic of actors/characters/individuals with disabilities, this article directly address the fact that there lacks a balance in characters in our popular mainstream media with disabilities. It leaves out the voices that accept and live with their condition rather than generate hate for it. I cannot imagine that every single disabled person would rather die/cause destruction than to live with their disability. Perhaps there are some who are, and then these villains would be portraying them… However, since superhero films are enjoyed by people of all ages and backgrounds, it might be smarter to stop using disabilities as a scapegoat. Rather than using: "so and so did this to me, and therefore I must take revenge," writers and creators could look for other, more original ways to justify villain storylines, and present these characters. I've seen the bad guy in a wheelchair look four million times over...it's getting old. If you still wanted to use the villain with a disability trope, at least leave their making up to creators WITH disabilities. Representation matters in all aspects of entertainment, not in just what you can see. If this happens, the perspectives will be fresher and more real to life, and make for a more authentic superhero movie.
I agree that disabilities need more representation in media, however, I do not think that all previous portrayals are inaccurate. As a person who has struggled with some level of chronic pain for many years of my life, in my own experience there were moments of grief at the things I couldn't do, and I did pull away from those around me. When I was wheelchair bound for six months due to an injury (which I fully realize was only a glimpse into every day life), I was miserable, and I felt as if there were no one on my side. This situation was temporary, and I'm sure those feelings would have dissipated, but that is not to say that no disabled people experience that grief period. The issue isn't necessarily that all of the representations are inaccurate, but more the fact that those are the only depictions that we have, and everyone has a unique story. I think that that particular side of things was not clearly explained in this article.
I think the issue of super villains defined by their disability is an issue within the larger problem of disabled characters tending to have disability centric plot lines. In general, most media about a character will a disability makes their struggle with that disability the focus on their plot line. I don’t know of many movies, plays, or TV shows where a characters disability exists and has an effect on their life but is not central to their character arc and where their primary goal is in no way related to their disability. I think this partially stems from able bodied people often having an inability to imagine how they would cope with having a disability to the point where they often forget that people with disabilities, especially people born with that disability, have learned to adapt to them over the course of their life and have likely gotten used to it and don’t let it define their lives. I think one solution to this would be more media produced by directors with disabilities and more people with disabilities being on the writing team for TV shows and movies, especially when those narratives are about disabled characters.
The majority of characters in the superhero genre get their powers from a catalyzing event. It seems to me that a major theme of the genre is how different people cope with adversity. I definitely agree with the article's assertion that, in these movies, disability tends to either questionably represented or even associated with evil. It is an unfair and unhelpful way to portray people who are struggling to cope with their problems. However, superheroism/villainism, or whatever it is properly called, is always a depiction of difference, and each person who has a physical or neurological difference has their own individual identity, history, coping methods, etc., and each one of these is equally valid. I haven't seen any of the movies mentioned in the article, but I'd be interested in finding out what they would be like as humanistic stories, with no super powers involved.
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