Visibility and/or objectification: images of disabled people in books and media

I was at a friend's house recently and, with my friend and her partner, rather randomly looking through some books that were lying around her house. Two of the books had photos of disabled people in them, and it got me thinking about images of disabled/impaired people, visibility and objectification...

The first book was a university biology textbook on human genetics. Sections of the book discussed various congenital impairments and the genetics behind them, and had accompanying photos of people with those impairments. One was a picture of a baby with Cri du Chat syndrome, which is caused by a partial deletion of a chromosome (and gets its name because babies with it have a distinctive cry which, apparently, sounds like a cat). Alongside the picture of the baby was the remark that, although "mentally retarded", people with Cri du Chat syndrome could, with "proper support", develop intelligence "in the trainable range".

On the next page was a discussion of Down's syndrome, which is caused by trisomy, or having an "extra", third copy of chromosome 23. The accompanying photo was labelled as being of "a child with Down's syndrome"; in actual fact, it looked to be of a young woman in roughly her early 20s. She was dressed in some sort of sporting gear (probably a winter sport like skiing?), and proudly holding a trophy for winning a sporting competition.

The other book was a very silly book supposedly about cryptozoology (if it wasn't that one, it was a very similar one), which was basically a complete work of fiction presented as a "science" book, probably mostly aimed at kids, featuring pseudo-scientific depictions (with fake Latin names, etc) of mythological creatures like centaurs, dragons, winged horses, merpeople, werewolves, unicorns, etc. (Note that cryptozoology is actually real, and a perseveration of mine, and generally deals with somewhat more plausible putative creatures than the above (well, at least when crazy US creationists aren't trying to hijack it)- this speech by Darren Naish is a good introduction to it...)

On the intro page to the "Hominids" chapter (which, rather than dealing with relatively plausible hominid cryptids such as the Almas or the Orang Pendek, was about such creatures as goblins, giants and fairies), however, despite the premise being that it was about fictional non-human species, there were several photos of disabled humans: several people of restricted growth, Joseph Merrick the "Elephant Man", and one of the "Rat Children of Pakistan", who are actually children who were deliberately physically and mentally impaired in order to exploit them as beggars.

All these portrayals are problematic IMO. Cri du Chat syndrome is one of many syndromes which i've only ever seen pictures or descriptions of babies/small children with, despite the fact that people with it grow to become adults. This kind of thing is quite common with regard to autism as well; lots of stuff in the media about "autistic children", but a distinct absence of autistic adults, as if the assumption is that disabled children either don't live to adulthood, or somehow miraculously become non-disabled on reaching adulthood; it also contributes to the perception of disabled adults as some sort of "eternal children". This perception is shown incredibly clearly by the labelling of the photo of the woman with Down's syndrome as "a child with Down's syndrome" - congenital impairment is assumed to be a property (only) of children to such an extent that a person with a congenital impairment, regardless of their actual age, is automatically assumed to be a child. So prevalent is the reference only to children in medical/scientific articles about congenital impairments that i sometimes wonder if the thought of the existence of adults with such impairments has ever crossed the minds of the writers of such articles.

The phrase "trainable range" is one that makes me shudder. A search for "trainable" on Wikipedia redirects to the article titled "Mental retardation", despite the word not being used in that article. I believe that, at one time, people with mental disabilities were classified by the authorities into "trainables" and "untrainables", with the former regarded as being capable of training for employment (in positions at the bottom of the workplace heirarchy, doing menial work and often paid far less than a living wage, if anything at all), and the latter regarded as incapable of any meaningful learning or contribution to society, and thus "warehoused" in institutions. (This, in fact, parallels current UK government policy, as laid out in the Welfare Reform Act, which similarly seeks to classify disabled people as either "capable of work", and thus to be forced into any job, however unsuitable, with the threat of destitution, or "incapable of work", and thus by implication incapable of meaningful membership in society and deserving of social exclusion.) The "trainable"/"untrainable" categorisation starkly illustrates the values of a society which defines people by their capacity for economic exploitation, and which considers it appropriate for disabled people to be coercively "trained" to accept a prescribed social role regardless of their own desires and aspirations.

The fact that images of visibly disabled people are considered an appropriate introduction for a fictional classification of mythological "hominid species" clearly shows to what extent disabled people are considered "Other", objects of fascination yet not of empathy or identification, not fully human; exhibits, just as "exotic" animals are, in a zoo or a freak show (a subject i touched on earlier here) - indeed, it is implied that the "dwarves" whose photo captions say they were exhibited in circuses and at the courts of European royalty are the same as the fictional "dwarves" described a few pages later as a species of Homo with non-human physical and personality traits based on the portrayals of dwarf races in fantasy (Tolkien, etc). "Elephant Man" and "Rat Children" are, of course, names which seek to compare and associate disabled people with animals and portray them as some sort of hybrid or intermediate between humans and animals, definitely not fully human; so, arguably, is "Cri du Chat syndrome".

(Although i know some people of restricted growth use it as a self-definition, i find the term "dwarf" very difficult to use to describe real people, because i can't help it making me think of them as living in mines underneath a mountain, having huge beards and Viking-style helmets, making magical artefacts out of gold and having wars with elves, orcs, etc...)

The writers of the fictional cryptozoology book probably didn't think of the possibility of causing offence to, or furthering negative stereotypes of, disabled people when they used those photos or descriptions. The writers of the genetics textbook almost certainly thought they were portraying disabled people in an ideologically neutral way, as a matter of science, not of culture or politics. However, such images cannot help but objectify and reinforce stereotypical perceptions of disabled people.

Of course, with many if not all of these types of images, i can't help feeling ambiguous; there are some arguable positives to them, despite the negatives. It's good, IMO, that impairments are part of a biological education, and that people have at least a basic knowledge of different impairments and how they affect people (as long as that knowledge is placed appropriately within a social context) - the social model does not, or at least should not, deny or ignore impairment, and understanding of impairment is, IMO, necessary (if not sufficient) for understanding of disabling barriers.

Just being aware that different kinds of human beings exist is, IMO, a good thing, and i think that some sort of categorisation of types of human difference is something that the human mind finds necessary. The image of the young woman with Down's syndrome, if taken by itself without the inaccurate caption calling her a "child", is pretty unambiguously positive; it shows a disabled person looking strong, independent and confident, and proud of her achievement in something that she is a success at. (Admittedly it does reinforce the association of disabled people with sport as primary achievement, which is something i have problems with, but that's a critique i'll have to save for another blog post...)

Even the "freakshow" images of disabled people alongside mythical animals can, IMO, be reclaimed in certain ways; as people proud of and (in many cases) choosing to earn a living from visible difference; "we're here, we're biodiverse, get used to it". (Eli Clare has a great chapter on this topic in Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation, which i'll have to return to in future posts - of course, there is also Tod Browning's magnificent film Freaks, which is justly regarded as a classic by many in the disability movement.)

Kay Olson at The Gimp Parade recently posted about a story that made it into the UK mainstream media about a woman from China who refused a disability pension despite having "her feet attached backwards" (actually turned upside down - i suspect she has a form of arthrogryposis), which is typical of many stories about people with impairments which get featured in the media as "weird news" or "quirky" stories (I'm surprised it didn't make it to the Fortean Times breaking news column, which is my source for most of these types of stories) - another recent-ish one was that of the "families who walk on all fours" in Turkey and Iraq.

On the one hand, these are clearly voyeuristic, objectifying stories; on the other, there are differing views about objectification, ranging from the view that it is always and only negative to the view that it can, if freely chosen, be something desirable and positive (these being in reference to sexual/gender objectification, but IMO applicable to any other kind). I am torn between thinking "this is non-news if it were not for the factor of a "freakish" impaired body for "normal" people to gaze at", and being pleased at visible difference being portrayed at all, and the always-welcome illustration that there are more ways than the "standard" way to be human. Is the positivity or negativity of possible interpretations located in the creator(s) of the portrayal itself, or in the mind of the person observing it?

I'm not sure. (I thought i might have had a conclusion there for a second, but i obviously don't...) I do know that this is both an incredibly important (from a cultural/sociological point of view), yet much neglected, and a (probably inevitably) very much essentially contested area. I'd be really interested in other disabled peoples' (especially those whose impairments are much more visually obvious than my own) opinions...