Bad Disability Tropes in Children's Fiction: Please Don't.

[rj_anderson]

I was reading a MG fantasy novel last weekend which I quite enjoyed. It had nice solid worldbuilding, a dynamic and resourceful MC, an interesting cast of supporting characters, and the stakes and dangers were high enough to keep the tension going. I was quite impressed with it overall, and became even more so when a new character appeared on the scene who had a disability and used a wheelchair.

Huzzah, I thought to myself. Well done, author! This lady is attractive, likable, vibrant, talented, holds a position of authority and respect, and even turns out to be the love interest of my favorite supporting character in the book! I look forward to getting to know her and seeing more of the two of them together, and watching this romance continue to develop.

Except.

My first impression of this character as healthy and energetic soon turned out to be wrong. She was in fact suffering from a degenerative disease which was slowly and painfully consuming her and would eventually result in her death.

So once again, as so often seems to happen in children's fiction, the character with a disability is portrayed as frail, sickly, and unable to live a full life. An object of pity, rather than a person with whom the non-disabled reader can identify.

That being said, degenerative diseases certainly do happen, and it would be unreasonable to insist that this aspect of life not be represented in fiction. But still, I began to have some misgivings about where the book was headed. I could only hope that, having introduced us to this lovely character, the author was not planning to have her die in the course of the story just for the purpose of adding emotional drama to the plot?

Alas, my hopes were vain. Not only did this character die shortly thereafter, she actually killed herself prematurely so that her lover would no longer be obligated to stay with her, and could then go after and rescue the book's young heroine -- a girl she barely knew, but who was clearly (as far as the plot and other characters were concerned) More Important than herself.

Which was the point where I put down the book and said, loudly and distinctly, "WHAT."

Why, why, WHY do we do this as authors? There are so few characters with a disability in children's literature as it stands, and so few are portrayed with any kind of vibrancy and power, why introduce one just to kill her off (worse, have her kill herself off) just so your central characters can have a bit more angst and interpersonal conflict for a while? I don't even have a disability, and for me the book was spoiled right there -- how much worse would it be for some unsuspecting reader who does have a disability?

Please, let's stop writing characters with disabilities as though they're all doomed to suffer nobly and die tragically, unable to marry or have families. That's what Madeline L'Engle did with the character of Matthew Maddox in A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and though I greatly respect L'Engle as an author, it angered and frustrated me that she would treat my favorite character in the whole book that way.

Let's also stop using disability as a metaphor for ugliness and deformity of spirit -- I could write a whole rant about the handling of Dean Priest in L.M. Montgomery's Emily books, but of course there are even more obvious ones like Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

Let's stop "rewarding" protagonists who have disabilities by having them magically cured once their quest is achieved* -- thus sending the message that those who have not experienced such a magical cure are inferior and unworthy, or have not yet experienced some needed epiphany in life. Kitkryan's post Dear Author, Please Don't Heal Me shows the response of one reader with a disability to a recent and popular YA novel in which a magical healing takes place, and it makes this point far better than I could.

And let's also try to steer our way between the Scylla of the angry, bitter person with a disability who has to be helped out of it by someone who is not disabled** and the Charybdis of the saintly, sunny person with a disability who acts as an Inspiration To Us All.

There are of course some wonderful exceptions out there -- characters with disabilities who learn to work with and around them to accomplish meaningful things; who experience natural disappointment, grief and even depression over their disability at times but manage to get past it without turning into marble saints; who love and are loved (romantically and sexually, even!); who play sports and drive vehicles and fight for accessibility and do all the things that real people with disabilities do every day. But there need to be more such characters.

And there need to be a lot fewer characters like the one I encountered in the book I read this weekend, who seem to exist only as props to be used to arouse the reader's and their fellow characters' pity before being tossed away.

***

I welcome your comments on this subject, especially from readers with experience of disability. I'd be particularly interested to hear what books you've read that contained good, well-rounded, interesting, dynamic portrayals of characters with disabilities. Tell me a little about the characters involved, and let me know why they are great!


--
* I have made this careless mistake myself, in a fanfic where I allowed my heroine to be (magically) cured of her (magically induced) blindness. I regret it, and would write those stories differently now.

** I've done this too to some extent in Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter, though I hope that it does not come across quite as one-sided and obnoxious as that. And I hope that future developments with that character also helped to mitigate it. But I am willing to be called out and corrected on this point by those with personal experience of disability, and to learn to do better in future.

Comments

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

But how is that any less offensive, to say that someone is psychologically twisted because of their physical disability?

Because it's not a direct equation of disability with evil, as Shakespeare intended with Richard III. It's an acknowledgment that disabled people can have negative emotions. In the context of what we're discussing, quite a healthy image really, regardless of authorial impetus.

I didn't feel that Dean's behavior to Emily really grew organically and naturally out of his character. I felt it was a cheap and rather horrible way to get rid of the Imperfect Guy so Emily could have the (boringly) Perfect Guy.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. :)

Montgomery carefully -- if admittedly sketchily -- denotes Teddy as Emily's soulmate from the beginning, while Dean is steadily more condescending and controlling.
So I've never felt like I was being manipulated towards Teddy and/or away from Dean; the latter simply wants what he can't have, so over-reaches in his despair -- an extremely human reaction, with a long and honoured history in melodrama. There is a very good reason Montgomery explicitly associated Jane Eyre with Dean's story. :)

(For an excellent scholarly discussion on the subject -- and Montgomery's attitudes to romance generally -- I'd highly recommend
The Fragrance of Sweetgrass, by LMM 'spert Rea Wilmshurst.)

But when you have so VERY few representations of people with disabilities in literature, there is a far greater danger that any one representation will be taken as expressive of the whole.

OK, fair enough. I guess it depends on your concept of authorial responsibility; I was thinking more in terms of pure storytelling. I would argue that it is the author's part to tell their story, not take responsibility for their audiences' worldview.
The same story that features a positive disabled archetype may offend against women, say, or minorities... all of which may be entirely necessary, in context.

How many of these girls ever, in the entire rest of their lives, read a book in which a character with a disability was a fully rounded and sympathetically portrayed individual, who -- despite any number of realistic flaws, such as all good characters should possess -- could earn, and keep, the love of a non-disabled character?

Honestly? I'd start this campaign way back at 'characters' generally, not just disabled ones. :) How many of these girls will ever read a book featuring fully rounded and insightfully portrayed individuals?

Rather than try and carefully catalogue everything characters should not be, let's more fully explore what they are -- encourage readers to see individuals, rather than stereotypes of any sort -- and see where that leads. At the least, a person who has been taught to think about the complexities of the human experience is one who is going to be much more open to it in any form. :)
(Edited as the original was hastily scribbled down on lunch break. Think of this as the polished draft.)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

It's an acknowledgment that disabled people can have negative emotions. In the context of what we're discussing, quite a healthy image really

Negative emotions are one thing. Negative actions are quite another. The degree of selfishness and cruelty with which Dean manipulates and exploits Emily is appalling -- and the fact is, there is no reason LMM could not have written exactly the same story without giving Dean a twisted back. He could have been just as selfish and grasping for some other reason, but LMM chose to give him a physical disability. I do not believe for one second that she was trying to make a thoughtful statement about how people with disabilities are Just Like The Rest Of Us, and I don't believe the book does make that statement. What it does is to reinforce the cliche that a twisted body reflects a twisted soul. I know LMM was a product of her times, but that doesn't make what she did right.

You can ship Emily/Teddy if you want; that really isn't germane to my argument. It's more a question of how Dean himself was portrayed that bothered me.

I would argue that it is the author's part to tell their story, not take responsibility for their audiences' worldview.

And I would argue that a well-told story will inevitably say something to the reader, and that every author needs to stop and think about what they are saying -- and whether it's worth saying -- when they write.

That is not the same as saying that every author should tell moralistic tales, or meet some kind of legalistic quota for the representation of minorities in their writing, or anything of that sort. It means that every author should be aware of the possible implications of what they are saying when they write characters in a certain way, and make an informed decision about whether they really want to make that implication, or whether the implication is an unfortunate or unworthy one.

How many of these girls will ever read a book featuring fully rounded and insightfully portrayed individuals?

There are plenty of books portraying fully rounded and insightfully portrayed individuals. There always have been, and there are still many of them around today. We white, middle-class, non-disabled people are not lacking for quality literature that represents Those Like Us if we want to find it. But it is much harder to find quality literature that offers rich, nuanced portrayals of characters who are not part of a privileged group of white, middle-class, non-disabled people.

Again, I am not advocating some kind of quota system, or writing preachy books about how People With Disabilities Are All Wonderful And Never Do Bad Things. I am suggesting that authors should be aware of the choices they make and the implications of those choices to the reader. If you still think that giving your character a twisted back or a degenerative disease is crucial to the story you want to tell, so be it. But realize what you're going to be suggesting when you kill off that character, or turn them into the villain of the book. Be aware that you are playing into a pernicious cliche which has been done many times in literature, and ask yourself if it is really -- really -- worth adding to that particular canon.

[c-canadensis.livejournal.com]

I would have said the same thing about why it's not quite so bad when the bitterness stemmed from the real consequences of the disability than if it the disability was just somehow a manifestation of his soul. But maybe I'm just being defensive because I loved the Emily books (and a Swiftly Tilting Planet but I agree with you there, RJ).

At least he isn't completely evil and twisted - yes, he does something absolutely horrible, but he does show some grace in the end by confessing and eventually giving her the house of her dreams.

I'm definitely not arguing with the general point about having a more balanced representation of disabled people in fiction.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I loved A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET too, and still re-read it every few years. And I don't think L'Engle meant Matthew's portrayal to be at all negative, as he's such a compelling and sympathetic character. It was more that I was annoyed at Zillah for not seeing how much Matthew loved her, how worthy he was of her love on every level, and how unfair the whole scenario was. Plus, there are so many other books where the PWD character doesn't get to live a full and happy life or love and be loved in return (unless, of course, he or she can be magically healed first)... it was just a last-straw kind of thing for me.

But hey, it kickstarted me into writing Knife, so I am forever in L'Engle's debt in that respect.