Fantasizing Disability: Representation of Loss and Limitation in Popular Television and Film
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-19-2014 12:00 AM Fantasizing Disability: Representation of loss and limitation in Popular Television and Film Jeffrey M. Preston The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Sharon Sliwinski The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Media Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Jeffrey M. Preston 2014 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Television Commons Recommended Citation Preston, Jeffrey M., "Fantasizing Disability: Representation of loss and limitation in Popular Television and Film" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2386. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2386 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FANTASIZING DISABILITY: REPRESENTATION OF LOSS AND LIMITATION IN POPULAR TELEVISION AND FILM (Monograph) by Jeffrey Preston Graduate Program in Media Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate in Media Studies The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Jeffrey Preston 2014 Abstract Most media texts currently being developed with disabled characters are crafted by individuals who are nondisabled and, as such, are based on what the nondisabled think it would be like to be disabled—a perception that is informed by the fantasy of disability. The fantasy of disability is a net of ideas, created by no single individual but perpetuated and circulated between subjects and which seeks to contain the danger of limitation, to subject it to a set of societal preconceived notions about what it means to be disabled and how a person is expected to act and react to the diagnoses of disablement. With the help of French psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, this project seeks to answer three key questions currently underserviced by the existing field of media and disability studies: 1. What are the unconscious fantasies circulating in representations of disability? 2. What role do these fantasies play in defining the condition of disability? 3. What can these fantasies teach us about human vulnerability writ large? By looking at war films, such as Coming Home (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and modern teen drama, such as Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001) and Glee (2009), this project postulates that depictions of disability in the media are representative of the nondisabled producers encountering their own potential disablement, with the real purpose of the fantasy of disability being to consolidate and strengthen the perception that disability is indeed foreign—there is a difference between the disabled and the nondisabled—a line that must be drawn to safe guard the nondisabled from the perceived threat of castration posed by disability and the risk of suffering a “narcissistic identity wound.” In this way, depictions of disability are formed by anxieties of ruptured identity and crushing emasculation while disabled characters are driven by fantasies of rebirth and reconstitution: dreams constructed to neutralize the anxieties of the nondisabled subject when encountering their own inherent vulnerability. Keywords Disability, Popular Culture, Psychoanalysis, Vulnerability, Castration. ii Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to give my deepest thanks to all of the wonderful faculty and staff within the Faculty of Information and Media Studies who have taught and supported me throughout my many years here. While I have had the opportunity to work with many tremendous academics in FIMS, I would like to give a special thank you to the insight and hard work provided by Dr. Tim Blackmore and Dr. Sasha Torres, members of my dissertation committee, for helping me through this incredible process. Both of their emotional and intellectual support proved vital to this work. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Sharon Sliwinski. Dr. Sliwinski is fundamentally responsible for the genesis of this project, opening my mind to a theoretical world without which this project could not have existed. Without her wisdom, guidance, patience, and support this project could not have come to fruition and for that I will be eternally grateful. Dr. Sliwinski has shown me the path and without her help I could not possibly traverse it. I would like to thank those closest to me who have helped me bring this project to completion. Thank you to my parents for raising a troublemaker and putting up with my antics all these years. Finally, a special thank you to my partner in crime, Clara, who inspires me daily to be a better human being and who has put up with my endless complaining about Glee —Thank You! This work is dedicated to all of those with disabilities, past, present, and future, who survive and thrive under the oppression of ableism. iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................ III TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. IV CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................... 1 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................... 8 1.2 CHAPTER SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................10 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................. 13 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................ 13 2.1 DISABILITY STUDIES : AN OVERVIEW ................................................................................................13 2.2 DISABILITY STUDIES : MEDIA ..........................................................................................................18 2.3 PSYCHOANALYSIS .........................................................................................................................21 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................. 36 3 CORPOREAL CASUALTIES: VIETNAM WAR FILM AND THE FANTASY OF DISABILITY ................. 36 3.1 ABOUT THE FILMS ........................................................................................................................38 3.2 DISABILITY FILMS OR WAR FILMS ? .................................................................................................40 3.2.1 Situating Masculinity Studies ...........................................................................................43 3.2.2 War film, Gender, and Masculinity Studies ......................................................................47 3.3 BROKEN NATIONS AND BROKEN BODIES : THE FANTASY OF MASCULINITY AND DISABILITY IN VIETNAM WAR FILM 51 3.3.1 Manly Men Doing Manly Things ......................................................................................53 3.3.2 The Moment of Breakage ................................................................................................55 3.3.3 Hospital as the “New” Home ...........................................................................................60 3.3.4 Crisis of Masculinity .........................................................................................................69 3.4 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ..............................................................................................................78 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................................. 80 iv 4 FANTASIZING DISABLEMENT IN DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION ...................................... 80 4.1 ABOUT DEGRASSI : THE NEXT GENERATION ......................................................................................81 4.1.1 Producing “Degrassi” .......................................................................................................84 4.1.2 Cultural Significance .........................................................................................................86 4.2 A SURVEY OF DISABLED CHARACTERS IN DEGRASSI ............................................................................88 4.3 THE JIMMY TRAJECTORY ...............................................................................................................94 4.4 THE ANXIETY OF DISABILITY ...........................................................................................................95 4.4.1 The Moment of Disablement