The Tokyo Paralympic Superhero: Manga and Narratives of Disability in Japan
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Volume 18 | Issue 5 | Number 8 | Article ID 5373 | Mar 01, 2020 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Tokyo Paralympic Superhero: Manga and Narratives of Disability in Japan Anoma van der Veere Abstract (IPC 2017) The Paralympic Games are founded on ideals of The IPC creates a connection between itself inclusivity and diversity for people with a and these lofty goals by formulating these disability. Consequently, there is an emphasis ideals within the context of the organization’s on athlete empowerment within the Paralympic main activity, organizing disability sports. Movement. One consistent criticism of the idea These goals are strengthened by a set of of athlete empowerment is that it relies on the ‘Paralympic values’ that form the basis of the concept of the ‘supercrip’, narratives ofIPC’s mission: courage, determination, overcoming the tragedy of one’s disability inspiration, and equality. (IPC 2014) through superhero-like qualities. The role of Accordingly, the “reputation and publicity society is largely left out. This article shows campaigns of the Paralympic Movement revolve that such narratives are prevalent in discourses largely around its role of empowering those surrounding the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Games, with disabilities” (2009, 653). So how has this specifically in popular culture productsdiscourse of empowerment affected the designed to promote the Paralympic Games. promotion of the Tokyo 2020 Games? This is problematic because such narratives The Japanese organizing committees have individualize disability, rather than address embraced the IPC’s position, and emulated larger social issues that people with a disability these principles in its publicity campaigns for face in Japan. the upcoming Games. This is evident in the Tokyo 2020 slogan ‘Unity in Diversity’, as well Paralympic values and Tokyo 2020 as its marketing in public spaces around Tokyo Although the main attraction to the Paralympic (see for example image 1). Games (PG) is the participation of disabled athletes, its value lies in its link with discourses of diversity and inclusivity, as the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the organizing body of the PG states: Diversity is a reality. Inclusion is a choice. The IPC chooses to lead on this issue because only by accounting for and benefitting from Image 1. Photo (author) taken on the difference will we continue to grow and sustain Tokyo Metro Ginza line in 2018. the Paralympic Movement. […] Diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups making up a society. It is essential to ensure harmonious interaction The promotional poster in image 1 depicts between people and to ensure social justice. parents with children, and two wheelchair 1 18 | 5 | 8 APJ | JF users. The main focus, however, is thethe media during the London 2012 Games wheelchair rugby player in front of an elevator. (Braye, Dixon and Gibbons 2013, 991). This poster tries to convey a picture of accessibility, connecting it to the 2020 Games In order to construct this narrative of the by placing the athlete front and center. In supercrip, the “heroic Paralympian”, authors reality, these types of wheelchairs are unfit for fall back on representations of athletes as the outdoor use. Nor do they actually fit through “pitiful cripple” (Peers 2009, 654). In order to the doors of metro station elevators because of become the hero, one first has to struggle with their widened base. The poster is therefore not tragedy and loss. The media depoliticizes the portraying a realistic situation. In fact, by everyday challenges and struggles of disabled framing disability in this way, the organizing people through such framing, simply focusing committees responsible for this poster are on disability as a “personal misfortune” duplicating in toto common misrepresentations (Shakespeare 1994, 284). The athlete is that already exist within Paralympic discourses. presented as heroic simply because they can perform feats that are normally considered One reason this wholesale duplication can be impossible for those with a disability (Misener problematic is that athletes with a disability 2012, 347). Disability becomes an individual within the Paralympic Movement areproblem and society holds no responsibility. consistently presented as so-called ‘supercrips’. Regretfully, such representations only function Supercrips, as Berger puts it, are: to further disenfranchise those who are actually in the game of pursuing social change […] those individuals whose inspirational (Purdue and Howe 2012, 915). stories of courage, dedication, and hard work prove that it can be done, that one can defy the Moreover, the most celebrated Paralympic odds and accomplish the impossible. The athletes are those who have successfully concern is that these stories of success will adapted mobility technologies, who have foster unrealistic expectations about what adopted the cyborg body in the pursuit of people with disabilities can achieve, what they athletic excellence, and who through their should be able to achieve if only they tried hard visual dominance in the coverage of disability enough. Society does not need to change. It is sports in the media disempower those who are the myth of the self-made man (2004, 798). not able to, or are not willing to, “take advantage of the explicit use of technology” (Howe 2011, 875, 879). The disempowerment This way of presenting athletes with a disability of those who do not make use of mobility remains dominant. Coverage of the Rio 2016 technologies is not the only disadvantage. Paralympic Games, for example, was completely unbalanced and focused on creating Clearly, there is a strong disconnect between an image of Paralympic athletes aswhat Paralympians represent and the everyday “superheroes”, while simultaneously setting lived experience of disabled persons. “unrealistic expectations for the vast majority Stereotyping disability within the context of of disabled people”. The media also completely elite sports performance only serves to failed to engage with larger social problems exacerbate this sentiment (Brittain and Beacom such as employment, welfare, and socio- 2016, 515). It is within the space of this economic destitution (Kirakosyan and Osmar disconnect that the media play an essential role Seabra Junior 2018, 144). Similarly, disabled in constructing how disability is perceived activists in the United Kingdom have expressed among its consumers, and in society as a whole their cynicism of how disability was framed in (Pappous, Marcellinin and de Léséleuc 2011, 2 18 | 5 | 8 APJ | JF 346, Misener 2012, 348). Most existing studies when it comes to data collection. Again, are, however, predominantly Eurocentric. To participating in Japanese society in this sense is avoid sweeping generalizations of howconflated with meeting social expectations and disability is framed in Japan in the run-up to the economic productivity (Stevens 2013, 28) Tokyo 2020 PG, it is necessary to take a deeper look at how Japanese media have portrayed This emphasis on physically disabled persons in disability. public policy is also reflected in representation choices in the media. In a study of Japanese television drama it is shown that the most commonly depicted disabled persons were Japan, Disability, and the Media wheelchair users, with intellectually disabled persons coming in a far second (Saito and Largely due to social expectations ofIshiyama 2005, 443). One effect of this productivity and reproduction that havehierarchy of disability is that, in media stereotypically excluded those with a disability narratives, the individualized ‘problem’ of people with a disability in Japan remained disability is usually solved by a heroic narrative largely “invisible” both in society and in the in which the person turns “the tragic story media up until the 1990s (Stibbe 2004, 23). around” (Valentine 2001, 711). This means that These expectations have led to a form of rather than society adapting to meet the needs paternalism, meaning that “people withof those with a disability, the persons disabilities […] will never be seen as fully themselves need to find ways in which to meet fledged adults (ichininmae)” (Stevens 2013, existing social expectations. This tragic hero, 161). Moreover, media narratives continuously ‘supercrip’, narrative, mirrors current frame disability as a deficiency, a medical representations of Paralympians. It will be condition that makes a person highlyinteresting to look at media developments in vulnerable, and usually the victim of some kind relation to the Tokyo 2020 Games, and see if of tragedy or loss. This is problematic, as it the same issues still persist. turns disability wholly into an individual issue, obviating the role of society, and placing the responsibility of any impairment on the person themselves (Valentine 2001, 711). Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and Popular Culture The media play a large role in sustaining this notion, but this image of disability isA flurry of visual media have been produced in widespread and crosses into various parts of the form of anime (animation), manga (comics), life. A glaring example of this is the collection and magazines for the promotion of the Games of empirical data by the Japanese government to promote the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Games. concerning disabled people. There is a strong Focusing specifically on the PG, the national emphasis on information gathering from people television network NHK has aired several with a physical disability, while