The Elephant Man (1980), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), Duet for One (1987) and My Left Foot (1989)
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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/36342 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. The Cinematic Construction of Physical Disability as Identified Through the Application of the Social Model of Disability to Six Indicative Films Made since 1970: A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg (1970), The Raging Moon (1970), The Elephant Man (1980), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), Duet For One (1987) and My Left Foot (1989). by Paul Anthony Darke BA., MA. Being a thesis of 80,000 words resubmitted for the degree of PhD in Film Studies (supervised by Professor Richard Dyer) at The University of Warwick on April 30th in the year 1999 Contents Contents 1 Acknowledgements 2 Declaration 3 Summary Introduction 5 Chapter One A Literature Review 35 Chapter Two Archetypal or Stereotypical? 69 Chapter Three Family and Disability 105 Chapter Four The Impaired Body of Disability 145 Conclusion 213 Filmography 225 Bibliography 231 1 Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge an immeasurable debt of gratitude to a few individuals for their support and encouragement during the writing of this thesis. Firstly, for his scholastic guidance, bibliographical wisdom and supervision, Professor Richard Dyer. Secondly, to my partner, Marie Claire Darke, for her belief that I could do it (and for typing out the bibliography); and to my father, Sydney John Darke, and my son, Walker Augustus Sydney P Darke, for putting the exercise into its correct perspective. I must also mention, in conclusion, my appreciation of B. Ward Ekrad for his patience and endurance and Jackie Vickers, Martin Cain, Graham Hewitt and Paddy Long for sharing their knowledge. Along with the individuals there are a few organisations that I wish to acknowledge for their financial support, in the main, and their moral support, along the way. The financial contributions made by the listed organisations have been considerable and, even though I list them in the order of the size of their financial support, my gratitude is divided amongst them equally. The organisations are: St Monica Charity; The Association For Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (ASBAH); The Snowden Awards for Disabled People; The Ian Karten Charitable Trust; The Onneley Trust; The Rivendell Trust; and The Southdown Trust. The final result, I take full responsibility for, and in no way should it be inferred that any of the opinions stated herein belong to any of the individuals or organisations above whom I have acknowledged for their support. Any errors are mine, and mine alone. 2 Declaration I declare that this thesis is, in total, an original piece of work of which none has appeared in print before. I have published different material derivative of this thesis in various publications (for more details see the bibliography), but it is work that is journalistic in form. The only academic article I have written that comes out of my work on this thesis is my article 'The Elephant Man: An Analysis From A Disabled Perspective', published in Disability and Society (Vol. 9, No. 3, 1994). It is an article from which I have quoted but which is completely different from the thesis. The papers, presentations, and journalistic pieces that I have presented have all been on images of disability on film commissioned on the basis of my carrying out this research. In this thesis I have used many words that have for disabled people a suspect nature or lineage without elaboration of their ambiguity, though their context and use in the thesis will imply that I am aware and deeply suspicious of such ambiguity in their use. In order not to waste too much time in repeating suspicions, or explanations for finding them ambiguous, I do not continually put them in distancing 'quotation' marks; for example, words and labels such as 'normal' or 'abnormal', 'Otherness', 'natural' and 'unnatural' and 'spastic' or 'cripple', 'positive' or 'negative', 'good' or 'bad', et cetera. 3 Suininan, In writing this thesis I have tried to get beneath the clichés of disability imagery to reveal the social constructions, through cinematic processes, of images of physical impairment as disability. The thesis must be seen in the context of other writers who have done similar work on other marginalised groups within our society that are regularly portrayed on the cinema screen: gays, blacks, women and, to a lesser extent, the working-class. The construction of school of writers, using representation theory, who have over the last two decades revealed that which had previously been taken for granted - the ideological and cultural influences on and of imagery that have an impact upon the lived lives of those represented - have been my guiding influence. The Social Model of disability theory has been used as my primary methodological framework and analytical approach. In the introduction I provide an outline of Disability Theory — i.e., the Medical Model and the Social Model of disability - and define the theoretical framework within which the thesis has been written to make the thesis comprehensible in the wider context of the social construction of 'disability'. In the literature review of disability imagery writing (Chapter One), I include writing that is journalistic rather than academic to redress the general scarcity of writing on disabling images. In this thesis, the cinematic techniques that construct impairment as disability, i.e., pathologise impairment as Other(ness), are identified. I explore three specific areas of cinema and culture in Chapters Two, Three and Four of the thesis: the use, or non-use, of stereotypes; the representation of the family in relation to disability, and finally, the use of the abnormal body to pathologise impairment. 4 Introduction 'Nature, Mr Al/nut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.' Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) in The African Queen (John Huston, GB, 1951) 'I feel that life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable; those are the two categories, you know: the horrible would be like - um - I don't know, terminal cases, blind people, cripples. I don't know how they get through life, it's amazing to me. The miserable is everybody else. So when you go through life you should be grateful that you're miserable; you're very lucky to be miserable.' Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, US, 1977) In this introduction it is essential that I clarify certain things: the meaning of 'disability' as I have used the term in the thesis; what films are at the core of the study, and why I have chosen those films in particular. Most importantly, though, is that I outline the methodological approach to be used and the way it is to be applied. I start by giving a brief introduction into what constitutes 'disability'. What is Disability? In any discussion of disability, let alone disability imagery, terminology and definitions are key factors in determining how it is seen and then 'interpreted'. Most Western states employ a definition advanced by the World Health Organisation (WHO), in order to carry out their social policy (Barnes, 1992). It has three distinctions: impairment, disability and handicap, encapsulated by Barnes (1992) as follows: '[i]mpairment' refer[s] to a defective limb, organ or mechanism of the body, 'disability' as the resulting lack of function, and 'handicap' denotes the limitations on daily life which ensue from disability. (p.6) Consequently, from this definition a 'handicapped' person has an 'impairment' which 5 produces the 'disability' and, as such, is 'handicapped' by that 'disability' and 'impairment'; the whole definition rests upon the body of the individual who has the impairment. Thus, disability, according to this defmition, is based on a pathological and individualised model commonly known as the Medical Model. The Medical Model has a philosophy and interpretation that has their foundation in the Enlightenment (Davis, 1995), the rise of the medical profession (Foucault, 1977[a]), and industrial capitalism - workers had to be classified as those who could work, who could not and who would not (Oliver, 1990). Also, around the time of the Industrial Revolution, organised charity and philanthropy started to employ the Medical Model of impairment as the main definition of disability (Stone, 1984); the medical definition helped to define those who should receive charity, or state aid, and those who should not. People with impairments started to be named 'disabled people'; i.e., their up-until-then irrelevant impairments were made significant in the social construction of abnormality and normality (cf. Foucault, 1977[a]; Oliver, 1990; Oliver, 1996; Davis, 1995). Disability is, thus, in the Medical Model, a 'personal tragedy' rather than anything to do with society or its social processes. It is pathological. Many disabled people, and the organisations that they have founded, are highly critical of such a definition as it de- socialises a condition that they perceived as being socially constructed. For the disability movement (cf. Campbell and Oliver, 1996) people with physical impairments are disabled not by their physical impairments (pathological realities) but by socially constructed barriers (their social disablement) placed upon and around them by society. It is a society that is built to exclude them physically from such entities as buses, buildings, education, employment and leisure facilities, thus bearing out a theory that is, in essence, the Social Model of disability (Oliver, 1990; and Oliver, 1991). The Social Model I am using has 6 been developed, defined and refined predominantly by Michael Oliver (1990; 1996; Oliver and Barnes, 1998).