Gendered Disabilities: Silent Performatives in Cinema
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1 Gendered Disabilities: Silent performatives in cinema By Tova Rozengarten Thesis Submitted to Flinders University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 26 August 2020 CONTENTS Summary .......................................................................................................................... 4 DECLARATION ................................................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 8 1. Introduction and Methodology. ............................................................................. 12 Feminism’s pervasive silence ..................................................................................... 12 Data Collection and Methods ...................................................................................... 15 Terminology and Disability Models ........................................................................... 19 Film Analysis ............................................................................................................ 23 Conceptual Frameworks .............................................................................................. 25 2. Gender, disability and film Scholarship .................................................................. 33 Early Disability Film Scholarship ................................................................................ 34 Social Realist Perspectives ......................................................................................... 37 Constructing Normality ................................................................................................. 44 A Narrative Device ........................................................................................................ 46 Intersections................................................................................................................... 50 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 55 3. Disability, Gender, race and redemption in Olivier Dahan’s My Own Love Song 57 Synopsis: this is not a romantic love song. ............................................................... 59 Film Analysis .................................................................................................................. 60 Part I - Rejection and Undesirability........................................................................... 60 Part II – Passive Sexual Objects ................................................................................ 70 Part III – Madness, Race and Gender ....................................................................... 76 Part IV – Performing Disability and Walking Dreams. ............................................ 95 Part V – Disabled Mothers. ......................................................................................... 99 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 101 4. Disability and Humour In Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s The Intouchables ...................................................................................................................................... 104 Synopsis: more than just an interracial buddy film. ............................................... 105 Background and Film Reviews. .............................................................................. 106 Humour and Disability. ........................................................................................... 110 Film Analysis ................................................................................................................ 115 Part I – Punching-Through the Disabled Body. ...................................................... 115 Part II – Damaged Masculinity and Gender Rehabilitation .................................. 131 Part III - Crip Sex and Gender Rehabilitation ......................................................... 136 Part IV – Love, Intimacy and Ableism ...................................................................... 142 Conclusion. .................................................................................................................. 153 5. Representing Disabled Gay Men in Michael Akers’ and Sandon Berg’s Morgan 156 Synopsis: some victories are personal… ................................................................ 157 Background and Film Reviews: .............................................................................. 158 Film Analysis ................................................................................................................ 166 Part I – “The Only Disability in Life is a Bad Attitude” (Scott Hamilton). ............ 166 Part II – Love and Care. ............................................................................................. 180 Part III – Sex and Disability ....................................................................................... 194 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 201 2 6. Losing Lexicon: Representing Alzheimer’s Disease in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Still Alice ..........................................................................................203 Synopsis: the art of losing .......................................................................................... 204 Screening Dramatic Dementias: Background, Film Reviews and Academic Treatments of Still Alice ..........................................................................................206 Film Analysis ................................................................................................................ 213 Part I – Disavowing the Disabled Professor. .......................................................... 213 Part II – Familial Care and Gender. ......................................................................... 231 Part III – A Fate Worse Than Death? ....................................................................... 248 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 257 7. Loving Stephen Hawking: Gender, Disability, Marriage and Care in James Marsh’s The Theory Of Everything. ............................................................................259 Synopsis and background: the physics of love ...................................................... 262 Oscar-bait, he-says/she-says, and academic treatments of Theory ........................ 264 Cartesian dualism on wheels ..................................................................................268 Film Analysis ................................................................................................................ 271 Part I – Disabled Genius and Masculinity. .............................................................. 271 Part II – Disabled Masculinity and Heterosexuality. .............................................. 287 Part III – A Wife’s Burdensome Duty. ...................................................................... 297 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 313 8. Performative Silence ...............................................................................................315 Silence of Omission .................................................................................................... 321 Undesirable sexual/romantic subjects. .................................................................... 324 Gendering Disabled Sexuality ................................................................................... 327 Tragedy, Pity and Fear ............................................................................................... 335 Sometimes extra-verbal context offers nuanced readings. .................................. 338 Conclusion: Speaking Back to Silence .................................................................... 341 References ...................................................................................................................344 3 SUMMARY What ideological meanings about gendered disabilities are reflected and produced in cinema? The disabled body easily conveys meaning without speech. Disabled bodies have been mistreated and misrepresented for entertainment purposes since the birth of cinema, as freakish spectacles to be ridiculed, mocked, feared and/or pitied. While contemporary representations are orientated towards more socially just and sympathetic treatments, the disabled body primarily remains a cultural signifier of tragedy, pity, undesirability, passivity and dependence. The thesis contends that these enduring stereotypes are made to appear as though they are a ‘natural’ product of impaired sexed bodies. A counter-discourse challenging ableism and sexism is silenced within these cinematic scripts. The research involves a discursive analysis of five films to reveal what I call a stylised silence. To identify a silent style, the thesis engages with Aristotle’s work on the rhetorical function of enthymemes within speech acts, along with its modern application to visual images. The main framework for this thesis employs feminist disability