Disability Studies and Spanish Culture: Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition

Disability Studies and Spanish Culture: Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 1 18/02/2013 15:30:07 REPRESENTATIONS: HEALT H , DI SA BI L I T Y, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Series Editor Stuart Murray, University of Leeds This series provides a ground-breaking and innovative selection of titles that showcase the newest interdisciplinary research on the cultural representations of health and disability in the contemporary social world. Bringing together both subjects and working methods from literary studies, film and cultural studies, medicine and sociology, ‘Representations’ is scholarly and accessible, addressed to researchers across a number of academic disciplines, and prac- titioners and members of the public with interests in issues of public health. The key term in the series will be representations. Public interest in ques- tions of health and disability has never been stronger, and as a consequence cultural forms across a range of media currently produce a never-ending stream of narratives and images that both reflect this interest and generate its forms. The crucial value of the series is that it brings the skilled study of cultural narratives and images to bear on such contemporary medical concerns. It offers and responds to new research paradigms that advance understanding at a scholarly level of the interaction between medicine, culture and society; it also has a strong commitment to public concerns surrounding such issues, and maintains a tone and point of address that seek to engage a general audience. Other books in the series Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination Stuart Murray Idiocy: A Cultural History Patrick McDonagh Representing Epilepsy: Myth and Matter Jeannette Stirling Anatomy as Spectacle: Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present Elizabeth Stephens LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 2 18/02/2013 15:30:07 Disability Studies and Spanish Culture Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition Benjamin Fraser LIVerpOOL UniVersitY Press LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 3 18/02/2013 15:30:07 First published 2013 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Cover image courtesy of Creative Growth Art Center Copyright © 2013 Benjamin Fraser The right of Benjamin Fraser to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-84631-870-2 cased Typeset in Iowan Old Style by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 4 18/02/2013 15:30:07 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix 1 Filming Down Syndrome 1 Yo, también (2009) and the Political Project of Disability Studies Deciphering the Mixed Messages of León y Olvido (2004) 2 Envisioning Autism 34 Miguel Gallardo’s Comic María y yo (2007) Félix Fernández de Castro’s Documentary María y yo (2010) 3 Narrating Childhood Disability 75 Salvador García Jiménez’s Novel Angelicomio (1981) Màrius Serra’s Autobiographical Novel Quieto (2008) 4 Documenting Cognitive Disability 117 ¿Qué tienes debajo del sombrero? (2006), by Lola Barrera and Iñaki Peñafiel Más allá del espejo (2007), by Joaquín Jordà Epilogue: Exhibiting Art 157 ‘Trazos Singulares’ (2011) at the Nuevos Ministerios Metro Station ‘Supergestor’ (2011) and Other Comics by the Grupo AMÁS Associación Argadini’s Literary Contests (2008–2010) References 169 Index 182 LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 5 18/02/2013 15:30:07 LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 6 18/02/2013 15:30:07 Acknowledgments he first part of chapter 1, the first part of chapter 3 and the first Tpart of chapter 4 were originally published as ‘Toward Autonomy in Love and Work: Situating the Film Yo, también (2009) within the Political Project of Disability Studies,’ Hispania 94.1 (2011): 1–12; ‘Salvador García Jiménez, “autor de minorías”: La novela Angelicomio (1981) y el modelo social de la discapacidad,’ Bulletin of Spanish Studies (forthcoming 2013); and ‘The Work of (Creating) Art: Judith Scott’s Fiber Art, Lola Barrera and Iñaki Peñafiel’s ¿Qué tienes debajo del sombrero? (2006) and the Challenges Faced By People with Developmental Disabilities,’ Cultural Studies 24.4 (2010): 508–32. I thank these publications (and in the case of Hispania, also the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) for allowing the republication of these texts—with modifications—in the present volume. The College of Charleston was instrumental in providing grants (summer support and a fall course reduction in 2011) that led to this book’s final completion—I would particularly like to thank Dean David Cohen and Associate Dean Shawn Morrison of the CofC School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs as well as Mark Del Mastro (Chair of Hispanic Studies) and Joseph Weyers (previously Chair of Hispanic Studies), the CofC R&D Committee members, and my departmental colleagues—particularly Nadia Avendaño, Emily Beck, Karen Berg, Carla Breidenbach, Raúl Carrillo-Arciniega, Lola Colomina, Herbert Espinoza, Mike Gómez, Devon Hanahan, Luis Linares-Ocanto, Liz Martínez-Gibson, Claudia Moran, Luci Moreira, Jose Moreira, Sarah Owens, Silvia Rodríguez-Sabater, Andrew Sobiesuo, Rosalyna Toth, Félix Vázquez, Marianne Verlinden, and LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 7 18/02/2013 15:30:07 viii Disability Studies and Spanish Culture Maricela Villalobos—for all of their warmth, support, and encour- agement. I also thank staff at the Madrid headquarters of Fundación ONCE for providing me with materials mentioned in the Introduction. I would also like to single out and thank the CofC R.E.A.C.H. program’s Cindi May and Edie Cusack. The R.E.A.C.H. program (Realizing Educational And Career Hopes) is a four-year inclusive non-degree-seeking program for students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities that provides the opportunity for all students to realize their intellectual and personal potential and to become respon- sible, productive members of society (see reach.cofc.edu). This book would simply not have happened without Ben, Abby, Judd, Jan, and John Fuoto. Thank you for countless hours spent, Abby Jean. As always, I thank Ruth and Howard Fraser. LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 8 18/02/2013 15:30:07 Introduction n the introduction that launches his landmark 1997 reader on the Isubject, Lennard J. Davis notably frames Disability Studies as a political project, embracing an approach that envisions the field as at once ‘an academic field of inquiry and an area of political inquiry’ (‘Introduction’ 1). In my view, this is yet another way of embracing the critical aim of cultural studies as described by one of the eclectic (and still forming) discipline’s founders, Raymond Williams. In 1986, Williams retrospectively summed up the premise of cultural studies as ‘the refusal to give priority to either the project or the forma- tion—or, in older terms, the art or the society’ (152). In other words, the critic needs to grapple at once with the discourse of art (formal aspects, content, style, tone…) and also with the context in which a given work of art is produced (social, cultural, economic, political…)— while attempting to give equal weight to each. In this study, this means attending not merely to issues regarding the cultural representations of disability—which are, of course, already political—but also to research foregrounding the real-world circumstances in which disabled people find themselves as they strive to find love and engage in meaningful work. Rather than attempting an exhaustive treatment of the representa- tion of disability in Spanish cultural products, this book is an attempt to bring a Disability Studies perspective to bear on selected Spanish materials as diverse as fiction films, documentaries, novels, and even the sequential art of the graphic novel/comic. While this book is undoubtedly a piece of humanities scholarship, it nonetheless estab- lishes a selective dialogue with existing research on disability from a wide spectrum of approaches (philosophical, historical, social). Its LUP, Fraser, Disability Studies and Spanish Culture.indd 9 18/02/2013 15:30:07 x Disability Studies and Spanish Culture central focus, however, is the analysis of representations of disability in recent Spanish cultural products. In every case save one (the 1981 novel Angelicomio, in chapter 3), those cultural texts selected fall in the date range of 2004–11. It is important to point out that there is undeniably a social bias—both inside of Spain and elsewhere—that ends in the funding and mass-marketing of literary and filmic projects developed by physically and cognitively abled artists, to the detriment of disabled artists and producers. I do not defend this situation. I do believe, however, that if we want to understand, appreciate—and in some cases, perhaps even change—the kinds of images of disability that are routinely consumed by the able-bodied majority of contemporary societies, these projects must be discussed in depth and analyzed critically. This is intended not as a substitute for social science approaches to disability, but rather as a complement to such perspec- tives. While the cultural products analyzed throughout this book are of interest for their representations of people with disabilities, in the concise epilogue that concludes the book I turn to a 2011 exhibition of paintings, as well as comics, short stories, and poems, all produced by people with disabilities themselves.

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