disability ISSN 1041-5718 .

studies ·Fall 1990

quarterly Volume 1O No. 4

Editor: Irving Kenneth Zola · Managing Editor: Janet Boudreau Co-editor for this. issue: Sandra Gordon, Senior Vice-President, Communications, National Easter Seal Society

Issue Theme: The Media II

Dear Reader, No DSQ has not shrunk. Ow new format allows us to print more mo.terial in a smaller space. Our updated computer facilities .will also pennit us to go to. direct billing for subscriptions. You will receive the first· request for 1991 in about a month. This issue returns to a favorite topic - the Media with a special section just devoted to reviews ofMy Left Foot and Born on the Powth ofJuly. Winter 1991 (deadline December 1, 1990) will as usual be a generic one. Spring 1991 (deadline March 1, 1991) will be devoted to Bioethics. Adrienne Asch, (316 W. 104th SL, Apt 3A, New York; NY 10025) will serve as Co-Editor Summer 1991 (deadline lune 1, i991) will emphasize Disability Policy- Past, Present and Fuiw-e. ATlll in the wings, depending as always on interest and further suggestions Aging II, General Issues of Technology and Psychosocial,· Models ofRehabilitation. The Editors

much the same way it once gingerly introduced black faces." An Associated Press story, 11Advertisers Work_ to Hire the Handicapped,U publishedin th~ By Sandra Gordon, (Senior Vice CillCAGO TRIBUNE Oct. 29, 1989, cited a President, Corporate Communications, National number of television commercials in which Easter Seal Society). people with disabilities are cast. According to the A number of times during this past year article, "Advocates for ... physically challenged I've noticed articles in newspapers and magazines Americans have welcomed this increased that point out more and more people with visibility~" · disabilities are being hired for jobs in the media. In its Spring 1990 edition, SCREEN. And this news was published before passage of ACTOR Magazine, the publication of the Screen the Americans with Disabilities Act! Actors Guild, devoted a number of stories in the A column in the September 7, 1989, issue to performers with disabilities and WALL STREET JOURNAL, "Disabled People opportunities in film and. television. Featured in More Ads," .spoke to a number of ,. With the recent passage of the advertisers hiring disabled persons. According to Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits 11 the article, •••the ad industry is becoming discrimination against people with disabilities, increasingly unchanted with the disabled--and is opportunities for employment in the media are bringing token handicapped actors into ads in going to be greater than ever. 1 see this opportunity. to· be positive and a long time in arriving. But there's one area with regard to the media that must be addressed and that is language. You can see in. the quotes above the many different references to people with September 23-26, International disabilities -- 11handicapped,11 "disabled" and even Conference on "Comprehensive System of Social "physically-challenged Americans." Furthermore, and Other· Services for Disabled Persons," in the state of Michigan a person with a disability Warsaw, Poland. Contact: Polish Society for is referred to as a "handicapper." Some disability Rehabilitation of the Disabled, ul. Partyzantow 4 organizations use terms such as "handicapable" or m.10, 00-629 Warszawa, Poland. "differently able." Most organizations advocate for October 7-10, The Making of the referring to a person with a disability as a person Physician. Twentieth Anniversary Meeting, first. We've published brochures with guidelines Association for the Behavioral Sciences and about' reporting about people ~ith disabilities. Medical Education at Crystal Mountain Resort, We've consistently reminded the media that Thompsonville, Michigan. Contact: ABSAME, people with disabilities should be portrayed as 6728 Old McLean Village Drive, McLean, contributing and productive members of the Virginia 22101. (703) 556-9222. community. And yet, the language used by the media remains as varied as the examples October 11-13, Fifth National mentioned earlier. Are we at a point, now that Conference on Perinatal Care and Prevention of ADA has passed, to begin the crusade all over? Handicap: 'Promotion of Health: Prevention of Or are we at a point where we expend energies Handicap,' Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Inquiries: in another direction. Like getting ADA Saskatchewan Institute on Prevention of implemented? Handicaps, Box 81, University Hospital, I've been told by some highly acclaimed Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N OXO. (306) 966- writers that they just will not keep using the term 2512. -"people with disabilities" over and over. again. They say we have to give a little in our crusade. October 12-14, Society for Applied They can understand not using the term ''victim" Sociology Conference, Cincinnati, OH. Theme: when referring to a disabled person; they can "Strategies for Problem Solving: The Role of understand not using the term "wheelchair- Applied Sociologists." Contact: William R. bound.11 But they have a problem with our Brown, Department of Sociology and guidelines regarding the use of "handicapped" or Anthropology, University of Central Florida, "disabled" (without using the "person" after it). Orlando, FL 32816. ls language an important issue to harp on to the media? Or are there others equally

2 AAMR Region IV, 1990 Conference Chairman, . . Annual Conference, The Americans with: 13325 St; Albert Trail, Edmonton, Alberta T5L Disabilities Act of 1990: New Access to the 4R3. Tel: ( 403) 454-9656 Fax: ( 403) 451:..0168. Workplace. A Conference on Taking Positive Steps Toward Compliance with the ADA. October 21-26, American Congress of Contact: Mainstream, Inc., P.O. Box 65183, Rehabilitation Medicine 67th Anriual Meetings: · Washington, DC 20035-5183. If you have any Proclaiming the Practitioner: 1990s and Beyond questions, please call:· (202) 898-1400 at Phoenix Civic Plaza Convention Center. · (Voice/TDD). · Contact: Convention Manager, · AAPM&R/ACRM, 122 S. Michigan, Suite 1300, November 1-2, The- Research & Training Chicago, IL 60603-6107. (312) 922-9366/68. Center on Head Trauma & Stroke New York University Medical Center, in collaboration with October 22-23, ·Family Caregiving ·Across the Beach Center on Families and Disability the Lifespan: A National Conference,. Cleveland, University of Kansas. Head Injury and the OH. Contact: May L. Wykle, Director, University Family System. Contact: New .York University Center on Aging and Health, Case Western Medical Center, R & T Center on Head Trauma Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106; (216) & Strolce, 400 East 34th Street - RR 811, New 368-2692. York, NY 10016.

October 22-23. The 4th Annual National November 1-2, Research with Drugs and· Disability Management Conference & Trade Devices: IRBs, Industry and Investigators, Boston Show, at Doral Resort & Country Club, Miami, Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, Boston, Florida. For more information regarding: Massachusetts, will. consider a range of drug .and AGENDA CONTENT -- Contact Elise Lipoff, device research issues, as well as the ongoing ·WBGH (202) 408-9320. CONFERENCE regulatory, policy. and operational concerns faced REGISTRATION -- Contact Sheri·Farris, by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs~) In · WBGH (202) 408-9320. EXHIBITOR addition, PRIM&R's sister organization, Applied INFORMATION -- Contact Jane DeVito, TU Research Ethics National Association. (ARENA) (215) 834-6440. HOTEL ARRANGEMENTS -- will host its annual meeting on October 31, 1990. Contact the Doral (800) 327-6334 or (305) 592~ For further information about both meetings, 2000. TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS -- Contact please write or call ];>RIM&R, 132 Boylston St., American Airlines (800) 433-1790 or your travel 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02116 (617) 423-4112. agent. PLEASE USE REF. NO. Sl0-0-0-GZ. November 2, from 9-lpm, Re-examing October 22-23, Conference on Social Leisure and Work Issues in the Lives of Our Structure and Caregiving: Family and Cross- Clients: a critical look at the services we provide, National Perspectives at Pennsylvania State will be held at the Howard Johnson's Hotel in · University~ Contact: Barb Impellitteri, 410 Keller Cambridge, MA. Cost is $45 .00. Wheelchair. Conference Center, Pennsylvania State Accessible. Information concerning group rates University, University Park, PA 16802. (814) 863- and financial assistance available upon request. 1738.. Contact: Oce Harrison, MED,CTRS at (617) 628-9379. . October 22-24, International Cerebral Palsy: 'From Family Circle Into the Outside November 4-8, International Symposiu.m World,' Prague, ·czechoslovakia. Inquiries: on Sexuality and Disability, Tel Aviv, Israel. :;: Secretariat, Association of Czechoslovak Medical Inquiries: E. Chigier, M.D., National Secretary, :. Societies, J.E. Purkyne, 'Cerebral Palsy Chairman, Organizing Committee; Israel, Symposium,' Vitezneho unora 31,120 26 Prague Rehabilitation Society, 18 David Elazar Street, 2. Czechoslovakia. Telex: 121293 Telefax: 42/2 29 Tel Aviv, 61909, Israel. · 41 45. November. 5-8, European Conference on October 25-26. The 1990 Mainstream the Advancement of Rehabilitation Technology

3 I; (ECART), Maastricht, The Netherlands. Contact: Chicago, IHinois. Contact: TASH, 7010 Roosevelt Dr. Th. Gerritsen/Dr. Ir. M. Soede, Institute for Way N.E., .Seattle, Washington 98115. (206) 523- Rehabilitation Research, Zandbergsweg 111, 8446, TDD: (206) 524-6198. 6432 CC Hoensbroek, The Netherlands; 045- 224300. January 27-30, 1991, International Conference on Traffic Safety, New Delhi, India. November 9-12, National Rehabilitation Theme: "The Vulnerable Road User." Contact: Association 1990 National Conference Renee Chandola, Conference Secretariat, "Rehabilitation: Creating Opportunities" at the Abercrombie & Kent India Pvt. Ltd., Ground Hyatt Regency, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Contact: Floor 1 & 2, Chiranjiv Tower, 43 Nehru Place, NRA, 633 S. Washington St., Alexandria, VA New Delhi 110019 India. 22314-4193. (703) 836-0850. February 28-March 3, 1991, Seventeenth November 9-12, 'Access: A Two-Way Annual Meeting of the Association for Street', 3rd Conference of the National Gerontology in Higher Education, Pittsburgh, Educational Association of Disabled Students PA. Theme: "Dimensions of Intergenerational (NEADS), Halifax; Nova Scotia. Contact: Relationships." Contact: Betsy M. Sprouse, NEADS, 4th Level Unicentre, Carleton AARP Andrus Foundation, 1909 K Street, NW, University, Ottawa, Ontario KlS 5B6. (613) 233- Washington, DC 20049; (202) 662-4919. 5963. May 26-29, 'Science, Dignity, November 11-14, International Opportunity', 5th Canadian Congress of Conference on Measurement Errors in Surveys, Rehabilitation, Charlottetown, P.E.I. Contact: Tucson, AZ. Contact: Lee L. Decker, American Deborah Loosemore, Canadian Rehabilitation Statistical Association, 1429 Duke Street, Council for the Disabled, 45 Sheppard Ave. E., Alexandria, VA 22314-3402; (703) 684-1221. Suite 801, Toronto, Ontario M2N 2W9. (416) 250-7490, (Volice/IDD), Fax: (416) 229-1371. November 21-23. Cancer Care: The· Complete Circle, Westin Hotel, Edmonton, June 24-26, 1991, Helsinki, Finland, 7th Alberta, Canada. Contact: Shaunne Letourneau, Annual Meeting International Society of" Conference Coordinator, Boyle, Letourneau & Technology Assessment in Health Care. Contact: Associates, Inc., 4 Lucerne Crescent, St. Albert, Congress Secretariat, Contress Management AB Canada, T8N 2R2. (403) 458-5672. Systems, P.O. Box 151, 00141 Helsinki - Finland. Tel. 358 0 175 355 - Fax 358 0 170 122. November 27,30, 'Challenge to Change: Respite Care in the '90s', San Antonio, Texas. July 29-August 3, 1991, 26th Contact: Texas Respite Resource Network, International Committee on Family Research National Conference, P.O. Box 7330, 519 W. Seminar, Nor:way. Theme: "What is Family?" Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas 78207-3198. Participation is limited to 30-35 persons, of which (512) 228-2794. a number have to be able to speak and understand Norwegian. Registration is no later December 6-8, The 6th International than six months in advance. Contact: Irene Levin, ,.C:Onference ~n Biomedical Engineering, Tiedemandsgata 23, N-0260 Oslo, Norway; 47 7 Singapore. Inquiries: The Secretary, 6th Biomed 92 04 11; or Jan Trost, Department of Sociology, Conference 1990, Department of Orthopaedic PO Box 513, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden; 46 18 18 Surgery, National University Hospital, Lower 11 88. Kent Ridge Road, Singapore .0511. Tel: (65) 772- 4424 Fax: ( 65) 779-5678.

December 6-8, 'Action for Inclusion', 17th Annual Conference of TASH, The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps,

4 \ Reply by October 31, Technology and Pittsburgh, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA Persons With Disabilities, California State 15213;_ (412) 621-9444. . University, Northridge at March 20-23, 1991 Los · Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel. SCOPE This is Critical Perspectives in Sociology: A a comprehensive, international conf~rence on . Reader invites submission of manuscripts technology, where all ages, disabilities, and levels; covering such topics as class structure and class of education and training in this country and consciousness, exploitati<;m arid inequality, the abroad are covered. Focus includes infant, state, the corporate economy, alienation, etc. preschool, elementary and secondary school ·Previously unpublished manuscripts of 25-30 programs for children with disabilities, their pages should be submitted, preferably on disk in families, teachers and school Word-Perfect 5.0 format, to: Berch Berberoglu, administrators...college and university students Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, with disabilities and their family members, . Reno, NV 89557. · · professors, researchers, counselors and other · staff members and administrators ...service ·Family Relations seeks papers for special providers and administrators from the . collection on "Innovative Ways and Con~roversial Department of Rehabilitation and other Issues in Teaching about Families." Topics community agencies. Presentatiop.s should .be include: new methodology in teaching about relevant to one,or more of the following families in early childhood programs; elementary disability areas: Behavior/Emotional Disorders, . . school, high school, under-graduate and graduate Blindness, Deaf-Blind, Developmental education; adult and community education, etc. Disabilities, Disabilities associated with Aging, Manuscripts need to be grounded in literature Hearing Impaired, Learning Disabled, . and should be no longer than 20 pages. Send Mobility/Physically Challenged, Nonspeaking, manuscripts before March 1, 1991, to: Margaret Speech and/or Language Impaired, Traumatic Crosbie-Burnett, Department of Counseling Brain Injured, or Visually Impaired. Contact: Dr. Psychology, 321 Education Bldg., 1000 Bascom Harry J. Murphy, Office of Disabled Student Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI Services, California State University, Northridge, 53706; (608) 262-0461; or Katherine Allen, 18111 Nordhoff Street - DVSS Northridge, CA Department of Family and Child Development, 91330. Phone: (818) 885-2578,: FAX: (818) 885- 104 Wallace Annex, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, 4929 or (818) 885-4545,. HMURPHY @ VA 24061-0416; (703) 231-6526. (CompuServe), Answering Machine (818) 885- 4929. .Feminist Scholarship Interest G·roup of the International Communication Association American Sociological Association 41st Annual Conference, May 23-27, 1991, · Meetings August 23-27, 1991 at Cincinnati . Chicago Hilton and Towers Hotel, Chicago, Convention Center. Deadline for submissions · Illinois, USA. Conference Theme: · December 3.1, 1990. "CommunicaJion and Health" FSIG encourages Aging, Sociology of. Carroll L~ Estes, creative and challenging explorations of the Institute for Health & Aging, N631Y, University conference theme, including (but not limited to) of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;:(415) submissions on images and definitions of · 476-3236. wellness, illness, disability, and the family; Medical Sociology* (includes activism and public campaigns on women's health Disabilities, Mental Health). Carol Aneshensel, issues; the discourses of medical practices, health Chair, Division of Population & Family Health, . policy, reproductive choice and sexuality; and CHS 21-245-School of Public Health, University relationships among gender~ race, ·class, ethnicity, of California-Los Angeles, 10833 Le Conte age, and sexuality and health. Submissions are Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1772;,(213) 825- also welcome that develop feminist theory, 7479. . criticism and methodology in all· areas of Medical Sociology. Roberta G. Simmons, communication scholarship. All submissions must Western Psychiatric Institute & Qinic, include a detachable cover page with the title of Department of Psychiatry, University of the paper/session and the names and addresses

5 I; of all authors/participants. For consideration, The First International Conference on please send FIVE copies of complete papers and Deaf History. June 20-22, 1991, Gallaudet. session· proposals FIRST CLASS postmarked by University, Washington, DC. During the decade NOVEMBER 1, 1990 to: Nina Gregg; of the 1980s historians ( deaf and hearing) in the Department of Communication, Western United States and abroad produced an Maryland College, Westminster, MD 21157 (301) unprecedented number of studies of deaf persons 857-2438. and the deaf community. The Gallaudet University College of Arts and Sciences and the 50th Annual Meeting Society For History Department believe that it is time to. Applied Anthropology Charleston, SC,·March catalyze this movement. We invite scholars, 13-17, 1991. teachers, and deaf history enthusiasts ftom · Our Fiftieth Anniversary Meeting will around the world to join with us. Low-cost celebrate a rich history of scholarship, science, campus accommodations and meals will be and practical experience. The Program available for all conference participants. Details Committee invites a wide array of proposals for will be forthcoming. The conference will include . papers and sessions on the theme: BUILDING traditional presentation format and it will discuss KNOWLEDGE AND THEORYIN developing an organization and founding a · CONTEXTS OF ACTION. For five decades, in journal ofdeaf history. All authors of important keeping with the charter purposes of the Society, histories of the deaf community have been scholars and practitioners have sought to invited to attend the conference and host understand how people operate in settings that roundtable luncheons for conference participants. have been shaped by human activities, plans, and In addition to the conference, w~ will host a goals. We have sought to derive principles that PRE-CONFERENCE MINI-COURSE, June 18- can be applied to the practical problems of the 19, 1991. The Gallaudet University History time. We derive and represent such principles in Department is pleased to offer a one-credit many different ways: create case studies, graduate level survey course in Deaf Community construct formal theories and models, depict History. The two-day intensive course, taught by decision making, chronicle events, develop rules history department faculty and supplemented by of thumb etc. And one of our chief tests for any prominent· authors of ·deaf history, will provide principle or model or theory has been its basic materials for use ·by teachers of social usefulness in contexts of action. studies and deaf studies and by history The Committee intends that the enthusiasts. Program will reflect the diversity and vitality of CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS The members' activities. In· honor of the Society's program will focus on three general areas: 1. semicentenary,. proposals are welcome on the Research results (histories-persons, institutions, contributions of our "elders and mentors of the or communities broadly defined) completed or enterprise." Equally welcome are proposals that research· in progress. 2. Methodology and sources sound out new directions our enterprise will take. of deaf history ( archival information, oral history All proposals within the broad mission of applied interviews; or films). 3. Pedagogy (successes · social science will b.e considered seriously. We and/or problems of the teaching of deaf encourage proposals from international community history, deaf studies vs. deaf history). participants whose divergent visions have If you wish to present a paper, panel, or continually enriched the Society's interpretation workshop submit a one or two page proposal or of that mission. We urge you to discuss your videotape (English, French, German, Spanish, or ideas with members of the Committee. Sign) postmarked no later than December 1, (Proposals Due October 31, 1990). 1990 to: International Conference on Deaf Program Committee: Jacquetta Hill History, History Department, Gallaudet (Illinois) Program Chair 217/333-8512 & 244- University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, W1;1Shington, 3505; Tom May (Oklahoma) Local Arrangements DC 20002-3695, phone (202) 651-5474 Chair 405/232-4902; William Leap (American) (TDDNoice). Notices of acceptance will be sent Training Information Exchange 202/686-2182. in early January, 1991.

6 \ The Fourth Annual Convention of the Deadline for proposals is December 1. 1990.. Society for Disability Studies will be, held on June Please include: 1. Title 2. Name, affiliation, 19-22, 1991, at the San Franciscan Hotel, 1231 address, and phone number of author(s) 3. Market Street, San francisco, CA 94103. Possible Developed abstract (not exceeding two pages and themes for paper presentations may iµclude including succinctly stated purpose, method, research issues of policy, history, sexuality, law, findings of the paper). Send proposals "culture,'' statistics, methods, politics, media, (developed abstracts) to: Gary Kiger, literature, gender, self-image, cross-:-cu:ltural, Department of Sociology, Utah State University, family, and related topics~ Organized panels are Logan, UT 84322-0730. encouraged, but they must be multidisciplinary and cross disability.. There is a limit of one Lowell S. Levin, EdD, MPH, professor. presentation per person, but that person can be of public.health at .the Yale University School of part of another multi-authored paper as long as Medicine, editor the new International Journal of another person makes the other presentation.· At Iatrogenic Complications. The quarterly journal, least one author must be present and register for associated with the Copenhagen-based the conference. Ideas on Teaching Disability International Society for the Prevention of Studies are to be sent to Professor Irving Iatrogenic Diseases, will begin publishing in Kenneth Zola, Department of Sociology, February 1991. Dr. Levin explains that although Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254-9110. "iatrogenic" translates literally as "physician- Proposals for Round. Tables are encouraged. they produced,'' the study of such problems has come should attempt to bring together participants to encompass the negative consequences brought with similar research interests. Please send two on by any segment of the increasingly complex copies of a two to three page abstract to: : health care system. When a part· of that system Professor David Pfeiffer, Department of Public harms a patient either by accident, .negligence of Management, School of Management, Suffolk incompetence, the ramifications go beyond the University, Boston, MA 02108. Bitnet (for · medical, to the legal, social and economic. questions only): Pfeiffer@Suffolk. The abstract Hence, each article submitted to the new niust have title,,author(s), and address of the periodical will be reVJewed by ajury of three contact author. Dates which you can NOT attend readers.from various disciplines, rather than the can be included~ All abstracts will· be refereed. two readers used by many journals. In addition DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: January 15, to physicians, the reviewer roster will include 1991. Acceptances with tentative date and time attorneys, .economists, sociai scientists, will be mailed February 15, 1991. Abstracts epidemiologists and others, drawn from a broad received by December 15, 1990, will receive early geopolitical spectrum. Scholars or other decision if at all possible. The Society for researchers who would like to submit articles to Disability Studies (SDS) is a multidisciplinary the International Jpurmd of Iatrogenic organization dedicated to the development of an Complications may contact Dr.. Levin at (203) appreciation and understanding of disability- .. 785-2849. . . related theory and its application as well as. an agenda for further research· in this area. For Journal of Social and Personal membership information, contact' Professor ·· Relationships seeks manuscripts for a special Irving Kenneth Zola, Department of Sociology, issue on "Social Networks and Personal Brandeis University; Waltham, MA 02254-:9110 Relationships." Appropriate contributions include (617) 736-2644). articles on structural features of networks and their impact on the internal ·character of a April 24-27, 1991, Reno, NV, The personal relationship, and_ articles focusing on Nugget Hotel. The Chronic Disease and relational features of networks such as. the Disability section of the Western Social Science degree of social participation with friends and its Association invites proposals for. presentations in impact on marital conflict. Four copies of the area of disability studies. Topics of interest . · manuscripts no longer than 30 pages should be include: theory, methods, policy, art, literature, submitted no later than January 1, 1991, to: media, advocacy, rehabilitation, among others. Robert Milardo, Child Development & Family

7 Relationships, 30 Merrill Hall, University of Laboratory, 35 West 4th Street, Suite 876, New Maine, Orono, Maine 04469; (207) 581-3128; or York, NY 10003, U.S.A. Tel. 1-212"'.998-5450 - Barry Wellman, Centre for Urban & Community Fax 1-212-995-4043. Studies, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1Al: (416) 978-3930. Revitalization of the· Journal on Sexuality and Disability. Dr. Stanley H. Ducharme will be , t MEDART International's First World serving as the new Editor of this journal which Congress (Sept. 29-Oct. 4, 1991) on Arts will be published by Human Sciences Press and Medicine is now open for scientific· and artistic Plenum Publishing Corporation. The scope of the contributions related to: 1. The relationships of journal is broadly defined to include both ARTS AND MEDICINE: phenomenology, theoretical· and practical works that address philosophy, aesthetics, neurosciences, biology, issues of human sexuality within an institutional bioengineering, etc. 2. MEDICINE FOR setting as well as from a community perspective. ARTISTS: specialized medical and allied health The Journal of Sexuality and Disability will be care for performing and visual artists, aiming to affiliated with both the National Task Force on diagnose, treat and prevent their occupation- Sexuality and Disability and the Coalition on related or job-threatening disorders. 3. ARTS AS Sexuality and Disability. Additional information MEDICINE: numerous applications of the Arts can be obtained from Dr. Ducharme at the as treatment, namely music therapy, dance· University Hospital Sexuality and Disability therapy and other creative arts therapies. Outline Training Center, 75 East Newton Street, Boston, of the program. The program will include MA 02118-2393, (617) 638-7358. approximately 80 courses and workshops by eminent international faculty, affiliated to major Social Problems is planning a special universities from the various medical, allied collection of papers on "Poverty and the · health, scientific and artistic fields, equally American Underclass}' Papers are welcome in · representative of·MedArt's triple goal. such areas as: shifting social definitions of · Continuous Medical Education and Graduate· persistent poverty; the impact of perceptions of Education credits will be available for an underclass on employers, welfare workers, and participants. Upon acceptance by the peer review, public opinion; social relations in poverty authors of free papers and posters will be asked neighborhoods; and the· effects of residential and to submit a complete manuscript to be published social isola- tion. Five copies of manuscripts in the three-volume hard-cover Congress should be sent by December 31 to: Merry proceedings book. All participants will receive a Marash, Editor, School of Criminal Justice, free copy of this book. Call for papers. All Baker Hall, Michigan State University, East abstracts should be submitted in English, no later Lansing, MI 48824. than February 15, 1991. They should include no more than 300 words, typed in a double-spaced Sociological Studies of Child format. Three key words should be provided with Development solicits manuscripts covering such each abstract. It should be specified whether it is topics as studies of children, childhood, families, submitted for poster or ·oral presentation (10 parenting, and development from the full variety minutes with 5 minutes discussion). The original of methodological and theoretical stances, which abstract form should include the title and the draw on both institutional and natural settings~ senior author-presenter and all co-author's Please send queries and manuscripts to: Peter names, addresses and affiliations. An additional and Patricia Adler, Editors, Department of three copies should be provided; not· including Sociology, University of Denver, Denver, CO names or affiliations. The original abstract and 80208. the copies should be mailed, postmarked no later than February 15, 1991 to the following address: Women's Health Issues Official F.J. Bejjani, M.D, PhD., Chairperson Scientific publication of The Jacobs Institute of Women's C',ommittee, or Lawrence Ferrara, PhD., Health. Beginning in January 1991, Elsevier will Chairperson Artistic Committee, New York publish Women's Health Issues, a new quarterly University, Human Performance Analysis journal for health professionals, social scientists,

8 policy makers; and others concerned with the· 1599 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30329; complex and diverse facets of health care delivery (404) 329-7558. to women. WHI will publish peer-reviewed articles as well as position papers and reports American Statistical Association/National from conferences and workshops sponsored by Science· Foundation/Census Bureau Research the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. From Fellowships and Associateships at the Census the preventive health care needs of older women, Bureau. Subject to funding. Unique opportunity to approaches to alcohol and. drug abuse among to make major advances in methodological or pregnant teens, to competing maternal/fetal subject matter research related to Census Bureau rights, this new journal will comprehensively operations or data. General areas for research explore crucial topics: Maternal-fetal rights, are social and demograph,ic studies, economic Access to mammograp~y, Nutritional needs in measurement and analysis, and statistical pregnancy, Spouse abuse, Health care of older methodology and ·computing. Requirements: for women, Drug and alcohol abuse. Manuscripts Fellows, recognized research record in relevant and all editorial correspondence should be field ( e.g., Sociology,Demography, Statistics, submitted to the Editor, Warren H. Pearse, MD, Economics, Geography); for Associates, at least at The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, 409 two years of graduate study ( or equivalent) in 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024. (202) relevant field plus computer experience. Salaries 863-4990. Subscription Information.' ISSN 1049- are commensurate with qualifications and 3867, Volume 1, 1991, (4 issues in one volume) experience; also, fringe benefits and a travel Institutional Rate: $72.00, Individual Rate: allowance are provided. Length of term and start $36.00. For postage and handling outside the. date are flexible -- usually six months to a year U.S., please add $21.00. beginning September 1. Can start as early as June 1, 1991; can split term into two or more parts. Apply by January 4 for Fellows and February 15. for Associates. For information on specific research topics and on how to apply, contact: Daniel Kasprzyk, Office of the Director, · Silver Hill Executive Plaza, Suite 2A; Bureau of American Cancer Society Research Grants in the Census, Washington, DC 20233; (301) 763- Primary Prevention and Detection. The American 8328. Cancer Society is expanding its research program in psychosocial and behavioral aspects of cancer Easter Seals Research Grants Available to include primary prevention and detection. for 1991. Research grants for projects that Investigators are encouraged to submit research impact the treatment and management of· and clinical grant proposals, and requests for disabilities are now available from the National support of personnel in research (Post-doctoral Easter Seal Society's Easter Seal Research Fellowships, Physician's Research Training Foundation. Trustees of the Easter Seal Fellowships, Junior Faculty Research Awards, Research Foundation will meet in March 1991 to Faculty Research Awards, and Scholar Awards) review proposals. and award grants. The in these areas. Applications will be peer-reviewed maximum Foundation grant is $40,000 per year, by the Scientific Advisory Committee on renewable for a second year; ESRF encourages Psychosocial and Behavioral Research in projects that relate research outcomes to competition with other applications assigned to improved rehabilitation services fQr people with this Committee. Funding will be based primarily disabilities. Grant applications are sought from on the scientific merit of the proposal and all qualified applicants. Applications must be relevance of the project to the Society's mission. received on or before December 15, 1990. Applications should be designed to test a we.II-· For additional information, write to Norman D. defined hypothesis using rigorous, state-of-the-art Grunewald, Vice President, Easter Sea.I Research methodology. Brochures describing these Foundation, 70 East Lake Street, Chicago, programs are available upon request from: Illinois· 60601. American Cancer Society, Research Department,

9 The Center for Population Options is they were funded, for fiscal year 1989. The report accepting applications for its annual scholarship is free while the supply lasts. Single copy requests competition. Awards of $5000 are given for may be sent to: NEH 1989 Annual Report, .. research proposals that examine the relationship Room 406, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, between the portrayal of sexuality and family Washington, DC 20506. planning issues in the media and the attitudes and behavior of adolescents . Rehabilitation Research Career .Applications may be submitted by Development Fellowship, Baylor College of students affiliated with any academic Medicine, The Institute for Rehabilitation and organization. Proposals may include studies, Research. One- or preferable two-year research, dissertations, surveys and media fellowships are available to equip rehabilitation analyses. Predoctoral research is encouraged. To professionals to function as independent receive an application, contact Media Research investigators. Fellowships are supported by a Scholarships Competition Center for Population grant from the National Institute on Disability Options, 12023 1/2 Ventura Blvd., #2, Studio . and Rehabilitation Research and consist of an City, CA 91604. (202) 347-5700. Although 1990 intensive mentorship experience, exposure to the deadline is long past, they may still be worth administration of rehabilitation research contacting. programs, and formal course work. Eligibility requirements include: 1) a doctoral degree or GSA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program other appropriate terminal degree in a discipline in Applied Gerontology. Since 1974, the relevant to medical rehabilitation; and 2) status Fellowship Program in Applied Gerontology of as a citizen or non-citizen national of the United the Gerontological Society of America has been States or of its possessions or territories, or placing postdoctoral ·researchers in service lawfully admitted to the United States of delivery/planning agencies for three-six months to permanent residence. Stipends from $16,000 to work on specific problems identified by the $40,000. Phone or write for information to: agency. The technical assistance provided by the Marcus J. Fuhrer, Ph.D., Department of Physical fellows covers a wide range of issues from Medicine and Rehabilitation, 1333 Moursund developing survey instruments to preparing Ave., Houston, TX 77030; (713) 799-7011. manuals and outreach programs, to solving management problems, to establishing quality control procedures, etc. Agency participants are selected on the basis of the importance and general applicability of the proposed project. Fellows are selected according to their expertise Stephen Fielding, Northeastern in conducting agency projects and they conduct University, is writing a book which presents research in a service delivery agency for three malpractice suits from the perspective of the months during the summer for a stipend of people directly involved. If you would like to $6,500. recount your experience for others, he would like 1991 Program: Agency applications are to interview you. For further information, due September, 1990, and Fellow applications are contact: Views of Patients and Physicians, due February, 1991. Contact: Lori Simon- Stephen Fielding, P.O. Box 142, Waverly, MA Rusinowitz, Program Director, Gerontological 02179. Society of America, 1275 K Street, N.W~, Suite 350, Washington, D.C. 20005-4006. (202) 842- I would like to solicit information about 1275. prejudice-reduction strategies regarding persons with disabilities. In particular, I would like The National Endowment for the specific references (published or contact persons) Humanities 24th Annual Report contains brief to strategies aimed at changing attitudes toward descriptions of Endowment programs as well as a persons with disabilities. These strategies might complete listing of all Endowment grants, include role playing exercises, and so forth. The entered by the division and program in which references should include a description of the

10 strategy and/or an evaluation of the strategy's next year's AEJMC convention in Boston. The effectiveness to change attitudes. Also, I would group will also work to set up a display featuring like specific· references (published or contact new technology for journalists and journalism persons) for ethical debates about the use of students with disabilities. The. Committee is also ' such strategies. If you have such references, collecting information on the topic of training please contact me: Gary Kiger~ Department of individuals with disabilities to be joutnalists. If Sociology, Utah State University, Logan, UT anyone has any such information, it can be sent 11 11 84322-0730. Bitnet% Kiger@USU • to John S. Clogston, School of Journalism; Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI I would like to find an anthropologist 48824-1212. For more information on the with experience as a script writer for film and/or committee, contact Michael R. Smith,. Assistant video production to work with me this .summer Professor of Mass Communication, Lycoming on two post-production projects. The video tapes College, Williamsport, PA 17701-5192. are cross-cultural studies of agriculture,· health and aging from a political economic perspective. Fact Sheet: "Create A New Word". Please write to Jack R. Rollwagen, 56 Centennial Contest. What: Contest designed to create a Ave, Brockport, NY 14420; (716) 637-6531. positive word to describe "people with disabilities." Why: Current words to describe I am completing a dissertation at the people with disabilities, such as disabled, California School of Professional Psychology. I handicapped, crippled etc. have negative need married couples in which the husband if connotations. ·The· 43 million Americans who paraplegic and the wife .is able-bodied. Both must have physical or mental impairments need a word be willing to· spend about two hours completing that describes their. abilities, not their disabilities. anonymous questionnaires. No personal contact Rules: Entries should. consist of either a single is necessary. All participation is done by mail. All new word or a new combina.tion of existing information received will be kept anonymous and words with a clear single meaning -- a positive confidential. If you or anyone you know would description of people with disabilities. The only be interested in participating in this study: Please rule for creating the new word. is imagination! call collect -- Laureen Light, M.A. (213) 214- Entries must be postmarked no later than 1840. November 30, 1990 and sent to: NCF Contest, 2301 Argonne Drive, Baltimore, MO 21218. If you have bool,cs or journals you wish More than one· entry per person is allowed,. to donate, please send them to: Institution fot however, please include a separate envelope of Research of Social Systems, Attn: Alois Urbis, p9stcard for each~ Prize: Person submitting. 739 Ostravice 428, Czechoslovakia. Claim a tax winning entry will be awarded a check for deduction equal to used book value from a $50,000. Sponsor: The 11 Cteate a New Word" bookstore and $5 a volume for journals. Contest is being sponsored by the National Cristina Foundation (NCF) 42 Hillcrest Drive, Committee On People With Disabi1ities Pelham Manor, NY 10801; (914)738-7494 Fax: Formed By AEJMC. The Committee on People (914) 738-1571, a not-for-profit foundation which with Disabilities of the Association for Education distributes commercially obsolete computers, in Journalism and Mass Communication software, video and audio equipment at no cost, (AEJMC) met·August 11, 1990 during the to organizations, nationwide, which· train people AEJMC annual convention in Minneapolis. The with disabilities to iead productive lives. NCF newly organized group, chaired by Michael R. freely shares all applications developed for earlier. Smith of Lycoming College, is concerned with generation technology with organizations who education of journalism students who have need this information. Judges: The English disabilities, teaching journalism students about Department of Johns Hopkins University will disability issues and media coverage (including select 200 words from the initial entries, which use of language) of individuals with disabilities. will then be sent. to a judging panel of seven well- The committee voted to set up a plenary known novelists, journalists, etymologists and · session on mass communication and disability for people with disabilities who will. meet on or

11 about January 14, '1991. Info: To find out more enhance available knowledge about issues of about entering the· contest and receive free chronicity. Confidentiality of the survey literature, call 1/900-988-WORD. (There is a respondents must be respected,. and names· of $3.00, tax deductible charge for the call, with respondents must not ever be released. Contact proceeds going lb National Cristina Fpundation ' Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, 605 Maple Park Drive, St. to help carry on their work). Paul, MN. 55118, with your idea of how you would envision using the valuable information in The funniest thing that ever happened to these· surveys. me .and my disability. The Hospital for Sick Children is starting a Humour and Disability Library to help children cope with their disabilities, with. environmental barriers, with · hospital, school; transit systems, with staring ( or ignoring), and with false assumptions people make about what. they can or cannot do. For On May 3, 1990, The Presidents . more information, contact Dr. Arlette Lefebvre, Committee on Employment of People with Staff Psychiatrist, The Hospital for Sick Children, Disabilities named the folkrwirlg as 1990 Media 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario MSG Award winners: 1X8 Cariada; (416) 598-7526. Johri Seigenthaler for "Breaking .Down . the Barriers," a four-part series seen on WSMV- The Little City Foundation is producing TV in Nashville, TN. The series examined the a public access cable television program called attitudes facing people with disabilities that make "Given- Opportunities...," a monthly national equality hard for them to obtain and stressed video magazine. The program highlights the w_ays. to break down these barriers. People with accomplishments and abilities of people with disabilities participated in the series .. Category: developmental challenges. Little City is interested Commercial, electronic medium. in individuals who have succeeded as a result of Montana Governor's Committee on. being given an opportunity, or people who have Employment of People with Disabilities for its achieved beyond the limits and barriers imposed . 30-second pubiic service announcement . upon them by society, circumstances or their "Montana." The spot, aired .on TV throughout challenges. The Foundation will also be an Montana, is an effort to show Montana information source covering education, employers what workers .with disabilities can do. ' residential, vocati~nal and recreational Since the airing, several employers have opportunities ijvaifable. expressed interest in. hiring persons who are If you have any ideas or disabled. Category: -Government, electronic recommendations for people or programs that medium. you feel deserve to be spotlighted on a national Illinois Department of Rehabilitation program, please contact us at: "Given Services for it's "Disability Employment Opportunities... ," c/o The Little City Foundation, Awareness Monthly Media Packet." The packet, 4801 W. Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL 60604. (312) which received wide coverage in Illinois, focused 282-2207. · on job trends and included information on work place accessibility, a poster, a 30-second spot for Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, author of two radio and a general release. Category: chronic illness books and many articles dealing Government, print medium. with issues surrounding chronicity, as well as WE Careers & Handicapped, Equal ARE NOT ALONE: Learning to Live with . Opportunity Publications, Greenlawn, New York, Chronic.Illness ( Workman 1986, New York),, Jim Schneider, Editor. This magazine, a winner has several hundred patient surveys full of of the Media Award in 1988, provides a variety personal information about chronic illness and. of information on career and job opportunities how it alters lifestyle. Would like a professional and includes free resume service as weli as. role or graduate student in the health care field model articles on per~ons who are disabled for interested in collating surveys and using them to college students and professionals. Also included

12 is a Braille section. Category: Commercial, print . very painful killing of humans and not a· kind medium. decision. by third parties exercising judgment "on their behalf. I' Further, this episode did not· · TASH.Media.Awards were presented to diminish the pain parents and concerned persons the following people and/or groups at the 16th may feel over such decisions, nor the seriousness Annual Conference in December 1989 in San of the decision. Finally, the courtroom drama Francisco, California. Film, Joe Dzenowagis, the wisely avoided the almost predictable scenario of Awareness Communication Team for the daughter making a dramatic and successful Developmentally Disabled and the League of attempt to communicate at the end of the story, Women Voters of Michigan for "You can Vote.11 which would have changed the issue altogether. The NBC television series L.A. Law. Print, Bella This episode was produced with much sensitivity English and the Boston Globe for "A Battle to and consistency in its ethical position. Belong". TASH congratulates the producers of "You Can Vote", Joe Dzenowagis, the L.A. Law on receiving the 1989 Media Award Awareness Communication Team for and also for their continuing portrayal of Ben as Developmentally Disabled and the League of a capable and feeling human being, which Women Voters of Michigan were co-recipients of contributes in an important ·and meaningful way the 1989 TASH Media Award in the film to building positive attitudes in the millions who category for their·production "You Can Vote." view L.A.·Law each week. "You Can Vote" is a compelling, "A Battle to Belong", Reporter, Bella powerful and persuasive example of the belief English~ and the Boston Globe were the that all persons, no matter how severe their recipients of the 1989 Media Award in the print disabilities, can think , make choices and category in· recognition of the article entitled "A communicate their choices. And, as the film Battle to Belong." points· out, they have the right to do so. This The February 13, 1989 column.entitled video encourages citizens with severe . "A Battle to Belong11 is an outstanding example developmental disabilities. to vote by helping of work that recognizes the needs and rights of them overcome barriers to voting. It also helps · persons who have severe disabilities. Bella the public, election workers, parents· direct-care English's article accurately depicts Joan and staff and human service professionals· recognize Hugh Slleridan's struggle with the Needham the abilities and rights of people with School District to keep their son D'Arey, out of developmental disabilities, who as Americans, can segregated classrooms and into regular dasses, in participate in the community and mainstream of the least restrictive environment as the" law states. American life. Her article helps to raise awareness about severe Produced by Joe Dzenowagis, Stan disability issues and promotes positive change for Smart and Denise Mogos, Associate Producers, people with. severe disabilities. "You Can Vote11 is a 30-minute close-captioned Bella English writes a weekly column broadcast-quality television. program that was that appears in the Boston Globe. The media can made for television and for distribution on home exert a powerful influence to help change video in VI:IS format. It also includes four negative attitudes towards people with television public service spots and three radio disabilities, and thus, help them gain access and . spots for media use state-wide. It was distributed acceptance in their communities. TASH salutes free of charge to 67 cable stations state-wide and Bella for her use of appropriate language. aired on public television in Lansing and Detroit, the nation's seventh largest television markeL . A New Name for NESS/AADC Awards. Public service spots were broadcast on 20 The National Easter Seal television stations and 15 radio stations. Society/American Association of Disability LA. Law, The L.A. Law television series Communicators Communications Awards will, received the 1989 Media Award in the film henceforth, be known as the EDI Awards. The category. The January 12, 1989 episode focused name change was initiated to better reflect that on the ethical issue that the cessation of the awards are given for media efforts in hydration and nutrition is actually the slow and promoting the ,Equality, Dignity and

13 Independence of persons with disabilities and the Walt Disney World - "What's Next - Graduation". issues and conditions · · Target Stores - print advertising section. that affect them. The 1990 EDI Awards ceremony will Media Awards Given by Disability take place October 10 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Tavern Organizations. on the Green in New York City. The following organizations have a media awards program: Announcing the 1990 EDI Award Winners. National Easter Seals Society, American Association of Disability Communicators, EDI News Story - Print. Awards for media efforts in promoting equality, BUSINESS WEEK, "An Enabling Law for the dignity and independence of people with Disabled," June 11, 1990. disabilities. Deadline June 15, 1991. (312) 726- NEW YORK TIMES, "The Disabled Find a 6200. Voice and Make Sure It Is Heard, March 18, Media Access· Office, Media Access 1990. . Awards of the California Governor's.Committee USA TODAY, "Create a Society Open to for Employment of Disabled Persons, presented Everyone," May 15, 1990. in affiliation with the President's Committee on US NEWS & WORLD REPORT, "Liberation Employment of People with Disabilities Call for Day for the Disabled," September 18, 1989. deadline - (916) 323-2545. WALL STREET JOURNAL, Americans with President's Committee on Employment Disabilities Act coverage, May 23, 1990. · of People with Disabilities Special Media Award Feature Story • Print. at national conference, Call for more information AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS Magazine, - 9202) 653-5044. 11From Handicap to Advantage," April· 1990. The Association for Persons with Severe ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, "The Going Is Handicaps (TASH), TASH Media Awards (print Still Rough,11 October 5, 1989. media and film media), Deadline July 29, 1991. SCREEN ACTOR, Spring 1990, Issue devoted Call for more information - (206) 523-8446. to performers with disabilities WOMEN'S DAY · Magazine, "I Hear Her Smiles,'' March 20, 1990 News· Story - Broadcast. ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT, 0Changing Attitudes of Hollywood Toward People with Physical Disabilities," March 26, 1990. CBS SIXTY MINUTES, "King Jordan," March Special Report: Access To 11, 1990. Telecommunications, The "Hofstra University Feature Story - Broadcast. CABLE NEWS National Survey on Telephone Services and NETWORK/MEDICAL NEWS, "Disabled Products: The Views of Disabled and Older Fitness," April 30, 1990. CABLE NEWS Americans" was released March 8. The study NETWORK/fRAVEL GUIDE, "The Disabled asked 1,000 deaf, blind, learning disabled and Traveler;' February, 1990. physically disabled people and persons aged 50 or NBC SUNDAY TODAY, "Project over about their telecommunication needs and Child,'' April 29, 1990. views. A total of 428 useable responses were Advertising. received. The responses are important because 11 11 Days Inn of America/Babbit & Reiman - Guest • Congress now is considering amending the 1934 IBM Corporation/Lord, Geller, Federico, Communications Act to, among other things, re- Einstein - "IBM National Support Center for define the bedrock term "universal service". . Persons with Disabilities. The key finding was that people with Kai Kan Foods, Inc./Backer Spielvogel Bates - disabilities, whether under 50 or over, want an "Wiskas Select Cat Food". · accessible network, one that gives them M & M Mars, Inc.ID'Arey Masius Benton & information in appropriate media. Blind and Bowles - "Life Sweeter". learning disabled' persons wanted Yellow and Nike, Inc./Wieden & Kennedy - "Blanchette: White Pages and other information sorted

14 electrpnical,y arid offered by voice. Deaf provides_ st~p-by-step· procedures for successful respondents wanted equal access to information ·maintenance of person_s with developmental now available only by voice. Older and physically disabilities in integrated job settings. ·disabled ·people-Stressed their need for in.Stant, effective access to life-safety and health services~ Abernathy,. Charles Daniel.. Detours:· bne way to look at the findings is to say Biographies of Physically Disabled Achievers.

that disabled and older Americans want .Salem, Oregon 97302, P.O. Bo:x 3101: T.E7A.M. something like section 508 .. PL 99-506, the Savers, 1990, 29. pp., $7~95 includes shipping ·and, . Rehabilitation :Act· Amendments of 1986, stated ' mai1ing. . . .. -in section 508 that all electronic office products Abernathy states his purpose up front: , .. purchased, leased or rented by federal agencies "The individuals portrayed here are not to be must be accessible to people with disabilities.. viewed as 'superheroes'' but as persons whq. have . There is now. no requirement, in any . lived or are living lives· filled with triumphs and federal or state law, that telephone services and defeats which are common to all of us." Well and ·· . products be accessible. were -"universal good. But when he adds that 11this collection is· service11re-defined to mean that At&T and local designed to illuminate the realities behirid the · telephone companies must provide. telephone names and their successes," he is stretching. For services people can despite disability, future this is after all. a 29 page docurilent·with' over a Services' and products would.be accessible. Free · 100 listings, divided into 8 chapters by disability - copies available· from; Counseling, Research, amputation, birth deformity, blindness, deafness, Special Education and Rehabilitation Dept., 111 ill health, lameness, nervous disorders, paralysis. Mason, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY · Since each entry averages between 6 and .8 lines, 11550. (516) 560-5782. ·it can do little more than· cite· their major · disabilities and major achievement~ .aild few other 11realities.11 On the other hand, a boolc like . this must signify that people with disabilities have joined the ranks of other minority. groups with their own similar aeknowledgemerit of 11roots.11 I must also admit that like the person who publicly On May 3, 1990 The Presidents disavows.ever watching TV, .Jam a closet reacier- Committee on Employment of People with . of such tomes, delighting ·in the fact that.x or y Disabilities named the following·as 1990 Book was and is ... Those who join me in such pursui,ts, Awards winners: will not be disappointed. ·Of course, I knew about · Take Charge, by Rami Rabby and Diane J1:1.mes J0yce. and Dudley Moote but Goya, Croft. National Braille Press, Inc., Boston Voltaire,· Talleyrand, Heine, Pasteur and i Massachusetts. Take Charge: A Strategic Guide Whitman???. (Irving Kenneth Zola). for Blind Job Seekers, promotes the idea that "it's time· for p~ople who are blind to take charge Beisser, Arnold R., Flying Without of their own career exploration and.job search Wings. New York, NY, Doubleday, 1989, 189 campaign." The self.,.help guide uses real-life. · pp., $15.95 hardcover experiences ofpersons who are blind as they ·This is.Arnold Beisser's personal story of searched for and found: employment. It proposes remaking his life after contracting one pf the last . strategies for dealing with a resistant job market. polio epidemics of the 50's.· He was completely · Social Competence for Workers with paralyzed, confined to an iron lung ~d ii Developmental Disabilities; edited by Carl F. subsequently, a reclining wheel".'chair in which he Calkins and Hill M~ Walker. Paul·H: Brookes can spend. limited periods of. time. Publishing Co., Baltimore, Maryland. Designed A former athlete who wanted to specifically for use by employment practitioners experience everything of life, he now finds and training specialists, policy-inakers,job himself in the role of a spectator. He determines· coaches, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and to become an· active, rather than·passive, . others involved in job placement for persons ~th observer. Having completed medical training just· developmental disabilities, this hands-on. text befor~ being stricken with illness, he becomes a

15 psychiatrist, and is now a clinical professor of· This guy is a rolling projective test. psychiatry at U

victim, whining over injustices that he could do .. ' som~thing about it if he only applied himself. Connor, Linda, Patsy Asch anc;l Timothy· . Still others may not analyze and just appreciate Asch. JeroTapakan: Balinese Healer. his w~ped sense of humor. Cambridge: Cambridg¢ University Press, 1986, 284pp. .

16 This book is the result of the have battled mental disabilities, while others have collaborative efforts of an anthropologist and a experienced living with a chronic illness. Their film maker who prepared four films about a individual experiences are presented to the Balinese healer. It effectively presents descriptive reader with humor, anger; questions, and data about traditional Balinese healing practices reflection. How disability is talked about is a while it describes the process and limitations of recurring theme. Language and media portrayal using film fqr presenting ethnographic material. that reflects a negative attitude toward disability · The basis of this book and the films to is the focus of "Cripple-Shooting in America." accompany it are translated and transcribed The cold, scary medical language used to describe interviews with the healer and her patients. It specific disabilities is examined and questioned in also includes some background data on Balinese "The Dystonian.11 Fluffy disability phrases, like culture and history. The four events that are able-disabled and physically challenged, are included in both the book and the films are·: 1) a targeted in "I Am Not One of The.11 For each trance seance where Jero contacts spirits at the piece that reflects the pain, frustration, loss, and request of the parents of a dead child in order to insecurity disability can inflict qn a person's life,. determine the cause of death; 2) an interview there are two that mirror the sensitivity, hope, made while anthropologist and healer watch, the wit, determination, and creativity employed by above film; 3) a massage administered as part of the anthology contributors to accept themselves the healing process for an individual suffering and to make a place for themselves in this world. from sterility and epilepsy; and, 4) a descriptive Anyone interested in gaining insight into what it series of stories by the healer describing her life. means to live with a disability could do so by The films were not reviewed. spending a couple of hours perusing the writings and art in Close to the Truth. The pity with a Th'is book and the accompanying films powerful collection like this is that it will not be do not appear· to have any direct relevance to the read by a broader audience. field of disability studies. The information contained in the book is relevant to an . Gilman, Sander L. Disease and . anthropologist trying to develop an Representation: Images of Illness from Madness understanding of traditional medicine and to AIDS. Itacha: Cornell. University Press, 1987; spirituality among the people of Bali. However, it 320 pp., $13.95 paperback. should be noted that the material is primarily In his earlier work Difference and ethnographic in nature and contains little in the Pathology (1985) Gilman explored the origins of way of explanation or theory. On the other hand 19th century images associating race, sexuality this limitation makes the material (particularly and madness. In Disease and Representation when combined with the films) an excellent case (1988) Gilman continues to decode the study for use in teaching. (Douglas V. Krefting, underlying structures of representation which are Kingston, Ontario) part of the Western discourse of diseas~, the discourse that defines 'the diseased' as Other. Ellefson, Mary Ann, Close to the Truth, The 'deep structure' of stereotypes is in this work Berkeley, CA: KIDS Project Press, 1989, 80 pp., only sketchily examined,. the main focus is on the $10.00 softcover (large print, spiral binding). ways in which the Western association of disease Close to the Truth is an anthology with chaos and loss of control has been featuring the creative works of women and men manifested in art, science and the news media. with .disabilities. It is the third such collection of For while origfoating in a psychological need of art, prose and poetry put together as a distancing the Other, the actual construction of complement to an annual Disability Awareness stereotypes can be understood only in asocial Fair in Berkeley, California. This anthology is and historical context. indeed "close to the truth" as it reflects the Through a number of case studies, multifarious nature of the disability experience. ranging from the social history of medical Some of the contributors were born with a illustratic;ms of 'the insane' to the iconography of disability. Others became disabled after having the AIDS patient in contemporary news media, experienced life _as able-bodied people. Some he demonstrates not only how representations of

17 illness fulfill the need to demarcate a line and politi98,1 character· beyond the basic need to between us and the Other, but how the image of distance the Other. · the Other as inherently different has been Disease and Representation is a internalized and reproduced by Others '\ , remarkable rich and innovative contribution to themselves. the study of cultural images ofillness. Although In contrast to the admirers of the . Gilman does not deal with the actual social Prinzhorn collection of 'the art of the insane', implications of his findings at any length, his who interpret the meaning-of these paintings·on analysis nevertheless. shows how perceptions of the premise that only the mentally ill themselves 'the diseased' and 'the insane' affect their possess true insight to the nature of their illness treatment. His main purpose, however, is to and their treatment, Gilman traces in these catch the manifestations of our denial of the· works of art the symbolic representations that difference within, and this he does with. are part of the Western tradition of visualizing extraordinary accuracy and stylistic beauty. the insane. Van Gogh' did:not create his images (Katarina Wegar, Brandeis University) of the mental asylum out of personal experience alone; his works are embedded in "the greater • Holcomb, Nan, How About A Hug. historical context of these works through his Exton, PA: Jason and Nordic Publishers, 1983. adaption of earlier structures of depicting the Kneeland, Linda, eo·okie. Exton, PA: insane" (p. 125). And in the libretto of Richard - Jason .and Nordic Publishers, 1989. Strauss' opera Salome, Gilman detects the · Holcomb, Nan, Patrick and Emma Lou. ambiguity of German-Jewish self understanding Exton, PA~ Jason and Nordic Publishers, 1989. at the turn of the century. Strauss' mix of text; Holcomb, Nan, A Smile From Andy. tones and instruments indicate a complex Exton, PA: Jason and Nordic Publishers, 1989. internalized image of Jewishness, homosexuality .. Holcomb, Nan, Andy Finds a Turtle. and models of disease. In yet another case-study, Exton, PA: Jason and Nordic Publishers, 1987. the triumph of Western medical: colonialism is · Holcomb, Nan, Danny, and the Merry- illustrated by the influence of Western modes of Go-Round. Exton, PA: Jason and Nordic visualizing illness on the old Chinese tradition of Publishers, 1984. medical illustration. These six books are mainly for preschool In a chapter on contemporary· images of children coming to grips with their own disease, popular representations of the AIDS disabilities. They might also be useful for patient are recognized as a direct analogue to the brothers and sisters or friends of children with five-hundred-year old iconography of the disabilities.. syphilitic. The media images of AIDS in the The first book deals with Down's 1980's reveal power structures similar to those · Syndrome and the second with communications that shaped the image of the syphilitic: As in the disorder and the use of sign language. The last images of the syphilitic, the AIDS patient has four deal with cerebral palsy, and its physical been commonly portrayed as a suffering male therapy. How About A Hug seems to be the infected by a morally debased female. And like most juvenile and almost strikes this reviewer as other representations of 'the diseas~d', visions of being saccharine. All of the books are laudable in the AIDS patient are grounded in the need to their attempts to build self-esteem and deal with . locate the origin of disease in a distant an clearly real life situations faced by children with identifiable source (such as homosexuality). In a disabilities like going to therapy and having cross cultural comparison, Gilman shows how difficulties .in communicating. Americans originally labelled the disease as As a middle-aged person with-a· "African" or "Haitian", while the French and the disability, I wished as I read these-books that Russians visualized it as "American"· in origin. such literature had. been available when I was Just as Oscar Wilde's homosexuality at the turn young. Even if story lines are simplistic, it's just of the century was employed by the· German nice to see someone like yourself featured in a press and political authorities as a metaphor for book.· the decadence and decline of British culture, Bravo to Jason and Nordic Publishers images of AIDS have taken on an ideological for this series. (Katherine.Schneider, Counseling

18 Center, University of Scranton). been informed by illness. Finally, this rather uneven volume docs K.idel, Mark and Susan Rowe-Leete, Eds. The something very impressive: it includes a Meaning of Illness . New York: Routledge, 1988. persuasive argument by Guggenbuhl-Craig that 170 pps., $39.95 hardcover, $13.95, softcover. rigorously questions the main premise of many.of This collection of varied essays arose from the other essays. Without undermining this two conferences held in 1985 and 1986 in premise, he thoughtfully criticizes "psychosomatic Devon, England, which explored the meaning of moralism,11 a problematic perspective that nagged illness. In the volume which has been culled from this reader in many. places. (Rosemarie Thomson, these conferences, an assortment of medical and English Department, Brand,eis University) psychology professic:mals, as well as articulate and analytical lay people who have experienced illness Kubey, Robert and Mihaly as patients, explore particular perspectives in an Csikszentmihalyi. Television and the Quality of attempt to reframe illness as fr has been Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience. traditionally defined by Western medicine and. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, culture. In the main, the contributors argue for 1990, 296 pp., $39.95 hardcover, $19.95 paper. a holistic view of illness, one which undoes the Out of the laboratory and into the daily · body/mind and health/illness dichotomies which lives of people Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi are so pervasive in Western thought. All investigate the impact of television. Their book advocate a dialectical perspective regarding the builds slowly discussing the ways to think about relation between health and illness, and--as might information reception, the place of television in be expected--homeopathic medicine and Jungian the leisure time pursuits of western industrialized psychology are the central focuses guiding most . societies, previous television research and a of the essays. promising new technique, the Experience The essays seem to fall into three categories, Sampling Method (ESM). The latter is a wedding according to level· of abstraction: the theoretical, of good old questionnaire construction and new the practical, and the personal. In terms of high tech. Participants were given electronic theory, Tatham proposes a Hegelian model which beepers which randomly signalled them 6 to 8 reads health as thesis, disease as antithesis, and times a day for a week to record activities and psychological growth as the synthetic outcome: experiences as they actually occurred - clearly a Norland provides an extensive explication of method with relevance to a wide range of topics. homeopathic theory, including charts and jargon, Building on 13 years worth of studies, whose tone is quite scientific. In contrast is many of them cross-cultural, this book integrates · Ziegler's esoteric mystical-religious piece on this previous work with an intensive analysis of homeopathy,·which· he calls "inorbistic ritual." 107 adults. They reaffirm what many have Hill also gives an overview of Chinese medical claimed that television is the overwhelming.out- theory. of-work time filler. Its effect on th~ quality of life The essays oriented toward practice· include is a grim one, encouraging greater passivity in McCormick's reading of heart attack as a sign of general, even towards those with whom they are repressed emotion and Kitto's lucid and inspiring now in more contact as a result of shared explanation of how she involves patients in their watching - their family. Heavy viewing, as own healing process. Kraemer also gives an expected, make things worse. It dulls the senses interesting account of how psychosomatic illness and people become less analytic and more functions in family systems. accepting of what they see. Though many of their Although some practical essays have a · findings vary by age, gender, race and social class personartone, only one essay is strictly the general trends, even across quite diverse autobiographical, and it is the most successful populations, are remarkable similar. , and convincing one in the volume, I believe. In Studies such as those described in it, Jo Spence, a photographer who has breast television and the Quality of Life represent the cancer, demonstrates in moving prose how her next stage for disability studies research. For illness as well as her response to it have grown years we have documented the unrepresentative out of her life experience and how her life has portrayals of persons with disabilities. While

19 much has been made about 'the progress' in: "amputated" by a virus, the small vengeances of movies (e.g. Driving Miss Daisy, Born on the the dehumanized--and to do so candidly, bluntly, Fourth of July, My Left Foot), television is where honestly. the action is. We need to know even more how . Yet despite this fact; the first burbling people receive and react to· the messages of TV. · blurb on the back cover of this thin little Kubey and Csikszentmihaly provide an important chapbook of poems opens with (for such substantive· and methodological framework circumstances) the seemingly compulsory: "Mark · essential to our further understanding of the O'Brien is brave." Always, that eternal, abiding subtitle of their work .: how viewing shapes adjective-~inevitable; inescapable, unfailing as everyday experience. (Irving Kenneth Zola). death: 11Mark O'Brien-is brave." Yet while the critic is so sanctimoniously engaged, Mark Moss, Deborah, Shelley, The·Hyperactive O'Brien himself proclaims with Whitmanesque Turtle. Kensington, MD: Woodbine House, 20 fury, "I scream the body electric," and, with the pp., $12.95 hardcover. master thus properly metamorphosed, seeks to · Moss, Deborah, Lee, The Rabbit with delineate the country far beyond the bounds of Epilepsy. Kensington,.MD: Woodbine House, 20 such petty condescensions. In this poem entitled pp., $12.95 hardcover. simply "The Man in the Iron Lung"--one of the · Children with special needs sometimes best in the volume--Whitman's "body electric" is need special bo~ks. These two friendly and startlingly transformed into "This yellow, metal, informative books use imaginative characters to pulsing cylinder/ Whooshing all day; all night," help kids (and their friends and siblings)· while the mind, "Dream-drenched cartographer understand some of the difficulties for of terra incognita,/ Draws upon the dark · "hyperactive" children and children with seizure parchment of sleep.".· With imagery such as this disorders. Shelley is a cute hyperactive turtle who· (reminiscent, as so frequent in his work, of the can't sit still and frustrates himself and others; he seventeenth century), O'Brien manages to convey wants to do· better, but can't.·After examination a stark sense of his encapsulated (but rich) life.. and treatment by· a· doctor, including ·medication, His may be a "limited, awkward, declase/ Body Shelley isn't as "wiggly and mumpy11 as he was · electric," ever whispering "promises of health,11 before. Lee is a rabbit with "absence" seizures, so whooshing "lies of invulnerability," sighing · she blanks out while fishing with her grandpa "sibilantly, seraphically, relentlessly," but, in the ·and can't remember it. She goes with her·family face of such control, 1et us not condescend. to a doctor, who diagnoses her as having epilepsy In O'Brien's better work, one always has and prescribes medications. She proves her ability a sense of a mind grounded in, but not overawed ori a fishing trip· with grandpa, catching him by, a literary culture. Note, for example,. the falling asleep when the fish are biting. The books delightful simplicity which opens "Breathing," the have lovely illustrations (by Carol Schwartz) and title poem for this volume: "Grasping for straws 11 a catchy story line; my kids learned about these is easier;/ You can see· the straws. ·. Then, this is problems when we read the books together. One • followed immediately by a quotation from· hopes that. Woodbine House soon will publish Shakespeare's The Tempest, while the entire less expensive paperback editions ·of these remaining body of the poem is committed to the delightful books. (Peter Conrad, Brandeis studied, almost overly ostentatious, creation· of a University) measureless universe of air,. "a dense, heavy, blue- glowing ocean" of ''vast, circumambient · O'Brien, Mark. Breathing. Austin, atmosphere," which, in the simple, nicely Texas: Littledog Press, 1990, 22 pp., $3.00. understated closing lines, "I inhale anyway." Here is a volume of disability poetry well But let me return for a moment to my worth our. attention: it· is tough without opening remarks about brave, etc. Mr. O'Brien bitterness, sensitive without sentimentality,· must- himself bear, in part, the responsibility for demanding and forceful without apology. ·It is a that sort ·of attitude toward him as a writer and a poetry that seeks to address the unaddressable, human being, since it seems clear that he either the unmentionable, the forbidden--the chose (or allowed to. stand) the picture of himself circumscribed life ofthe iron lung, a childhood in an iron lung that graces the cover of the

20 booklet. Besides, the poetry in this volume is all children explore their. thoughts and feelings on too solipsistic: there are, after all, other themes the matter. This book provides a critical · in the universe than one's own ego, and other · assessment of sample texts grouped according to subjects than one's own disability. We would like common issues, general .relevance, and specific to. see more work like "To Karen," his memorial significance for children along the functional to a kid sister, dead at seven. One could. scarcely continuum from learning disabilities through better the quiet simplicity and poign~cy of 11able-bodied disabilities" ..to severe impairment. But more: a question-guide for evaluating books 11 The sister who has preceded me in death for appropriateness ("Choosing and Usirtg ... ), ·. As I preceded her in life . and a teaching model. But more! In this work . I think o( you as an older· sister now, are the very seeds of what a society believes and · Beyond my reach, as gone as childhood, passes on about disability. For this reason, any Acquainted with the ultimate, as I am student of the disability rights ·movement should not. read this book for what it teaches about mistakes Pray for me, Karen, and possibilities. Not only is the book consistent Now and at the hour of my death. with tenets.of the movement-=-this could be a movement handbookM-it's all here, ,it contributes. Yet even this highly· crafted elegy is marred, early Those interested in an. international view on, by what one can only call an obtruding, will find instruction on The Warnock Committee, wounded self. The poet has need to be schooled British counterpart to our PL 94~142 (The more securely in the lessons of objectivity and Education of All Handicapped Children Act; and distance. · terminology--"integration", for instance, for our Nevertheless, as one can perhaps see 11 mainstreaming11 concept--especially helpful. What even from the necessarily abridged quotations isn't clear in context, is explained in a glossary. here; there is some fine· poetry brought together The universality of where we have been and · in this slender little volume. Yet, it must be where we must go, beginning with our ·young, is . admitted too, the work is quite uneven. One the message: how we treat our children tells how comes away with the feeling that here is a poet we choose to teach the world about disability. who is still learning his craft, one who does not For a taste of why you should read this yet have full control of his material. Still, there book, try this: is a great deal of strength in O'Brien's work, and "In the spastics ward,. six-year-old. Shirley I look forward to seeing him grow as a poet. · played with her tears, whirling her (Joseph L. Baird, Kent State University). fingers disconsolately round in them as they puddled on the bare table in front Quicke, John. Disability in Modern of her. Her a~ions epitomized a bleak Children's Fiction. Cambridge, MA:. Brookline existence. One of the visitors said, 'These Books, 1985, 176 pp., $17.95 hardcover; children are cabbages' and the others . . Every parent teacher, counselor, agreed with him, but perhaps it had not therapist, doctor, nurse, librarian and occurred to them to look at Shirley and 11 admirtistrator--and their educators--concerned consider that cabbages don't cry. . (p.3). about the health development of both children (Pat Ranzon_i, Education/Independent who have, and those who ·do not have disabilities, Living Consultant, Word Dance Communica- should read this book. As a parent, former tions, Bucksport, Maine) teacher, child development specialist/advocate and child/family counselor, I am dogmatic when York, Phyllis and David., editors, Getting it comes to promoting a resource of this quality Strong in all the Hurting Places. New York: with a message this important. Rawson Associates, 1989, 249 pp., $19.95 Quicke's· premise: all. programs involving hardcover. any children should include an element designed · Toughies Phyllis and David York, co- to encourage positive attitudes and actions founders of the Toughlove program for troubled towards children with disabilities; and should use · families, have added to their life"'.adjustment the possibilities inherent in fiction to help all offerings with this his/her journal of her ..

21 paralyzing fall and their accidental birth to new money worries.. Her personal clothing designer ways of life. Getting Strong~... tells their truth. and shopping trips to Bloomingdale's helped but We recognize denial, grief, guilt, fear, could not save Jewish Phyllis from hating her anger, dread, resentfulness, loss, pain, changed self-image: "I am garbage. The first to . vulnerability, isolation, panic, dependency, and go into the oven." (84) more, from their struggle through shock, self- Strengths: this is a SCI primer, pity, and the pervasive apology and death wish acknowledging that disabilities happen to whole characterizing their "version of hell," as they call ·circles of families and friends (not just the her spinal chord injury. Authentic dialogue and : injured person), and bring outthe worst and.best· anecdotes provide something for the 11bom-hurt,t1 in all of us.· It teaches what happens. to body and. "newly hurt;' and "long-injured," as well as spirit at different stages. It teaches about help, families, friends and helpers. Despair is relieved natural and professional, from different by the black ,humor we get so good at, e.g., "God ·perspectives, including excellent reality~based is no woman .... No woman would have given me recommendation. this inj~red body, a fat problem and my period, Favorite sections: a list of what her too.11 disability does for others, e.g., "It makes· people There's more on God, gurus and New . noble. I can b~ their mission;" (110) and a hotel Age, religious and feminist messages in the form ultimatum: "I want to do you afavor and offer of questioning, ·cursing, redefining~ This is a you the chance for some training in candid record dealing provocatively with accessibility...onTuesday... at 3..•..Or you can have ·sexuality, jealousy, prejudice, stereotyping, of a civil suit brought against you." (221) which P. does a little of her own with 11walkies,11 Getting Strong ... is alovesong of 11seeies,11 ''hearies,11 admitting "Every prejudice I blossoming interdependence. No judgments hold against myself I have had about. ..others.11 about how the Yorks survived, only appreciation (171) D., too, ·offends with language like. for the. lessons. (Patricia S. Ranzoni, Bucksport, 11 nuthouse.11 (211) ME) The Yorks were new to disability ethics; coming to the unfortunate, uninformed Ziporyn, Terra. Disease in the Popular conclusion that because 11 the disability community American· Press - The Case of Diphtheria; . does not really exist", she was needed to be the·· Typhoid Fever, and Syphilis, 1870-1920. "Martin Luther King of disability11 (235). By now, Contributions in Medical Studies, No. 24. it is hoped, she has met some of .ourleaders and Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988, 208 pp., · followers and joined her efforts to ours. $37.95~ . Which is not to say the movement hasn't At a time when the mass media is come a long way since her injury. We were out alternatively praised .and criticized for its there arid worked hard to find each other. A . portrayals of disease and disability, it as Terra resource list would have been possible, ·would · Ziporyn claims appropriate to stand back and have made it easier for those looking for us in · look at prior reporting 11 to see what was left out the future.· of the picture and to understand why." To this Other omissions were references to end she looks at three major· diseases - . technology that wouid have eased Phyllis' retum . diphtheria, typhoid fever and syphilis a·nd their to writing. Likewise there were no clues that a coverage in the popular press during the dawning professional counselor on their team could have of the bacteriological era in medicine, 1870-1920. eased emotional adjustments. Perhaps their After laying down some ground rules as to what commitment to self-help- they did acknowledge constitutes popular newspapers and magazines in the "instant brotherhood" peer factor'."- deprived . ·that period ( mostly the exclusion of the technical them of this source of support when a scientific journals and the very parochial and .. combination of self and professional help might local press) and a brief history. of the public's have eased soine of what they did to e_ach ·other "acquaintance" with science and medicine, struggling with the caretaker-as~lover thing. Ziporyn focusses on three separate case studies Financiai comfort' apparently· shielded and the metaphors that sustained their coverage. the Yorks from hassles about Social Security and Thus diphtheria was. the disease of the innocent

22 children, typhoid fever involved the social Brown. Born with cerebral palsy into a poor, indifference related to cleanliness and syphilis tight-knit Dublin family, he had severely impaired was intertwined with adult immorality. Externally speech and control of only his left leg. Movie coverage was driven by the general political critics say this story is about family, growing up climate (e.g. Progressivism), priming events ( e.g. and striving to make. oneself known, but not wars, medical miracles), and the necessity of the about "disablement.11 They don't want us to popular press to turn a profit. Internally it think it's depressing or saccharin. It about the depended on the knowledge of the writer, the things they describe, but· it's heart is about audience of the particular magazine and three growing up disabled. And for once we get things problems inherent in medical popularization: the from the disabled person's viewpoint. We quest for attractiveness, the attitude toward witness Christy Brown, boy and man, fighting to authority and the degree of accuracy. An overcome· bias, to get control of his life, to define emphasis on 'morality' fades in and out of the himself. The emotional .dynamic of this film. is picture but we need to be updated on its many his glorious disabled rage~ guises. For morality does not come forth solely in finger pointing at evil behavior and circumstance Most movie and TV tales show angry but may emerge as it has in the. late. 20th century handicapped people bitter about being disabled in the more euphemistic terms referred to as and succumbing to self-pity, who supposedly 1 11 '1ife-styles • need someone nondisabled to tell them. to stop Curious in a book like this is the feeling sorry for themselves. Only a few films omission of any mention of the work of Susan . have even begun to deal with prejudice, none Sontag our most provocative chronicler of with the indignation of MY LEFr FOOT. disease metaphors. Disease in the Popular Christy Brown is· funny, passionate and fiercely · American Press deserves a serious and wide refuses to put up with even a moment's reading but it sorely needs an epilogue. Ziporyn condescension. When a temporary aide is right that we need distance to capture certain addresses him in a tone he considers patronizing, insights. But now that we have them what can he snaps that he. doesn't need a psychology history tell us about contempory coverage of lesson, he needs his cigarette lighted. Packed in . today's triumvirate of dread diseases - AIDS, with disabled children at a clinic, he recoils Alzheimer's, ·and AIDS. (Irving Kenneth Zola) against being infantilized.

Like many disabled people, he aches to express himself romantically and sexually and knows he is devalued because of his disability. One critic expressed that bias, calling Brown "surprisingly romantic." It is surprising orily if In an issue devoted to media depictions of you think handicapped people are asexual, and disability, it seems appropriate to stop for a incapable of romantic love. Brown confronts the moment and reflect on the possible impact of issue head on. Sensing that one woman is both two major films playing across the world in attracted and anxious about feeling attracted to a theaters· and homes in the years 1988-90 and severely disabled man, he tells her straight out beyond. I am thus very pleased to be able to that she is afraid of him and herself. She is present these series of analytic reviews of Born drawn to not only his wit and charm but his on the Fourth of July and My Left Foot. emotional directness and strength. Capturing those qualities and her ambivalent reaction is The Glorious Rage of Christy Brown. by Paul K. part· of this film's fidelity to disabled people's Longmore, Department of History, Stanford experience. University~ · The attractive Dr. Eileen Cole helps the At last a movie utterly true to our young adult Christy, but also inflicts deep hurt. experiences as disabled people. MY LEFr She flirts with him. She lounges seductively on FOOT dramatizes the life of Irish writer Christy his bed. At his first art show, she drapes herself

23 over him like a lover. Then when he :summons "largely responsible" for· his education. He the courage. to· say he loves her, she sp!ings the teaches himself to paint, t.hen decides to write. news of her engagement. I have seen some · His book Down All the Days is one of the great · · professionals, both male and female, play this ·· modem Irish novels. He does need a lot of .help, kind of seductive game with disabled people. , It but his accomplishments belong to _him. is cruelly injurious, not because Christy's sexual and romantic feelings could never be fulfilled, . MY LEFT FOOT is emphatically not a but bec,ause Eileen encourages them with no "triumph-over-adversity" tale.· It is the story of a ,intention of satisfying them. disabled man's lifelong struggle against ·prejudice. Infuriated by ·it from boyhood on, he forces · When Christy finds out about Eileen; he nondisab1ed people to deal with him, sometimes is enraged because he now recognizes that she · with charm, sometimes with temper. We watch had ·unconsciously, but insensitively ·manipulated the devalued boy become. the leader of his him. He is also incensed that his .embarrassed·:· brothers· and virtual head of his family.· And the dinner compan~ons tty to stifle his anger. One tone is far from triumphal. Prejudice deeply tells· another to take his drink from him. Eileen's wounds him. Like many disabled people, he fiance tries to pull his wheelchair out of the . aches with the sense of being ·excluded. He fancy·restaurant they are iri. To Christy this is becomes alcoholic. He almost kills himself. If nondisabled people physically overpoweriqg him we find his rudeness unpleasant, we find his pain to control him~ He erupts, finally grabbing a an· but unbearable. The audience I sat in sighed tablecloth in his teeth and dragging everything on · with relief when we learned that he eventually it to the floor. married. Never has a film so relentlessly demanded that viewers feel the prejudice · Critics adopt the usual devaluing· inflicted on disabled people.: language. Brown is ''wheelchair-:bound" and· "almost completely immobilized." This is a boy The raves about Daniel Day-Lewis's we see rescue his injured .mother by hurling · performance as Christy go beyond the technical himself to the bedroom floor, scooting down the brilliance of his impersonation. He gets inside hall, kicking his right foot with his left to this disabled man's head. To do so he stayed in unwedge it in the narrow hallway, sliding dowri character as much as possible. · He used a the stairs,· and pounding· on the front door with wheelchair. He was lifted in. and out of cars. He that marvelous left foot. ··This is a young m·an we spoke with impaired speech. He had someone see playing football in the alley, blocking one feed him. He even dined in character in · field goal with his head ·and kicking ·another lying Dublins's best restaurants. Through that ex~rcise on his side. Christy Brown immobilized? My Day-Lewis felt something of our experience, "It's , 11 left foot! strange what happens," he says. ...even;though everybody knew who I was and what I was doing. Through the "love of his family and· the When people see someone in a wheelchair, their patience of his doctors," says one critic, "Christy attitudes change ...they start treating you like a learned how to be understood when he talked child." They talked around him as though he and to express himselr as a painter·and writer. were invisible. Without knowing it he had taken The only "doctor" is Eileen, a speech· therapist, on the "Crippled Role.11 Because he looked like not a physician. This reviewer like many a "cripple." Nonhandicapped people started nondisabled people, obviously thinks disabled . · treating him as one· of us. people are patients who mainly need medical treatment. Brown mainlf needs an education. Any disabled person could have This same critic makes .Eileen "largely predicted Day-Lewis's .reaction. He felt responsible" for it. ·Another says Christy ''wili be ·"incessant rage. 11 That is how he came to reached through her. 11 In real life too disabled understand the mind and heart of Christy Brown. people's achievements are ·often chalked up to That is how and why he and his colleagues can someone nondisabled who allegedly •:reached" us.· present this document of a disabled man's life, The film plainly shows that Brown· himself is · this fiercely honest; funny,. powerful and

24 empowering mirror of our lives as people with Daniel Day-Lewis' commitment toward disabilities. We need heroes, real disabled heroes his need to understand the real Christy· Brown who fight bias and battle for control of their lives made him "stay in character' all through the, and insist that they will make their mark in the filming period. This meant that Lewis world. A new generation of disabled people maintained the contorted facial expressions, assert· that prejudice is a far greater problem physical movements and the thick elongated than any impairment. Christy Brown reflects our speech of a man with cerebral· palsy off the set. demands for dignity, self-determination, and Lewis entered Dublin's finest restaurants and . equal access to society and life. He is a hero of participated in society as Brown once did. By our struggle. We will be inspired by his glorious engrossing himself with his role, Daniel Day- disabled rage. Lewis projects the essence of an. e~remely complicated man. Through his magnificent performance, the actor presents the story of an . Twisted Body--Cogent Mind A Film Review of explicitly deformed man without an appeal for "My Left Foot" by Joanne Y. Yamada, the audience's sympathy. The deformity c~not Communication Specialist, Pacific Basin Research be denied, but ·as Bro~'s life testified, it was not Rehabilitation & Training Center, University of the essential story. Instead it was about growing Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine. up, transcending limitations with wit, irony and charm, falling in love. The film captures this and Christy Brown, Irish artist/writer and the by doing so, it bespeaks not of one man's truths ninth of 22 children, was born into· the early but of universal truths. 1930's porridge-only poverty of a Dublin family. Stricken with severe cerebral palsy at birth, his "My Left Foot,11 directed by Jim twisted, paralyzed body and his inarticulate Sheridan, ·has gained international recognition speech prevented him from defying his idiot through its nominations for best film, director status. His transportation ( a rough wooden and actor in the European Film Awards and pramlike cart) and his under-the-stairway Hollywood's Academy of Award. Yet, it has had position at home from where he cowered and only limited showings throughout the United watched the family's· activities contributed toward States. Perhaps this says that although America's . ·the label. Agonizing while watching his siblings public is being sensitized to the mainstreaming struggle over their numbers, Christy Brown calls concept aµd equal accessibility, it is still .in need attention to his undiscovered cogent mind of the Hollywood make-believe glitz accompanied through impassioned sounds. Given a piece of by the sweetness of a sticky Milky Way and the chalk,. Christy slowly toils to write the correct melodious munch of_.Quttered popcorn. answer with his left foot. This determined action charted Christy Brown's life course. A Comparative Movie Review of 11My Left Foot11 and "Born on the Fourth of July." by Ray · When Daniel Day-Lewis reluctantly read Glazier, Florence Heller School, Brandeis the movie adaption of Brown's My Left Foot University. (first in a series of semi-autobiographical works), he was struck at the script's first direction Between them, these two recent describing a man placing a record on a turntable. blockbuster movies, both of which deal with The celebrated actor of "My Beautiful coming to terms with disability, have garnered Launderette," "The Unbearable Lightness of thirteen Oscar nominations, four each in the Being," "A Room with a View11 and others related same category: Best Picture - "My Left Foot" and that there was nothing unusual about the "Born on the Fourth of July"; Best Actor - instructions, except for the fact that the action Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown and Tom required a left foot. At that time and due to. Cruise as Ron Kovic; Best Director - Jim succession of successes, Lewis was inspired and Sheridan for "My Left Foot11 and Oliver Stone _depressed. However, the left-foot specification for "Born on the Fourth of July"; Best Adapted challenged him to do a role that would pay Screenplay - Jim Sheridan and ~bane tribute to a man who transcended his disability. Connaughton for "My Left Foot" and Oliver

25 Stone and Ron Kovic for ."Born on the Fourth of "bottoms .out" in a Mexican bar/bordello, partly. July". (The others being Best Supporting Actress · redeems himself by making a pilgrimage to the - Brenda Fricker as Mother Brown in "My· Left Georgia home of the soldier he shot _and Foot"; Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, confessing the killing to the widow and surviving Best Original Score, and .. Best Sound - "Born on parents.. Ultimately he comes full circle in his the Fourth of July".) It could be said that not attitude towards the war· and achieves since· "Moulin Rouge" has disability been given redemption by leading a protest -at the 1972 the complete Hollywood glamour treatment and . Republican convention to try to bring the war to achieved such box office success. an end. The national media exposure gained thereby.results in an invitation to the 1976 . The heroes of these two films and their· Democratic convention on the same subject . triumph-over-disability stories have only one obvious thing ii} common--both come from large. ."My Left Foot" uses flashbacks as the Catholic families: Christy Brown's Irish parents · vehicle for telling Christy Brown's life story, had 22 children ·of whom 13 survived infancy, which is really drawn from his later book "Down and Ron Kovic's Polish-American parents had All the Days." The "present!' of the movie is an somewhere between seven and twelve, based on afternoon Christy spends in an .Irish castle, their appearance in the movie. (No one counts waiting to be introduced as the gue.st of honor at them for the viewer.) Both houses are. very a charity benefit. The viewer is not quite clear as crowded and afford little privacy. "My Left to why Christy is sequestered in the care of a Foot" traces the emergence. of Christy Brown, nurse (whom he ends up marrying 30 years born with severe cerebral palsy, as an artist and later). Is it only to build .the suspense for those poet, while "Born on the Fourth of July" follows who have paid to ~ttend the benefit? Is it Ron Kovic's transition from able-bodied, because the cripple's presence in the castle is patriotic, all-American kid to soldier to considered unseemly until he is to receive public paraplegic to Vietnam war protestor. Both acclaim? Was it engineered by Christy himselfto leading actors· give convincing· portrayals. One is give him time alone with. a hearty Irish lass perhaps a bit surprised that Tom Cruise had it in whose comely appearance, it turns out, is his range to portray both a starry-eyed high . reminiscent of his adored .mother? The nurse school athlete and the long-haired, almost reads his book "My Left Foot," a collection of middle-aged protestor he eventually becomes. poetry, paintings, and other writings,_ while Daqiel Day-Lewis .has probably the more difficult Chdsty drinks (whiskey) and dozes and dreams. task of giving expression to Christy's Brown's of reminiscences. While his own father calls him pent-up rage from the confines of a body with "an imbecile,11 the young Christy, \Yho cannot much greater restrictions, And this reviewer speak; fights to communicate his intelligence and found that performance ultimately both more talent through his only usable· limb, his left foot. convincing and more engaging. A lady doctor befriends him and teaches him to speak (barely) intelligibly; his talents as a painter "Born on the Fourth" follows the hero's and writer make him the toast of Dublin and life in pretty much a linear fashion from the even bring international acclaim. opening scene of veterans in wheelchairs (presumably WWII and Korean War vets) on ·While neither movie intends to provide a parade on the 4th of Ju.ly on Long Island in the· disability education, .both do raise the general early 1950s, when_ Ron is a Little Leaguer.· There public consciousness from its pitiably low state. is an element of morality play in the more o'r. less "My Left Foot" is more sensitive in juxtaposing true-to-life story line: self-righteous boy patriot the sensitivities and frustrations of its subject joins the Marines; is sent to Vietnam; shoots up with the sometimes well intentioned innocent peasant villagers, including women, misunderstandings of neighbors and friends. For children, and old people; accidentally kills one of example, when Christy's mother faints and falls his own men--thereby "earning" the .disabled down the stairs, Christy drags. himself down the wound that lands him in ·a wheelchair. Ron then stairs to help her and summom,, the neighbors by goes through hell in a rat-infested field hospital,- loudly kicking_ the, front door. The neighbor lady

26 who responds interprets events to have been that nurse in 1972 (but fails to mention his the mother was carrying Christy down the stairs, subsequent untimely demise by choking while and thereby he caused her fall. Mother Brown is eating alone). His misplaced longings for the the one who has faith that Christy is a real doctor who taught him to speak cause him to person inside his twisted, helpless body. While he create a splendiforous disturbance in a restaurant is treated by his own family with ·something like· when she announces her engagement to an art loving contempt before achieving outside acclaim, dealer. In contrast, Ron Kovic rants and raves at there is a level on which Christy is accepted by his parents (while drunk) about his impotence his siblings without question and fiercely and explains it at some length and in painstaking championed by them. One does wonder how detail to the Mexican prostitute who permits him much of the portraxal of the Brown family as to enjoy giving oral sex in a scene reminiscent of lusty, rowdy, brawling, boozing, swearing, John Voigt's head in the crotch of Jane Fonda's roughhousing, candle-lighting Irish Catholics is nude .stand-in in "Going Home.11 One doesn't defamatory ethnic stereotyping. know whether to give the. directors of both films credit for allowing their disabled heroes to be Ron Kovic's family is more at a loss· in sexual beings or condemn the makers of "Born trying to cope with his boozing self-pity after his · on the Fourth" for exploiting Ron's sexuality. in a return home. In a coming-home-late-drunk prurient, titillating fashion. · scene, Ron's mother finally gives up on him and throws him out ofthe house, while his father In terms of disability realism, 11My. Left tries to mediate by suggesting that Ron take a Foot" pays more attention to the nuances of nice, long visit to Mexico. · The neighbors who everyday life in a wheelchair ( at first a had earlier come to greet Ron and gawk ·at his wheelbarrow), although there are points at which wheelchair are all ears at the late-night Daniel Day-Lewis' speech is distinctly more disturbance. In one of the· most telling scenes · intelligible than others. Perhaps the director after his homecoming, a former high· school didn't trust the audience to strain its ears at buddy who stayed home and made a fortune in crucial moments in the film. "Born on the the fast food business offers Ron a place in his· Fourth" is big on graphic portrayal of the horrors . operation which Ron interprets as a partnership, of hospital life, e.g., rows of paralyzed soldiers but which turns out to be an offer of being given simultaneous enemas from strange employment running the cash register. In an hanging devices and defecating into bedpans, enigmatic scene that doesn't quite work, Ron's ·. when laxative suppositories and defecation into high school sweetheart, now a Syracuse bedding protected by disposable absorbent, University coed organizing student protests plastic-lined pads was common late 1960s against the war,· halfheartedly invites him into her hospital practice, at least stateside. Someone college dorm, then flits up a long flight of stairs, forgot to instruct Tom Cruise on the art of leaving him at the bottom. · ambulating in long-leg braces with Canadian crutches by standing tall and swinging. through. While we see Christy Brown, despite Instead our hero slinks close to the floor with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, ·achieving very short crutches, dragging his stiff legs behind career success and overcoming a crush on his him, much like ·a ·giant cockroach. TI1en again, doctor benefactor to win the love of a nurse, perhaps this is how Ron Kovic ended up falling Ron Kovic, at least in this part of his story, never and fracturing his femur, an event,which the becomes gainfully employed, never successfully director turns into a bloody, but not highly develops relationships with women. The plausible, compound fracture for the benefit of sexuality of the disabled heroes is dealt with in the camera. both films, perhaps more graphically and flatfootedly in "Born on the Fourth~" Christy Ron Kovic, at least in the movie, effects Brown's potential for an active sex life is some amazing transportation feats. He travels by intimated and pretty much left to the himself from Long Island to Syracuse by train in imagination. The caption on the closing frame of the late 1960s, apparently without incident.. A the movie tells us that he married. Mary the short time later, he travels to Mexico on another.

27 "magic carpet," also apparently without assistance. with disabilities did not fare as well. A In a scene in a Mexican whorehouse, Ron is conference was held during January in New York invited upstairs by an attractive prostitute, and in for actors with disability to ac;ldress barriers to the next scene miraculously appears upstairs in their entry in film, stage, and television. bed with her. Perhaps Tom Cruise being carried up the stairs on-screen would have spoiled the All of which points to some interesting sexy mood for the audience. No explanation is questions. What would Born on the Fourth of offered for the gathering of disabled Vietnam July and My Left Foot have been like had the vets in Mexico, where they while away the days leads been played by a person with paraplegia drinking, gambling, and whoring. Mexican and a person with cerebral palsy, respectively? haciendas for disabled vets living communally How important is it, politically and cinematically, were a way of stretching disability pensions to to have all characters with disability portrayed by cover some nonnecessities and to provide vital actors with disability? If characters with attendant care from a ready pool of cheap labor. disabilities were portrayed by actors with The audience could have been effectively disabilities, what implications would this have for educated to this awareness with very little effort. actors with disabilities performing roles in which the characters were not disabled? While this writer saw 11My Left Foot11 at a very sparsely attended matinee in which there Film making is risky business. was little observable audience reaction to the Production costs arid box-office receipts are film, "Born on the Fourth" was seen at an paramount concerns. One reason that Born on evening showing in Harvard Square. There were the Fourth of July and My Left Foot were such distinct and apparent audience reactions: audible commercial successes was that Tom Cruise and gasps when Ron Kovic's doctor told him he Daniel Day-Lewis were excellent actors with would spend the rest of his. life in a wheelchair; name recognition. Indeed,· both actors pushed gasps again when he was told, in answer to his themselves to the limit of character identification. question, that he would never have .a family; Tom Cruise spent countless hours in a raucous laughter at the comic relief when two wheelchair and even wanted to take a drug that boozing Vietnam vets in wheelchairs, one would temporarily induce paralysis. (The speeding down a long ramp at a Mexican production company would not allow him to do· bordello, collide and both are thrown from their so for reasons of liability). Daniel Day-Lewis chairs; laughter again when Ron and another vet, spent day after day crawling on the set with. his stranded on a deserted Mexican road, get into a body contorted. He received daily massages and fight, knock each other out of their chairs, and body-alignment work to ease the pain. He not roll down an embankment (the chairs somehow only learned to paint with his left foot, as Christy left standing upright so a passing motorist can Brown did, he created the paintings shown in the find them). Neither film successfully demystifies film. Some of Day-Lewis' paintings sold. disability ( mystique is a good box office), Clearly, Born on the Fourth of July and My Left although "My Left Foot" does the better job of Foot owe their success in no small part to the making a complex and serious disability more professional performances of two accomplished apprehendable to the temporarily able-bodied actors. viewer, or so this non-TAB reviewer presumes. Had a person with disability performed either of these roles, I doubt that person could Disability in Film: Honest Portrayals by Gary have given significantly better dramatic Kiger, Sociology, Utah State University. portrayals. A person with a disability could bring a performance threaded with realism and passion ti We have heard from the Academy. that could only come from living with disability Born on the Fourth of July received eight Oscar day-in and day-out. This might be especially nominations and My Left Foot collected five. important if the film was based on a true story, Not a bad year for films about disabilities. While such as Born on the Fourth of July and My Left films about dfaability did well last year, actors Foot. But is this what the American public

28 wants to see? In movie houses, audiences ought subsequent attempts to deal with a wheelchair of to be able to suspend disbelie[ Tom Cruise and the future. His experiences serve as a metaphor Daniel Day-Lewis got them to do that. There for the trauma the war inflicted on much of the comes a point when realism brings diminishing country, families, and individuals. Many went returns ·at the box office. I suspect that from an unquestioning patriotic, John Wayne-like American audiences generally want their films acceptance of the war. to an almost total cynicism about disability sanitized. They want dramas, not regarding the government and previously documentaries. A friend and colleague of mine unquestiqned ideals. BOFD is totally engrossing. speculated that Children of a Lesser God Do not, however, expect entertainment. Some enjoyed such commercial success because scenes produce an emotional intensity that is Maralee Matlin was Hollywood beautiful. painful. When Kovic confronts his injury by provoking a family confrontation, I found myself On the other hand, acting is acting. looking away at times. Humphrey Bogart was not really Rick, Vivian Leigh was not really Scarlett, and neither Judy Some critics find Stone's directorial Garland nor Dustin Hoffman were really intensity overdone. I disagree. The Vietnam war Dorothys. A person who is not disabled should assaulted our collective consciousness constantly. be able to portray a character with a disability. War, racial strife, political murder, the· drumbeat Similarly, a person with a disability should be rolled on with a machine-gun like intensity. able to portray a· character with or without a Stone and Cruise brilliantly evoke this. disability. This, of course, is how things ought to work. The problem is, film making exists in a Tom .Cruise gives the performance of his less than perfect political and economic world. career. He isn't acting, it seems he IS Ron Having a person who is not disabled portray a Kovic. Cruise's emotional range astounds. This character with a disability would be a lot less is very much a one-actor film; he is in virtually troublesome if actors with disabilities did not every scene. How many actors would tackle a have such seemingly insurmountable barriers similar sink-or-swim alone proposition? Cruise's ·placed before theni in film making, theater, and performance should have won him an Oscar and television. confirms my opinion he's always been the best of the so-called "brat pack" of young actors. Movie· Review: Born on the Fourth of July.Telling it like it was~ By Douglas Roman. As a paraplegic and· Vietnam vet myself, _. I looked forward to seeing the movie. Cruise Born on the Fourth of July. starring · and Stone did their homework. Accuracy and Tom Cruise, represents ·another directorial attention to detail were not subordinated to the triumph for Oliver Stone. It is also a wider issues .. One particular brief scene mesmerizing tour de force of acting by Tom highlights this. A VA doctor tells Kovic he's a Cruise. T-6 (spinal injury of the sixth thoracic vertebrae), paralyzed mid-chest on down, and that he'll Stone's 1988 release, Platoon, depicted never walk again. Every other movie I've seen soldiers fighting the war. Born on the Fourth of . dealing with spinal cord injuries presented people · July. based on the book of the same title by as either "paralyzed from the neck down" or paralyzed Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, tells us "paralyzed from the waist down," as if these were about the struggles on the home front. To my the only two possibilities. A small thing, perhaps, mind it is especially significant that these two · but the movie corrects this without preaching. films are the first Vietnam war movies with story lines written by men who actually served. In The movie accurately depicts wheelchair both films Stone tells it like it was. life. Staring people, physical barriers like curbs and steps, lectures from "instant experts," --it's all The movie depicts Ron Kovic's journey there. The near fight between Cruise and World_ from ail idyllic, Norman Rockwell-like upbringing . War II vet encapsulates the rage_ we Vietnam to his spinal cord injury in Vietnam and his vets feel when criticized by men from a totally

29 11 different era and war. me and made me half a man. .. This is a message . that every backward. attitude about disability is Does Ron Kovfo turn against the war based on. We don't need to hear it anymore,. becaQse, he thought it was wrong or because of and it isn't even true. what it did to him? Is it that he feels betrayed? Or is it all three? Perhaps 'there are no neat I don't. mean to minimized the initial distinctions or final resolutions possible. calamity of rebounding from a disabling accident. · Powerful as the moVJ.e is, it should be· pointed I can test~fy it's a horrible adjustment but I out that Kovic's is not the only viewpoint here. · emerged whole again, a very· "new improved" Many wounded vets never stopped :supporting version for having undergone the experience. the war~ This is a self-esteem vaccine l have to give myself

' ' every day to believe in myself in a toxic Aristotle described good drama as able environment of pity and dismissal· brought on by to provoke a catharsis, the idea being that the schmaltzy exploitations like Born on the Fourth . audience would leave a production feeling of July.. cleansed. BOFD does this. Co-writer/director Stone claims he wished to shake people up,· and It isn't true of me.· lam whol~. It isn't ·his success bears out Aristotle's maxim. true of Ron. Ron likes an enviable life. I've been at parties where he· hangs out with the likes For anyo~e too young to remember the of Jane Fonda and .Bruce Springsteen and holy Vietnam era, BOFD is a must-see: For those cripes he was popping champagne at the Berlin who were· there~ perhaps enough time has Wall with his buddy Oliver Stone. His life isn't elapsed to lessen the pain. (Reprinted from The · · half as shabby as he'd have.you believe. when he Handicapped Coloradan May 1990 p.7) gets on .his "I'm only half a man because of the war" routine. ·· A Tale of Two Movies .. by Nancy Becker Kennedy. Actress, writer and disability rights. My Left Foot~ on the other hand, was . activist living in California. the greatest thing to enhance the image of . disability since· the sports chair and the love It was the best of times; it was the worst scene in Coming Home (ironically, also inspired of times. This year the viewing public saw two by Ron). :The fantastic thing about My Left Oscar-nominated films about disability, ·BOFD Foot was that it showed everyone for the first and My Left Foot. One of the films set back the .. time ( me included) just where. we should put cause of social justice farther than it had been in prejudice. Christy Brown never internalized the· decades. The ()ther brought us light-years ahead. terrible message~ he got from ~ociety. If someone patronized him, he put it right back in The_ viewing public doesn't seem to: know their face. The woman who was seductive to him how to discriminate between: what is a but wasn't serious was forced to "put up or shut. . progressive film about disability and what isn.'t. up" when he plainly told her he loved her. When People made the mistake of thinking Whose· Life the woman he would later marry tried to dismiss Is It Anyway? was a brave new film about him politely, but dismiss him nonetheless, he. disability when it in fact was the oldest message made here take responsibility for her answer. He in the world"'.- 11I'd rather be dead than disabled." didn't let her off the hook. So often we are so · They are making the same mistake in thinking embarrassed by ourselves because of belittling that Born on the Fourth of July is a progressive social messages ~d become shy.· Christy Brown .. new film· about disability~ Well I'm here to say didn't. He had tremendous ego strength and IT IS NOT? . consistently refused to be dismissed or treated less than what he was--a brilliant, energetic, very Born on the Fourth of July does the able and potent man. same thing Ron Kovic does whenever he speaks or writes. He proves that war is awful (which it Another treat we got from My Left Foot is) by saying "I'm the proof. See, the war broke was the unexpected pleasure of a portrayal of a

30 family that never ignored their disabled relative, disability as a routine part of a story line, rather even when they couldn't communicate with him than suitable only for tearjerkers or cure sagas. or discern how much he was· able to understand. We've moved beyond The Light That Failed, This was, to be sure, a contributing factor to the certainly. But has Hollywood gotten around to ego strength that allowed Christy Brown to making a movie about the disability condition? believe in himself and deflect demeaning social prejudice. The story of Christy Brown is predicated on disability. Brown's entire life .is bound up by Both films showed there is an interest in. the frustrations he encounters because of being . the disability experience. And in. all fairness to an artist with a body nobody expects intelligence·;. even Born on the Fourth of July, I think the -much less art--out of. My Left Foot, his own popularity of both films showed an ·interest in .version of how he moved through his own life, seeing disabled characters who aren't "too good through, is not a story about· disability. It is a to be true." Both these characters were difficult story about "in spite or' disapility. It is a very and neither film whitewashed the pain .of living good story; it rises ,above many "cripple sagas," with a disability. Both avoided the sappy but at heart it is still the story pf an individual sentimentality I think we're all sick of. But we pitted in personal struggle to triumph in a very must continue to educate people to see the personal endeavor. difference between a progressive message about disability and a backward one. The differences Readers can already be heard howling: are subtle and easy to miss. "It is a beautiful story. It is Brown's story. It is accurate. It is art. Leave it. alone!n But as much Any character who shows wit and as Brown has a right to tell his story as he sees intelligence and some sense of being ''with it" is a . it, others have a right to wonder about the larger welcome sight to me. But we must be careful social context that Brown fails to discuss. that the characters in Whose Life and Born on the Fourth of July who seem charismatic are not Few if any disabled storytellers yet see mistaken as positive characters when they take in that "larger social context" as being of much the prejudice of the outside world and feel they relevance to the stories they want to tell about are second-class citizens. We have to remind their lives. It is true that struggling with things ourselves, and the public, that. a good disability as daunting as getting up and down steps, trying image is one of a person who believes in his or to paint with only one limb available for the her own worth and potency in spite of the effort, struggling to make oneself understood in barrage of negative messages telling us we're not. a world where people. with speech problems are (Reprinted from Spinal Network Extra Summer routinely considered "mental defective~" is 1990 p.53) enough to overwhelm anybody, and efforts to accomplish anything int he face of such Are these 'our' films? by Phys Diz Showbiz. conditions seems the stuff of heroism. And it is.

Is there anything at all significant in the But there is more to the story here-- fact that this past spring saw the release of two more to any disabled person's story. And that critically-acclaimed movies with disabled "more" has yet to be told. characters? Or in the fact both received Academy Awards--one for Best Director the My Left Foot, the book, is Christy other for Best Actor and best Supporting Brown's story. Disability's story is there, too, but Actress? · it isn't being told. That wasn't Brown's first interest. And that's perfectly fine. But it would It would be nice to say yes. But the be wrong for us to expect from Brown that which answer isn't that simple. The making of My Left he was not interested in delivering. Foot and Born on the Fourth of July may indeed say something--maybe say a lot--about Born on the Fourth of July is not Hollywood's growing acceptance of the idea of disability's story, either. It's the Vietnam War's

31 story. And Ron Kovic, whose story Born on the treatment Brown .himself'was so familiar with. Fourth of July is, is not interested in telling the This, Day-Lewis has said in interviews,. is deep story of disability, either. He's intet;ested in and pervasive; Day-Lewis's own education in telling the story of how becoming disabled made what one experiences at the ·hands of society him wake up to how this country was. screwing · from one's wheelchair may prove at least as young men through the Vietnam War. That is a valuable, in the long run, as any training he's very powerful· story, and one that needed. to be had. We can rejoice, also, that Day-Lewis~s told, and perhaps needs to be told over and over Brown does speak with a cerebral palsy·accent. again. It is that story--not the disability story-- which is frequently enough nottranslated that caught. the attention of director Oliver ( although in' the really serious parts of the film Stone. It is the Vietnam story that has propelled where Brown has a leading speaking part one can this movie to the status of "an important film" in listen closely and notice that his speaking is far critics' eyes. The disability story is not the story clearer than many of us with cp: and we can· also of Born on the Fourth of July. notice that Brown's speech therapist, whom ·he falls in love with, certainly got i_ncredible ·speech The disability· story is, in some ways, even results in a-very short time.) peripheral to the Born on the Fourth of July. That's not to say that disability doesn't form. the Still, the mere fact that a movie in which surface and texture of the movie, anq in a very the lead character speak$ in a cerebral palsy convincing way. But disability in Born on the accent which is left untranslated .made it to the Fourth of July functions very much' like the Academy Awards signals that something,. indeed, landscape in a Western: you couldn't properly. is changing in our willingness to at least look at have a western with01,1t sagebrush hills, the disability head on. I'm not sure if we realized corrals, the horses, the cattle, -the cowboy gear. · what we're seeing yet--but we're not turning But western's aren't "about" these things. away. They're about a fight, or a long journey, or about somebody wronged brought to justice, or the love What are we looking at, iri fact? ·In MI of a woman. In Born on the Fourth of July. Left Foot, at a man unable even to have. a disability is all-pervasive--but it's the scenery. wheelchair until adtiltllood; a man who even then .has to rely on ·others to push him about. · In Still, disability consciousness has never Born on the Fourth of July. we're looking at been higher in :this country. And those in the rehabilitation from hell, yet, unless I'm mistaken, disability movement who have worked to bring we're s~eing it not as the tragedy this country · the film industry to an appreciation of disabled . pushes c:,n too many disabled people ( though the actors can see their work pay off in both these ' rats and the filth .are extreme; the blocked movies, sometimes in unexpected ways~ catheters and cavalier attention from aides is all too real in rehab centers across the country, VA It's true that neither Ron Kovic ·nor . or not) but rather as a statement against a Christy Brown are played by disabled actors--and fiercely militaristic government who could not one can only speculate as to the kind of·hue and afford to treat its ruined soldiers decently cry that would have been raised had a movie because all its dollars went to pushing its still· about a black been played by a white.. But . fighting ones onto the poor Vietnamese:· This is though disability consciousness has. never been indeed the message of Born on the Fourth of higher we have still not come that far. -Are we to -July. and it's certainly a valid one. But we might : fume that leading· roles went to nondisabled do-well to be asking who's ever going to film the actors? Or to rejoice that both actors did same scenes for a movie about how. this country excellent jobs--that they apparently learned, for treats disabled folks--not because we're fighting a example, how to realistically maneuver war but simply because our way is to ignore wheelchairs; that they toqk lessons from the right people we think aren't useful to our own society folks? Daniel Day-Lewis, in fact, stayed in his anymore? chair even when he wasn't filming, keeping in character and experiencing the demeaning Because our disability consciousness has

32 never been higher, and because directors have regional characteristics into- account: Theme 1: been taught a little by the unsung disability Access legislation in' new construction and activists in Hollywood, we find a very-visible renovation 9f public buildings, housing, and ramp to the front door greeting Kovik on his street environments. Theme 2: Examples of return home. His dad even spouts lines about design solutions in newly constructed and how he widened the bathroom door, and renovated public buildings, housing and street installed grab bars. That line wouldn't have been environments. there 10 years ago: count on it. Copies of the Calls for Papers an_d other information on the planned activities are Though Born on the Fourth of July was available from: CIB W84 Secretariat, Building made because it's time to do Vietnam War Function Analysis, Royal Institute of Technology, movies~-and Oliver Stone of ·Platoon the one to 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; Fax 46-8-32 93 24. do them--can we at least let ourselves believe that it's because disability consciousness is The Coalition on Disability. and Chemical: . beginning to creep over this country that Born Dependency has changed its name and focus, · on the .Fourth of July was the film to be made according. to its newsletter. The organization's next? I think it pretty safe to say that Daniel new name is the Institute on Alcohol, Drugs, and Day-.Lewis's interest in My Left Foot--and its Disability. notice by the critics--can be attributed to _nothing Anthony Tusler, IADD's new president, so much as the film industry's-willingness to says the organization plans to focus not only on believe that a true story about disability--rather accessible treatment, but prevention as well. The than the older sugar coated ones, or the ones institute plans to expand its efforts as a that are merely vehicles for "nondisabled clearinghouse for information about a variety of catalysts11--might bring 'em rushing to the box issues relating to alcohol and drug problems office as welL · among people with disabilities. For more information, contact The Finally the ramp is coming down to us. Institute on Alcohol, ,Drngs, and Disability, P.O. Both movies are serious movies with disability Box 7044, San Mateo, CA 94403. treated realistically.· It's time, then, to expect · from Hollywood. yet another movie: This one · Disability Network. A current-affairs about not one individual's triumph as a disabled television program carried by the Canadian artist nor our country's fixation with war - but its Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Toronto, treatment of disabled people. It's time for a Ottawa, London, and Windsor, Canada is movie about the stories that make up the establishing a number of firsts. The Disability disability rights movement. (Reprinted from The Network or D-Net, as it's called, is the first time Disability Rag May/June 1990 p.32). a program about issues of disability has been hosted and produced by people with disabilities. Coproduced by CBC and Toronto's Centre for Independent Living, The Disability Network, after only a few weeks on CBC-TV, won the first Into the Mainstream Award in recognition of its positive portrayal of visible, audible, disabled CIB W84 Working Commission minorities in Canadian· movies, TV, and radio. "Building Non-Handicapping Environments" is an The show has a magazine format, international network consisting of architects, opening w~th a newscast followed by an interview builders, planners and disability organizations. or discussion. Regular segments include We would like to draw your attention to "Language Watch," which looks at words used the seminars we will organize next year: 1. inappropriately in reference to people with Montevideo, Uruguay, March 18-20, 1991. 2. disabilities, and "Your Rights," in which a lawyer Harare, Zimbabwe, July 1991. 3. Budapest, provides legal advice on .disability-related issues. Hungary, September 2-4, 1991. The three Employment equity is one of the driving seminars will cover the same themes taking forces behind D-net. The program trains people

33 with disabilities in·various aspects.of production Assessment: A Qualitative Study of the Needs of for future mainstreaming into all areas of · People with Disabilitie~, the results. ofthe ,irst television programming. D-Net's co-hosts both year study which examined the t.echnology needs are disabled: Susanne Pettit has cystic fibrosis of individuals with· visiori or motor impairments. and Joe. Coughlin has cerebral palsy. Two· A limited n.umber of copies are available members of the production crew use wheelchairs free of charge~ Address copy requests to Nancy and one is legally blind~ Boecker, Librarian, Electronic Industries· In addition to providing employment Foundation, 1901 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, training, D-Net raises awareness of disability Suite 700, W ashjngton, DC 20006. issues. Everyone connected with the show is proud of its. strong and· sometimes controversial The Journal of Applied Social Sciences .. stands. The edge is necessary, says Pettit, in announces ·a special issue on 11Aging and Family order to break down ignorance. Caregivers," Fall/Winter 1988-89. To obtain a CBC has renovated Studio Six for copy, at a cost of $9 (payable to Case Western· disabled employees, provided D-Net hosts and Reserve University), contact: Mandel School of four other disabled behinq.:.the-scenes people Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve with four weeks of intensive broadcast training, University, 2035 Abington Road, Cleveland, OH matched D-Net personnel with CBC staff for 44106; (216) 368-2136. one-to-one assistance, ·and made a30-month commitment .to the show. The Disability Network Special Issue· of Teaching Sociology on is available to private broadcasters~· Medical Sociology. Co-edited by Barbara M. Altman. . . , . The Disabled Artists' .Network is an Internships in Non-Traditional I:Iealth information exchange and 'living bu1letin board' Care Settings: A Pilot Program--Joseph A. of disabled artists in the visual and sculptural Kotarba. Th~ Graduate Internship Program in arts. Services include: introducing artists to one Applied Medical ,sodology--Sue Keir Hoppe and another, exchanging information about Judith K. Barr. Perceptions from a Preceptor in opportunities available,. working on public an Applied .Medical Sociology Internship education.·DAN is collecting information about Program~-Norman A. Dolch. Teaching Medical shows, competitions; galleries, opportunities and Sociology and AIDS: Some Ideas and Objectives- services for professional artists who are disabled. -Charles W. Hunt.. Teaching Health Care.and If you are·interested in connecting with others, Aging: Toward a Conceptual Integratiori~-Dale J. send a SASE of a cassette for those who are Jaffe. Teaching Medical Sociology in Meclicine print or visually handicapped to: Disabled Artists' Schools.;.-Gerald J. Hunt and J

34 Media and Information Technology in Aid of Visually Handicapped. Psycho-Lingua; January 1988; 18(1): 11-21. The right to obtain information from any By David Pfeiffer, PhD (Department of accessible means including the media· is a Public. Management, School of Management, fundamental right of visually impaired Suffolk University, Boston, MA 02108) persons.

An Annotated Bibliography on: The Media and Biklen, Douglas. Framed: Journalism's Disability, Treat-ment of Disability. Social The topic of the media and disability is Policy: Winter 1986; 16(3): · such a vast one that no single bibliography can 45-51. Using the Baby Doe cases do it justice. The following bibliography is and the Bouvia case, the author intended to introduce the user to several of the is very critical of the media's controversies concerning the treatment of treatment of stories involving disabled persons by the media. The first item, disabled people. for example, contains the typical reaction of "media specialists" when confronted by disability Biklen, Douglas; Bogdan, Robert. Media issues. Portrayals of Dis- abled Persons. Interracial Books for Children Air Force Speeds Up Chapel Access in Bulletin; 1977; (6 & 7): 4-9. Wake of Protest. The Disability In this ground breaking arti~le the Rag: November/December 1988: authors present and illustrate the ten page 12. common stereo- types of disabled people News report of ADAPT protest of found in the media: the object of pity, discriminatory Air Force Academy the object of violence, as evil, as policies: On Labor Day Weekend irrelevant atmosphere, as superhuman, as ADAPT members demonstrated at the laughable, as his/her own worst enemy, Air Force Academy's inaccessible campus as a burden, as either asexual or sex chapel protesting policies which forced depraved, and as incapable of meaningful one cadet who had part of his right leg participation in society. amputated to withdraw and which refused a commission to another who Blatchley, David. Wanted: A Human became a paraplegic. Jan Ingram, the Approach for Human Services. protest's organizer, said: "The chapel is Public Relations Journal; a symbol of the Academy; it's totally November 1979; 35(11): 53-54. inaccessible." Will Ketterson, chief of Human service· agencies. have self-serving media relations for the Academy, said public relations which reinforces the that he did not see the connection popular idea that disabled persons need between the policies and the chapel. He to be separated from the rest of society. said: "First and foremost it meets the By changing agency logos, names, and spiritual needs of cadets. It's exclusively signs public relations professionals can for healthy men and women. We don't chaqge the stigmatizing stereotypes .have disabled cadets." The Academy and · especially through the media. Such a its chapel is one of the most popular change will also help the agency's clients. tourist attractions in Colorado. After the protest the Air Force said it was Bogdan, Robert; Biklen, Douglas; speeding up the construction of an Shapiro, Arthur; Spelkoman, elevator for the chapel. David. The Disabled: Media's Monster. Social Policy: 1982; 13: Bhargava, Mahesh. Communication 32-35.

35 In the media evil persons are often New Left, the National Welfare Rights depicted as disabled. · Psychological Organization, the Women's Liberation explanations of negative attitudes are not Movement. very helpful. Social science must work to remove the negative stereotypes of Gent, Pamela; Mulhauser, Mary Beth~ ... disabled persons. · · ·Public Integration of Students -w,ith Handicaps: Where It's Byrd, Keith. A Study of Depiction of Been, Where It's Going, and Specific Character- istics of How It's Getting There. Journal Characters with Disability in of the Association for Persons Film. Journal df Applied with Severe Handicaps; 1988; Rehabilita- tion Counseling; 13(3): 188-96. Summer 1989; 20(2): 43-45. A discussion of integrated schooling An extensive review of variables from both a legal and an educational · associated with disabled characters in perspective looking at the influen~ of .' 302 films concluding that little progress the media, legal and educational findings, has occurred in· terms of. realistic · and 'the existing. data base. portrayal of disability. Giles, Frank L.; Byrd, E. Keith~ Byrd, Keith. Theory Regarding Attitudes Disability and Human Services· in and How They May Relate td Popular Literature in Relation·· Media Portrayals df Disability. to Recent Presidential Journal bf Applied Rehabili- Administrations. Journal of tation Counseling: Winter 1989; Applied Rehabilitation Coun- 20( 4): 36-38. seling: Winter 1986; 17(4): Discusses a number of theories about 54~56.· attitude formation including The authors reviewed· :ten popular . expectancy-,value •theory, learning theory, ·publications from July 1, 1978, t9 June balance theory,-congruity principle, '30, 1983. This five year period was split cognitive dissonance, attribution theory, ·between the last part of the Carter social· learning theory, motivation Administration and the· first part of the research; psychological warfare; Reagan Administration. The Carter persuasive communication, and - Administration period had a signifi semiology. The author discusses how significantly larger number of articles on media presentations could be modified _in disability and human services thcµi· the terms ofthese theories. Reagan Administration period.

Freeman, Jo. On the Origins of Social Hahn, Harlan. Can _Disability Be Movements. Social Movements Beautiful? Social Policy; Winter of the ·Sixties and Seventies. 1988; 18(3).: 26~32. Edited by Jo Freeman.. New · Disabled people must mobilize' on ,the York: Longmans; 1983: chapter basis of their disability. During medieval 1. times disabled persons were objects of There are four essential elements in· the ·humo~ and eroticism,· but they were • formation of a social 'mov~merit: (1) a transformed into objects of pity and ·communications network which is (2) charity. Today.social institutions cooptable· by the ideas and members of including th~ media must change popular the movement, (3) crises which activate misconceptions of disability to encourage the people in the. communications the political Organiza- tion of people network, :and ( 4) a subsequent organizing with ·. disabilities. effort. She illustrates each 'of these steps with the Civil Rights Movement, the Johnson, Mary. Do the Disabled Like

36 Tele- thons? Fund Raising touches - all play _upon a nation's Management; November 1987: voyeuristic instincts. The cripple simply 60-64, 76, 96. embarrasses. Society can sec little Disabled persons object to the image of reason for recognizing his existence at disability presented by telethons. In all." Citing Frantz Fanon's comment in addition by emphasizing "cure" they Black Skins, White Masks that. fervor is divert··attention. away from solving the weapon chosen by the impotent, existing present problems. Even though Kriegel concludes: "Uncle Tom and Tiny many disabled p~rsons say that the Tim are brothers under the skin.11 programs (although deme~ing) fill a gap in what. the government provides, a Longmore, Paul K. A Note on Language large number report never having and the Social Identity of • received any services from the groups ·Disabled People. American raising ·the money. The media has· begun Behavioral Scientist; 1985;. 28: to look closely at fund raising groups to 419-23. determine if the money goes for. services The. language used to describe disabled or for salaries. persons reinforces their stigmatized role. Alternative euphemistic terms do the Kiger, Gary. Disability and the Language . same thing. The emerging minority ·• of Print Media, Film and group language about disabled people Television.· Disability Studies escapes this drawback. Quarterly: Spring 1989: 12-14. · The specific medium used to Longmore, Paul K. Screening communicate circumscribes the content Stereotypes: Images·of Disabled and the form of the message .. The print People. Social Policy: Summer . media provides the chance to sit and 1985: 31-37. think about the content of the message Excellent discussion of'the media image and can produce an· in-depth experience. of disability as evil/criminal and· as a Film can· not be as in-depth and can not problem ofemotional coping. The social treat many mundane (but necessary) . function of the coping image is to things about disability so its portrayals emphasize the role of·individual . must be accurate.... Television is directed character and that a disability is·~ toward .entertainment so disability is personal attribute. In this way · usually avoided and so is controversy. non-disabled people are excused from Since television is the most pervasive of blame for supporting· discriminatory · all media, we must work to have it attitudes and barriers. accurately cover disability topics. Peters, Anne. Hcart-Wrencber Wins Kriegel, Leonard. Uncle Tom and Tiny Journalism's Top Prize. The Dis- Tim: Some Reflections on the· ability Rag; August 1985: 18-19. Cripple as Negro; The American A commentary on the. negative Scholar; 1969; 38: 412-30. stereotypes in Alice Steinbach's ·Pulitzer In this excellent article which was a Prize winning article on a visually ground breaker in the area of attitudes, impaired boy. Kriegel writes about the Black militants who were (in the late 1960's) appearing Roush, S.E. Health Professionals as on late night TV talk shows presenting Contributors to Attitudes their case~ .Disabled· persons did not Toward Persons with Disabilities. appear because their militancy,he writes, Physical Therapy; .1986; 66(10): ·would have been laughed at. "The 1551-54. ti ·homosexual on·.public display titil- lates, The common negative. attitudes toward the gangster fascinates, the addict disabled persons are found in various

37 ways in society. ·They <1:re barriers to Makes suggestions of how cournsclors can .r1eoplc,,with disabilities. Not only do as~ist people with disabilities change health care profcssi<>n~tls hold these' public attitudes.. discriminatc,ry·attitudes,. they. may be the <>ncs who originate these attitude~. Waldrop, Judith. From Handicap to These. attitudes are reinfor~d:. tluough A,;:lvantage. American the media, but health care professionals Demographics; April 1990; must work to change them .. 12(4): 32-35, 54. Disabled Americans are quite varied in Snydcrman, Mark; Rothman, Stanley. terms of:disability. As more ofthem The IO Controversy, the Media,· ·move into the workforce things will and Public Policy: New change. ·Already change is seen in the Brunswick: Trans- action media in terms of. attitudes, but it is yet . Publishers; 1989.. ·to come in the labor market. Even though ptiblic opinion does not support the position that intelligen~ can Wright, Beatrice A. Physical Disability - be. me~sured· ·and that genetics influences A Psychosocial Approach. New the level· of intelligence, a sample of · York: Harper and. Row; second . "experts" surveyed by the ·al!-thors believe edition; 1983. . these _two statements to be accurate. · Basically a new edition (but not so titled) The authors conchide that inaccurate of Wrights's 1960 classic with some · media coverage, lil,~ralism, and the civil significant changes as evidenced by the. rights discussions along with a new ·slight difference in the titles. Begins strategic elite have produced this with a preface which presents the situation. underlying ·values of the author. Much of the 1960- material is retained in the .Steinbach, Alice. A Boy of Unusual new-work, but she·also emphasizes some Vision. AFB News; July .19&5: things to. a greater extent such as the . 16-17,22. role of environmental factors. She A reprint froin The Baltimore Sun, May .analyzes how. the language of the media . 27, 1984, of the Pulitzer Prize winning·. can structure our view· of reality and how article which is rampant with labels can obscure t~e person. discriminatory stereotypes_ of visually impaired persons. Cf. Anne Peters for a Zola, Irving Kenneth. Depictions of Dis- commentary.. , ability - Metaphor,. Message, and . Medium in the Media: A This Is What You.Thought About...The · Research and Political Agenda. ·Rights of the· Disabled. · · The Social Science Journal~ Paraplegia News; April 1982:·22. 1985; 22: 5-17. Reprinted from Glamour. January 1982; · ... In the media using disability a$ a In this survey. of its readers, Glamour metaphor.·conveys negative messages magazine found strong support for the about disabled. persons and has a civil rights of disabled persons, especially pejprative effect· upon society, in regard to accessibility. ·

Vargo, James W. "In.the House of My ·· .Friend'': Dealing with Disability. International Journal for the · Advancement of Counseling: November 1989; 12(4): 281-87. Humor and Disability: A Perspective Joyce . Three,sources ofattitudes (the media, Anisman-Saltman and Barbara Shiller Heinisch, the culture, the Bible) are described. Special Education, Southern Connecticut State

38 University. "Sick jokes"· have long been used as a release of tension .and stress. Within moments or Tl IE MONGOLOID IIUSBAND major disa.~tcrs such as the Chernobyl accident, COMES HOME FROM WORK AND SITS the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, DOWN AT THE TABLE, HUNGRY FOR there were jokes in circulation. (HOW DO DINNER. lllS MONGOLOID WIFE PUTS A YOU MAKE A BLACK RUSSIAN'! SEND PLATE WITH A PIECE OF MEAT IN HIM TO CHERNOBYL TO DRINK THE FRONT OF HIM. "WHERE ARE THE WATER.) While these jokes are usually very VEGETABLES'!" HE ASKS. "OH," SHE clever, the subject matter is so painful that it is REPLIES,- "THEY'RE NOT HOME FROM difficult to laugh at them; they are usually met SCHOOL YET." with a groan. 11 Sick jokes11 hold a particular appeal for doctors and nurses. The Antioch .This joke appears in the Antioch Sense Sense of Humor Inventory found that the joke: of Humor Inventory which is used to determin~ WHAT'S RED AND-GREEN AND GOES 50. which types-of humor are considered to be funny MILES PER HOUR? A FROG IN A by different groups of people. It _is an example BLENDER! rated very high with medical of a category labelled "sick jokcs11 which make personnel. The laughter offers a release of fun· of· "death, deformity, disease or. handicapped tension. The doctor who can't very well laugh at persons." (Mindcss, ct al 1985, p. 26) Who a patient's lymphoma, for example, can laugh at a laughs at thejokc? Almost everyone. Why is it frog. Some of .the jokes that are funny become wrong to laugh at this joke? Beside promoting not funny when we relate them to real people. an unfavorable stereotype with the_ use of the For example: WHAT'S THE BEST THING term "Mongoloid," the joke encourages laughter ABOUT HAVING ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE? ahmtt an inequality based on intellectual level. YOU GET TO MEET NEW PEOPLE EVERY In her workshops on humor and disabilities, DAY. While a joke about Alzheimer's disease Joyce Anisman·Saltman makes the distinction may not be appreciated by someone whose between humor which is destructive and humor relative has it, it may be funny to thoscbf us for w,hich· is enabling or empowering. "Humor that whom it is a distant worry which probably points up the_ similarities of the human condition includes most people. When people don't make in such a way that we can laugh at it and jokes about a topic, it may be because that topic appreciate the. humanness is empowering. It is is painful, hitting too close to home. The ability based. on the eq1ializing factor: we are all people; to laugh about something painful requires we arc all in this together; we all have our stepping back from .the situation and allowing for problems. Destructive humor is based on distance. Another reason for not joking about sh<>wing ·one .individual as being less significant something may be that the subject is a-taboo in than another, rather than being equal." The · our society. When something can be normalized 'mongoloid' joke· equates a person not with through laughter, it should be. seen as positive. anotl1cr person, but with a vegetable ..It This removes it from the realm of things that arc objectifics a human being. The principle of so "terrible" that we fear even talking about. destructive humor is true for ethnic and racial thcrri. jokes_ as weii, or for any situation in which one group is given lower status than the majority People with disabilities or obvious culture~. The most graphic illustration. of differences have often been the objects of destructive humor is· one of the "sick jokes11 of unflattering jokes. WHY DID THE MORON the fifties: "MRS. JONES, CAN JOHNNY THROW HIS CLOCK OUT THE WINDOW'! COME OUT AND PLAY BASEBALL?11 "BUT HE WANTED TO SEE TIME FLY ... and YOU KNOW HE HAS NO ARMS OR LEGS." other jokes of that kind are based in stereotype "TIIAT'S ALRIGHT, WE WANT TO USE arid, in fact, promote stereotypes. HIM AS THIRD BASE."· (Mindess, et al 1985) In this situation; a child is no longer a child; he A riddle: WHY DO SO FEW BLIND is an object to· be used as something else. PEOPLE PARACHUTE JUMP? The answer: IT SCARES THE

39 DAYLIGHTS OUT OF THEIR DOGS. assume that o have a disability is to live in an unending state of unhappiness. This is an example of an enabling or empowering riddle. For one thing, it implies that The issue of good taste enters into any there are some blind people who do parachute discussion about jokes, and taste is very i . jump. Indeed, there is nothing inherent in subjective. While some jokes undoubtedly blindness which would limit a person's ability to· ridicule their subjects, one of the signs that an · parachute jump. In fact, it is possible that the issue has "arrived" and has been accepted into inability to perceive the great distance might the mainstream is that there are jokes about it. actually be an advantage. What makes this.funny is the addition of the guide dog, which is an One person's idea of what is funny· may absurdity, and adds the element of surprise. be terribly offensive to someone else. There is enormous controversy over whether it is OK to A BLIND MAN ENTERS A tell certain kinds of jokes, be they ethnic; racial DEPARTMENT STORE, PICKS UP HIS DOG or jokes about disabilities. It may be that being a BY ITS TAIL AND BEGINS SWINGING IT member of a group may make it acceptable to OVER HIS HEAD. A CLERK HURRIES tell jokes with a different perspective form a OVER AND SAYS, "CAN I HELP YOU SIR?" · non-Jew telling the same joke. The ability to "NO THANKS," HE REPLIES, "I'M JUST appreciate the joke presumes the basic LOOKING AROUND." (Mindess, et al, 1985) understanding that· if you really perceived something to be negative, you wouldn't be joking The humor in this joke is the absurdity about it. Therefore, you can laugh if the of the man's use of his dog, which under normal common thread is that the negative statements circumstances serves to guide him. The joke is aren't true. .(or, they are true but it's really not not on the blind man but rather on the clerk so bad.) ·The question of intent is an important who cannot interpret.these ·actions: The joke is one. It's not "those people" when they are your empowering in that it acknowledges the people or,· people you love. This is especially true independence of this man, who is also the one for special education teachers (who are sometime creating the humorous situation. identified by others as "the retarded teacher" or "the handicapped teacher.") They often laugh Many of the jokes which empower do so ··aQout "their kids" in the teacher's room. That by creating normalizing situations for persons laughter comes from affection for the children · with disabilities. An example is a ·cartoon of two along with a healthy need to laugh so that the women in wheelchairs, which appeared in Accent problems encountered by these kids do. not weigh on Living magazine. One is saying to the other, quite so heavily. Humor can be an equaiizer; 11I've become a light eater. As soon as it's light, I when we laugh at our imperfections it makes us start to eat. 11 This is enabling in that the all more equal. Teachers also laugh about· wheelchair does not enter into the joke at all. themselves and about their own shortcomings in . Another example is seen on a recent television teaching handicapped children. When we can commercial featuring the musician Ray Charles. see the humor in the human condition, we allow Someone had tried to substitute his favorite soft those with differences to assume a more normal drink with a can of another. He sips from the role in society. can, makes a face, then grins and says, "Alright, . who's the wise guy?" There is warm laughter in the background. Would it be funny if he were not blind? No. The blindness is· used to humorously make a point about the taste of one soft drink over another. This commercial shows mainstream American that it .is OK to joke with Mindess, H., Miller, C., Turk, J. Bender, a disabled friend .. While this may seem obvious, A, & Cardin, A (1985) The Antioch Humor there are many people who have had little Test: Making Sense of Humor. New York: contact with people who are different, and Avon.

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