MEDICALIZING EDUTAINMENT: ENFORCING DISABILITY IN THE TEEN BODY, 1970-2000 by Julie Passanante Elman B.A. English Literature and Hispanic Languages and Literatures, May 2001, Stony Brook University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. January 31, 2009 Dissertation directed by Melani McAlister Associate Professor of American Studies and of International Affairs Robert McRuer Associate Professor of English The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Julie Passanante Elman has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of August 18, 2008. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. MEDICALIZING EDUTAINMENT: ENFORCING DISABILITY IN THE TEEN BODY, 1970-2000 Julie Passanante Elman Dissertation Research Committee: Melani McAlister, Associate Professor of American Studies and of International Affairs, Dissertation Co-Director Robert McRuer, Associate Professor of English, Dissertation Co-Director Gayle Freda Wald, Associate Professor of English, Committee Member Abby L. Wilkerson, Assistant Professor of Writing, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2008 by Julie Passanante Elman All rights reserved iii Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Kathleen, whose unique hands taught mine to grasp stars; to my grandfather, Joseph, who taught me the value of hard work; and to David, whose gentleness, support and unfailing love continue to teach me. iv Acknowledgments Adequately expressing gratitude for all of the intellectual and personal support I have received is a daunting task, and brevity has never been my strongest suit, especially when it comes to giving thanks. My dissertation committee provided me with thoughtful critique as well as vital personal and professional mentoring. I can’t adequately thank Melani McAlister for her guidance, careful reading, creative energy, and indispensable yoga allegories; her unshakeable confidence in my work emboldened me in many moments of self-doubt. Bob McRuer first introduced me to disability studies, and his trenchant yet reassuring style of critique, optimism, and energetic community-building will be a model for me forever. I am thankful for Gayle Wald’s vital refocusing of each chapter’s core arguments and for Abby Wilkerson’s gentle insistence that I consider the activist voice(s) of and within my work. Kip Kosek pushed me to consider important questions of spirituality, while the fabulous Todd Ramlow forced me to be more theoretically rigorous and makes me laugh often. I’ll endeavor to be as wonderful a mentor to my future students as you all have been to me. The George Washington University American Studies Department will always be my template for scholarly community, collegiality, humility and vibrant intellectual culture. While I wrote this dissertation, the department provided me with thorough instruction, institutional support, funding, travel grants, and a dissertation v writing fellowship. Thanks especially to Chad Heap, Jim Miller, and Terry Murphy for teaching me more than I could ever encapsulate here. Outside of American Studies, I was also privileged to be a member of a DC-area disability studies faculty-student reading group whose lively conversations really enhanced my work. I am also indebted to many wonderful teachers I encountered at Stony Brook University, including Lee Edelman, Benigno Trigo, Bente Videbaek, Missy Bradshaw, and the extraordinary Ira Livingston, who encouraged this vivacious-but-undirected undergrad to get a Ph.D. in American Studies in the first place. My energetic GWU colleagues spark at the synapses of this work. I had formative barroom conversations with Katie Brian, Ramzi Fawaz, and Dave Kieran; beloved rooftop ramblings drenched in starlight with Jeremy Hill; and many desperate coffee breaks with Jedi-master, jam partner, and Goon Squad captain, Kevin Strait. Thanks most especially to my dissertation writing group for their fierce friendship, diligent critique, and baking prowess; this dissertation is filled with as much of their passion and creativity as mine. Laura Cook Kenna constantly forced me to sophisticate my theoretical arguments while reassuring me, with words and pasta, that everything will be okay. Kyle Riismandel patiently kept my feet on firm historical ground while staving off despair with unrivaled hilarity. Laurel Clark’s incomparable ability to see the big picture of my work was matched only by her unique capacity for reminding me, at strategic moments, why my work was (still) exciting and for plying me with vi homemade cake. Finally, I thank Stephanie Ricker Schulte, a rare and brilliant treasure, for her diligence in pruning my overly-long sentences, for selflessly telling me the truth, and for helping me to become a stronger person. I am ever brimming with awe and gratitude for all of you, my chosen family. Many other scholars, archivists, and industry professionals also enriched this work. In particular, I would like to thank producer Martin Tahse for two personal interviews filled with incredible stories. Thanks also to Bret Schulte for helping with interview preparation. The Paley Center for New Media’s archivists thoroughly helped me navigate their un-indexed collection of ABC’s After School Specials. Elana Levine generously read a draft of Chapter 2 and offered thorough feedback, while Alison Perlman provided me with her expertise in the history of public television. Finally, this dissertation—and my entire intellectual life—has been truly a family affair. Elle Elman translated neuroscience jargon, while Cheryl Elman pampered me with homemade chicken soup for long writing days. Michael Cain walked this path before me and shepherded me through—how wonderful for us to have shared the “dialectical unfolding” of this dream. Tom, Chris, and Doug gave me much-needed relaxation and red wine. Rick and Ro-Ro always asked questions about my work (more substantive than the inescapable “When will you finish?”) that made me feel loved and supported. My beloved Broadway-bound sister, Amanda, proofread chapters with obsessive precision and continually enriches my life with her generosity and sense vii of humor. My father, Dennis, has never missed a moment to proudly cheer me on from every sideline, while my mother, Kathleen, eagerly read multiple drafts of this entire dissertation and wrote in the margins. My amazing family has allowed me to dare to dream any of this. Finally, Dave Elman, my greatest friend, love, and bass player, lived and breathed this project with me while reminding me to eat, breathe, take walks, and even (gasp) be frivolous from time to time. The depths of your love, generosity, and sense of wonder continually astound me; “you’re the magic that holds the sky up from the ground.” viii Abstract of Dissertation Medicalizing Edutainment: Enforcing Disability in the Teen Body, 1970-2000 This study investigates shifting cultural meanings of teenagers in the postwar period by examining linkages among cultural representations, citizenship, nation, youth and the body. This dissertation argues that cultural representations of teenagers mapped narratives of overcoming disability metaphorically onto coming-of-age stories, constructing adolescence as a temporary disability. Bringing disability and queer studies perspectives to a discursive history of the teen, this study traces how national health and the individual health of teen citizen-subjects fused biopolitically through the co- dependent tropes of rebelliousness and overcoming. Throughout, this dissertation highlights broader notions of American democratic citizenship and questions of compulsory able-bodiedness, heteronormativity, technology, the body, and affect in cultural analysis. Integrating analyses of films, television, novels, government policy, and medical technology, this study historicizes “medicalized edutainment,” my term for a range of teen-focused narratives which emerged in the late twentieth century alongside governmental initiatives to encourage teen health through popular culture. This edutainment not only medicalized teen development but also figured teen rebellion as internal and embodied rather than externally- or environmentally-incited. Addressing ix teen citizen-subjects proactively rather than protectively, medicalized edutainment promoted “rehabilitative citizenship,” that is, edutainment promised to rehabilitate developing teen citizens into stable adults while concomitantly rehabilitating the image of popular culture as productive rather than damaging. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing through the 2000s, this study examines representations of disease and disability in emergent televisual and literary forms for teens. This includes “disease-of- the-week” made-for-TV movies, such as ABC’s After School Specials (1972-1996) and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), and “teen sick-lit” novels by Lurlene McDaniel, which narrated and disciplined teens through the affective labor of sadness. It also examines popular neuroscience publishing, parenting books, and news coverage of school-shooting and superpredator epidemics from 1990 to 2000 to chart the emergence of “neuroparenting”—a parenting model that constructed teen brains as disabled by blaming neurology for “symptoms” of adolescence. Overall, this study historicizes how the joint tactics of policing sexuality and fostering bodily