Laughing & Disability: Comedy, Collaborative Authorship and Down Under Mystery Tour By Michael Noonan BA (FTV), B.Bus (Accountancy), MA (Research) (Film and Television Production). A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Research) (Film and Television). 2010 School of Film and Television, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Principal Supervisor: Geoff Portmann. Associate Supervisor: Professor Alan McKee, PhD. S TATEMENT OF O RIGINAL A UTHORSHIP he work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to T meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made. Signature: _____________________________________________ Date: _______________________________________ T ABLE OF C ONTENTS List of Appendices ............................................................................................. v Supplementary Materials .................................................................................. v Thesis Abstract ................................................................................................. vi Keywords........................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... vii C HAPTER 1: M AKING PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Background to the study ............................................................................. 3 1.3 The research question ................................................................................. 7 1.4 Research integrity ....................................................................................... 9 1.5 Outrage and misrepresentation .................................................................. 10 1.6 Ongoing legal proceedings ........................................................................ 11 1.7 Thesis structure ......................................................................................... 12 1.8 The creative work ..................................................................................... 12 1.9 The exegesis ............................................................................................. 12 C HAPTER 2: D ISABILITY ON SCREEN, NARRATIVES, AUTHORSHIP AND COM EDY 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 15 2.2 Why are representations important? .......................................................... 16 2.3 Disability on film and television ............................................................... 20 By the numbers ......................................................................................... 20 Disabled person as ‘victim’ ....................................................................... 22 Disabled person as ‘monster’ .................................................................... 23 Disabled person as ‘hero’ .......................................................................... 24 2.4 The search for positive images .................................................................. 25 Dominant representations are ‘unrealistic’ ................................................ 25 Positive equals normal…?......................................................................... 26 Positive + realistic + normal = indefinable ................................................ 32 2.5 Authorship: who’s in charge of the representations?.................................. 34 Disabled actors, not ‘disabled-face’ .......................................................... 34 Disabled actors turn audiences off ............................................................. 36 In front and behind: disabled people as creators of content........................ 38 A collaborative approach: not ‘us’ and ‘them’ ........................................... 42 Stable readings still rely on who’s speaking .............................................. 47 iii T ABLE OF C ONTENTS 2.6 Reaching audiences ................................................................................... 48 The classic narrative approach .................................................................. 48 Form or formulaic? ................................................................................... 51 2.7 Tackling comedy: now it gets serious ........................................................ 53 Comedy about disability isn’t funny .......................................................... 54 Comedy requires complex interactions ...................................................... 57 2.8 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 60 C HAPTER 3: R ESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 63 3.2 The methodology ...................................................................................... 64 3.3 Problem-driven but not led ........................................................................ 66 3.4 Expressing findings differently ................................................................. 67 3.5 Conflicting roles ....................................................................................... 69 3.6 Drawing on many methodologies .............................................................. 70 3.7 The creative practice ................................................................................. 72 3.8 Ethics and consent .................................................................................... 73 C HAPTER 4: T HE DOING OF THE CREATIVE WORK 4.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 77 4.2 The use of concept, structure and stylistic approach .................................. 78 4.3 The concept .............................................................................................. 81 4.4 The structure ............................................................................................. 90 4.5 The stylistic approach ............................................................................... 95 4.6 A return to structure: yowies, big cats and ‘belonging’ .............................. 96 4.7 Revisiting the concept: Malcolm and the narrator .................................... 101 4.8 Changing the format ............................................................................... 106 4.9 The feature film ...................................................................................... 109 4.10 Intellectual disability and the fictional narrative ...................................... 120 4.11 Fiction v reality ....................................................................................... 120 4.12 Blurred lines ........................................................................................... 123 4.13 Managing external agendas ..................................................................... 129 4.14 Individuals, not a ‘disability community’ ................................................ 129 4.15 Protecting disabled people ...................................................................... 132 4.16 Disabled people can be funny ................................................................. 136 4.17 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 139 C HAPTER 5: C ONCLUSIONS 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 143 5.2 What has been learnt ............................................................................... 145 5.3 The future for disability narratives .......................................................... 149 iv T ABLE OF C ONTENTS L IST OF A PPENDICES 1.1 UHREC audit findings ............................................................................ 153 1.2 Letter from National Health and Medical Research Council .................... 156 1.3 Original concept document for Darren and James .................................. 157 1.4 Notes on PhD submission copy of Down Under Mystery Tour ................ 161 1.5 Full transcript for Down Under Mystery Tour ......................................... 163 References ...................................................................................................... 195 Films and television programs....................................................................... 211 S UPPLEMENTARY M ATE RIAL DVD consisting of: (1) Feature-length comedy film Down Under Mystery Tour (70 minutes). v T HESIS A BSTRACT his thesis is an exploration of representation, authorship and creative T collaboration in disability comedy, the centrepiece of which is a feature- length film starring, co-created and co-written by three intellectually-disabled people. The film, entitled Down Under Mystery Tour, aims to entertain, and be accessible to, a mainstream audience, one that would not normally care about disability or listen to disabled voices. In the past, the failure of these voices to reach audiences has been blamed on