I read your post, Marta, and I was reminded of the arguments I used to have with a friend who did (academic) stuff on disability. She had CP, and ws writing primarily about stuff that concerned people with physical, rather than mental disabilities. She admitted that the groups had different concerns, but wouldn't admit that it was problematic to talk about "disabilities." My brother, for example, has mental retardation, is autistic, and has recently been diagnosed with OCD (I think the OCD is part of the autism, but that's another story. the meds help, and that's what matters). Now, talk about yer invisible populations--crazy retards are pretty high up there (whoops gonna get slammed for that one--gallows humor). And it seems to me from what I've read (admittedly limited), he's invisible within the disability literature as well.
The Benetton ad pissed me off. It pissed me off because we are always seeing images of happy laughing children with Down's syndrome. Every time someone wants to make people with MR seem not repulsive, they go for the folks with Down's. I think it makes people with MR as a whole more invisible. People in the physical disability community get pissed off at Jerry Lewis for the way the "kids" are presented as perfect little happy grateful angels. Why not get pissed about the gorgeous little Down'sy children that we always see? How is it different?
frances
On Sun, 22 Nov 1998, Marta Russell wrote:
> Frances Bolton (PHI) wrote:
>
> > Has anyone seen the new Benetton ads? A few years ago they did they ad
> > with the guy who was just about to die of AIDS. Now they've got a 2 page
> > color ad of a laughing child with Down's, and another of a child who looks
> > like s/he might have CP, cradled in the arms of a woman.
> >
>
> This kind of positive image about disability is the result of years of hard work to
> promote the image of disabled people as "people" not subhuman things. I worked as
> director of operations for the Media Access Office for a period of time in which
> much of my job was to educate the movie industry about negative stereotypes of
> disability. One of :our" historians Dr. Paul Longmore has compiled and analyzed
> thousands and thousands of films that contain a character with a disability, the
> vast majority of which sterotype disability and are extremely negative. For
> instance, disability is commonly used as a metaphor for evil, for instance Stanley
> Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Captain Hook, etc.
>
> The fact that Benetton feels comfortable endorsing a product by using a baby with
> downs in an ad is due to the disability rights movement.
>
> Marta
>
>
>