Disability

“The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives federal civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications.”

“Pamela Anderson has more prosthetics in her body than I do; nobody calls her disabled.”

“At the same time, people of color in the United States are generally more likely to be disabled, or to lack adequate care, due to factors like environmental racism, occupational segregation, and poor access to health care. This is a systemic inequality that begins long before a fatal interaction with police ever takes place.”

“[Bioethics] is "a phony branch of elite philosophy whose principle purpose seems to be to justify allowing badly ill or disabled people to die."”

“The origin myths of many superheroes lie in life-altering accidents or bodily mutations. Fans of the genre emphasize that disability, largely unrepresented in other forms of fiction, is part of these characters’ stories. But those stories then go on to wish disability away, via bionic implants and armored suits. “ ‘Disabled’ superheroes aren’t disabled at all,” says Chris Gavaler, author of “On the Origin of Superheroes.””

“ACCORDING TO LAWRENCE Carter-Long, spokesman for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund , about 20 percent of Americans identify as disabled, while only about 2 percent of characters on television and in film have disabilities.”

“Advocates are also wary of plots that go out of their way to portray disabilities as inconsequential, in a way that minimizes the genuine challenges they pose. When Netflix launched a show based on Marvel’s Daredevil character, a New York Times reviewer wrote that the central superhero “is sightless but not blind to crime.” In fact, he doesn’t seem blind to much of anything, including women or agile villains.”

“Fundamentally, what Carter-Long and others want are more complex representations of people with disabilities — and not just in superhero blockbusters. “If there are few disabled characters being created or shown for disabled people to identify with, we then have fewer opportunities to be a meaningful part of what a huge number of non-disabled people simply take for granted,” Carter-Long said.”

“Not only do physically disabled people have experiences which are not available to the able-bodied, they are in a better position to transcend cultural mythologies about the body, because they cannot do things the able-bodied feel they must do in order to be happy, ‘normal,’ and sane….If disabled people were truly heard, an explosion of knowledge of the human body and psyche would take place.”