Do you want to learn more about disability?  Are you a writer who wants to make sure a disabled character is portrayed realistically?  Maybe you’re curious about me or my service dog — or service dogs in general?  Starting Friday July 15th (sooner depending on how many questions I get), I’ll answer questions about any of the above topics.  If you have a question about something else, try me. Worst thing I can do is I’ll say no.  Post questions in the comments section.  I’ll post bi-weekly at first and we’ll see how it goes from there.

All my answers are my perspective, though I’ll try to give a well-rounded answer.  As with anything, people with disabilities don’t all think the same way.

As a writer, I’d love to see more disabled characters in a variety of genres.  Not as the pitiable victim or the superhero who conquers life despite being disabled, but as well-rounded characters with flaws who represent the varying views of one’s disability.

I’m a big fan of The Biggest Loser, it’s one of my many guilty pleasures. A lot of times the contestants face extreme activities that force them to face their fears. As I watch these people jump off buildings, zip line, bungee jump…I get jealous.

I want to face my fears. I want to grow and change and break the cycles I sometimes feel drown me. Because whether expressed in a positive or negative way, I was raised to believe I couldn’t do “normal”* things like living on my own.

But I did. After high school, I attended a university in the city and lived alone in a dorm room. At first, I had attendants help with everything. I gradually learned to do more for myself and relied less on an attendant. One morning, I even did *everything* myself. I woke up at 5AM for a 9:35 class.

After that, I learned what I could do on my own, what I could do but that took too much energy, and what I struggled with. It took that 3 hour morning to know my limits and get a balance
between doing things for myself and getting help — a balance between proving a point and living.

Like most people at that age, I was — mostly — fearless. I knew my disability meant I looked at life differently and I was more aware than most that I wasn’t invisible, but being a teenager meant I was ready to face things I probably should’ve ignored.

Fifteen years later, I’m afraid of everything and am stuck in the mindset that I can’t live alone. There’s a certain truth to that — when I move out I’ll need a live-in attendant, or at least attendants that work in shifts — but instead of encouragement, I face mostly positive ways of saying I’m incapable of living by myself. To be fair, a lot of discouragement comes from not having the financial resources. Others, though, are more focused on my disability.

My disability does not in any way mean I can’t live alone. I need 24/7 attendants, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of independence. And no, independence doesn’t mean living without help. It means controlling my life, whether that’s hiring attendants or figuring out ways to do things for myself.

My fears stop me from doing many things. I want to face those fears by jumping off buildings and trusting people and wires and whatever else would be there for support. I checked, but I didn’t see any organizations that provided those extreme activities for people with disabilities.

That idea goes to the top of the list of organizations I want to create when I finally have the resources. But that means I have to face my fears in other, smaller, ways. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure it out. And if I get the chance to zip line or jump off a building, I hope I have the courage to follow through with it.

* I hate the word normal but couldn’t think of a better word.

Crystal can tell, with 98% accuracy, when we’re going for a walk versus going in the car.  In the fall and winter (and cold Spring days), she knows as soon as she sees my gloves.  She gets very bouncy and talks and often tries to tug my gloves off as soon as I get them on.

That’s an easy thing for her to figure out.  Gloves = walk.

I’m not sure how she knows if I don’t wear gloves.  Is it a small difference in routine?  Maybe.  But I love it when she gets bouncy and vocal (no barking, just talking) and so, so excited to go for a walk.  Every day we walk, it’s the same.

And it’s one of the best parts of my day.

Disability? Paraplegia

Disabled actors? No.

Realistic? 4/10

Not Offensive/Offensive?  Offensive.

Archetype? Victim

The main character’s disability in AVATAR was simply a plot device, offering nothing beyond a typical look at how current society views and treats disability.  In fact, until seeing the year on one of his video logs, I didn’t think the story was set so far in the future.

Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, travels to Pandora to replace his twin brother in the avatar program.  Avatars are made to resemble the humans who control them, and after his twin is killed Jake is an obvious replacement even though he hasn’t had the training.  Though he’s reticent to do so, the Colonel who heads the program promises Jake that he will make sure the VA pays for the treatment that will cure his paraplegia.  This forces the assumption that, even in the future, health care for people with disabilities is staggeringly inadequate.

This premise gives the audience a palatable reason for Jake to decide to help.  However, because the avatar was created for his twin, another reason could be given instead of using his disability as a story crutch.  Jake is a Marine and, as such, the story could have simply relied on his sense of duty, both to country and family.  But using disability as an overall plot device is much easier, since it’s not often questioned.

At one point, Jake falls asleep at the table when doing a video log.  Instead of waking him up, Jake is carried to bed like a child.  And for the independent guy he’s portrayed as, pushing his own wheelchair and always transferring himself, this is an illogical character choice.  Not to mention that it’s an offensive action – I always teach kids to ask before they help someone with a disability and that’s a difficult lesson to remember when screen moments such as this reinforce stereotypes.

The ableism* shown in AVATAR is, unfortunately, unsurprising.  Movies (as well as other media) often rely on the caricature of disability so pervasive in society.  But disability is not a caricature nor is it a stereotype, but a community of people with varying personalities.  As a writer, I understand that some stories and/or characters may fall into the realm of unrealistic.  But what I’d like to see is a balance where the movies with realistic disabled characters can’t be counted on one hand.

While more could be said about the portrayal of disability in AVATAR, I’ll end this with a simple statement: My identity is not a plot device.

* Ableism describes comments or actions that in one way or another infer that people with disabilities are not “normal” or part of society.

Have you ever noticed that disability seems to take on a few particular archetypes in movies, over and over again?  There’s the ‘supercrip’, an inspirational hero living and conquering the world “despite” his or her disability.  In direct contrast, there’s the ‘pity gimp’ – terribly depressed solely because of their disability, all too willing to accept the pity of others or even preferring death over living with a disability.  The evil villain is another archetype used often, as is the ‘freak show’ effect.

There are a handful of movies (that I know of) that have characters with disabilities outside these imagined boundaries, but through more awareness disability will be portrayed across the spectrum.

This blog focuses on my take on characters with disabilities.  I don’t pretend to speak for everyone, or even the majority of people with disabilities. I’d love to know what others think, but please keep the discussion civil.

I multi-task. Sometimes I love doing so and other times it annoys me to no end, but I can’t do one thing at a time. I listen to music when I write, play computer games or read while watching TV, and I always have more than five applications open on my computer (and ten to twenty tabs open in my web browsers).

Reading is no exception. Instead of doing five things while I read, I usually have more than one book on my “currently reading” list. At the moment, nine books are on that list (I finished two tonight, bringing the list under ten). My new goal is to get the list down to three and make that the limit going forward.

Before getting a Kindle, I enjoyed hanging out in bookstores and buying physical books. Though there was always an intention to read them, I rarely finished (or, in most cases, started) any of these books. The logistics of holding a book, turning a page, and twisting my neck into awkward positions just wasn’t worth it. It was too physically taxing, and the handful of books I did read had to be hardcovers. Now, I’m able to read a dozen or so books every year. With the press of a button, I can turn the page.

Another reason I didn’t read much was that, after a while, the small lines of text would float together. With the ability to make the font on the Kindle larger, that rarely happens anymore.

My point here has gone off track, replaced by my Kindle tangent. My mind does that a lot, honestly. But here it is: sometimes it’s the really little things, like trimming the books on a “currently reading” list or watching a movie or TV show that’s been in the back of your mind for ages. It isn’t much, but it can free up some much needed space on a bookshelf, in an electronic reader, or simply the often too-full spaces of our brains.