Tuesday 11 September 2007

Super-Crips, Disabled Anti-Heroes and The Women Who Care for Them

In this essay I will explore the representation of both disabled male identity and non-disabled female identity, in relation to one and other. I will focus on the film My Left Foot (Sheridan, 1989) and Inside I’m dancing (O’Donell, 2004), suggesting the two identities have an ambiguous power relationship, as they identify with each other while also competing for dominance. I will show how these films present the difficulties inherent in establishing masculine identity for the disabled man. I will propose these films offer the solution to the problematic nature of establishing this identity, is gained through the oppression of women.

When discussing different female identities within feminism, Testaferri (1995:xiv) states, ‘The question is how to claim an identity in a society that creates a hierarchy of oppression’. The same question is applicable to the representation of disabled men in relation to non-disabled women.

My Left Foot and Inside I’m Dancing portray women characters caring for the disabled, taking the form of many roles including mother, nurse, personal assistant, family friend. These depictions reinforce cultural ‘..assumptions that caring is a natural or essential attribute of those born female’ (Hallam, 2000:14). This is demonstrated by Siobhan’s quick adaptation, despite no experience, into the provider of personal care; domestic help; and to some extent emotional support for the two disabled male protagonists in Inside I’m Dancing. The prominence of so many females fulfilling a caring role, and the absence of any substantial suggestion that they might want to do something esle, within these texts both shows and reinforces an operation of hegemony, ‘..a relation, not of domination by means of force, but of consent by means of political and ideological leadership. It is the organisation of consent’ (Simon, 1982:22).

My Left Foot and Inside I’m Dancing present the disabled masculine identity as problematic in terms of expression. The disabled man is seen to struggle against society, without the tools afforded to his non-disabled counterparts, to assert his masculinity. The uneasy relationship between disabled masculinity and non-disabled masculinity is directly portrayed in a conflict which Rory has in the pub with a non-disabled male (Inside I’m Dancing, O’Donell, 2004 ). The man says to Rory ‘If I was in a wheelchair pal, I wouldn’t be looking for trouble’. This implies that male conflict is normally resolved through entering into physical confrontation. The disabled man’s inability to do so, therefore lessens the sense of his own masculinity.

The social definition of masculinity is inextricably bound up with a celebration of strength, of perfect bodies. At the same time, to be masculine is to be not vulnerable (Morris, 1997:22).

A similar scene in My Left Foot raises the same issue when Christy’s father squares up to him, fist poised, in response to what he suspects was disrespectful comments from his son.

As well as highlighting a supposed frustration of the disabled protagonists in not being able to express their masculinity through physical violence, these scenes also produce a representation of non-disabled men being unable to relate to the concept of disabled masculinity. Indeed, Morris (1997:24) proposes that representation of disabled masculinity within films act as a metaphor for general male weakness, suggesting it is ‘..the safest way for men to explore their vulnerability’.

Mr Brown’s and the priest’s doubt of Christy’s intelligence (My Left Foot, 1989) ; Michael’s father’s denial/neglect of his son and Rory’s father’s inability to provide personal care (Inside I’m Dancing, 2004 ), all add to the sense of alienation between the non-disabled man and disabled males.

In various ways the disabled male protagonist are portrayed as identifying with the oppression felt by non-disabled women. In the exposition of My Left Foot the two female characters, Mother and Sheila are presented as having empathy for Christy. Both suspect his intelligence, before it’s proven and are seen to be encouraging figures. The concept of the oppression of the disabled being a similar experience to the one of female’s, is connoted in a scene where Sheila asks her father about her homework. She asks her father for confirmation that you can divide a quarter by a quarter, but he dismisses the notion as impossible. Both the father’s denial of Christy’s possible literacy and his dismissal of the mathematical question highlights the union of the oppressed minorities.

In a scene where a priest tells Mother that he doesn’t think Christy is ready to attend church, the camera work emphasises the relation between organised religion and the disabled individual ( My Left Foot, 1989). The priest appears in a medium shot with his upper body filling the vertical axis of the frame. He looks down on the juvenile disabled figure of Christy, seen in the next shot, whose upper body only fills half of the frame’s vertical axis. The priest sits upright while he addresses Christy, compared to the disabled boy awkwardly leaning back in his chariot. The mise-en-scene of this sequence adds to the sense of the unequal distribution of power, as we see a china tea cup placed by the side of the priest connoting the respect the Brown family has for the church. This is in contrast to the rough wood that Christy’s chariot is constructed of connoting the Browns’ poverty.

When the priest tells Christy, ‘You can get out of purgatory but you can never get out of hell’, the most obvious reading of this is a warning of the consequences of bad behaviour as a pornographic magazine was found in the boy’s chariot. However, the statement can also be read as the priest telling Christy he cannot challenge the hegemonic power of the non-disabled. In this reading the ‘hell’ referred to is seen as the combined forces of poverty and disability.

The patriarchal hegemonic power which is exerted over women is demonstrated in a scene where Christy lies awake and is disturbed by the sound of his parents having sexual intercourse. Shots of his “spastic” body thrashing around, agitated, are cut together with shots of artistic depictions of The Passion of Christ which hang on the walls of his bedroom. A high pitched pulse provides a non-diegetic soundtrack which is designed to add to the sense of anxiety in the scene. This is complimented by the diegetic sound of Mr Brown aggressively grunting, from the other side of the wall, in rhythm with his expression of masculinity. This scene highlights the oppression caused by the obligation of women to fulfil conjugal duties. The cuts-away to the religious paintings highlights the Catholic Church’s foreboding of contraception, and relates to mother’s near constant pregnant state throughout the film

In both scenes poverty is connected with both the oppression of Christy and Mother. The chariot which the Brown’s have constructed themselves does not provide the disabled boy with enough physical support to sit upright and look the priest straight in the eye. While the reasons why the Brown family retired early to bed, just prior to the scene where Christy is disturbed, is due to lack of coal.

The oppression of both Christy and his mother by the patriarchal non-disabled system is due to the physical state. While the priest judges Christy’s intelligence via his physical response to his lecture about hell and purgatory, Mrs Brown’s submission to her husband wishes can be attributed to the status of women within Irish Catholicism at this time. ‘Anatomy is destiny only if the concept of destiny is recognized for what it really is: a concept proper to fiction’ (Doane, 1988: 223). Indeed Christy’s oppression is coded as being due to his physical disability, ascribing to the medical model of disability. This is demonstrated by the emphasis placed on the communication barriers that Christy faces in expressing his intellect. This is also highlighted by the fact that the key figure who encourages his artistic talents is Eileen, a medical doctor, who also provided physical therapy. Therefore, at this point in My Left Foot anatomy seems to determine the fate and status of the characters.

The oppression felt by Rory and Michael in Inside I’m Dancing is coded as being due to society. The regime at Carrigmore is seen to be restrictive of the independence and self-expression of the two male protagonists. This is demonstrated by a scene where a female carer is getting Rory ready in the morning. She refuses to style his hair in the punk-like fashion that he appears with at the beginning of the film. The carer says “we haven’t got the time to tease your spikes everyday”. This refusal by the carer to help Rory create the signifier of his rebellious identity, his hairstyle, is presented as a sign of institutionalisation. Rory’s identity is in direct conflict with the identity of the other disabled residents at Carrigmore. He challenges the medical model directly when he introduces himself in the exposition of the film, “Rory O’Shea Duchene Muscular Dystrophy”. This statement is in contradiction to the mise-en-scene of the scene, Rory’s hair, leather jacket, chain-necklace, which all suggest that he defines himself as more than just his disability.

The fact that Rory, in Inside I’m Dancing, and Christy, in My Left Foot, challenge their low status within society presents non-disabled dominance as not being hegemonic. However there is a sense that Rory and Christy are the exceptions and that most disabled people accept their role, this is explicitly shown in Inside I’m Dancing by the other residents mindlessly watching Bagpuss.

Ideas of liberation for the disabled protagonists, in both films, are strongly linked to their relationship with the female characters. As well as the similarities of oppression that are drawn, non-disabled females are also seen as a conduit for the expression and fulfilment of disabled masculinity. This is presented on the simplest level by the fact that sex/love/romance with a non-disabled female is represented as the ultimate goal for the disabled male. Sex is shown as the signifier of liberation from disability, it therefore functions as

..the formation of special knowledges, the strengthening of controls and resistances, are linked to one another, in accordance with a few major strategies of knowledge and power. (Foucault, 1990: 106).

This is seen in My Left Foot with Christy’s series of female objects of affection the culmination of which is his date with nurse Mary, which is presented as an achievement greater than any of his artistic endeavours. In Inside I’m Dancing being with a woman is also presented as the ultimate goal demonstrated by both Michael’s and Rory’s desire for Siobhan. The fact that it is female characters that provide care for disabled males enabling them to express either their artistic potential or independence is another way in which females act as a conduit. However, the representation of disabled male relationships with women is problematic in both films.

In Inside I’m Dancing the denotation of the objectification of women is presented as connoting liberation for the disabled male. Rory is seen as an anti-hero, akin to McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Forman, 1975), defying the rules and the matriarchal figure which enforces them. However, one of the central signifiers of his liberation is freedom to objectify women. This is demonstrated by the mise-en-scene when Michael explores Rory’s room shortly after his arrival. A poster declaring “Warning: Keep Out, Unless You Have Big Boobs”, is on the wall next to a poster bearing an anarchy symbol; a poster of Che Guevera; and a Cuban flag. Here we see signifiers of revolution, the liberation of people, aside a comical but sexist statement. Therefore seeing these two signifiers together suggests that the objectification of women is akin to the political mobilisation of an oppressed group.

This concept is more than just the typical commoditisation of the female body that occurs within film, ‘..historically articulated its stories through a conflation of its central axis of seeing/being seen with the opposition male/female.’ (Doane, 1988:216). The representation of women as sexual objects, in Inside I’m Dancing, is so naturalised that in this case it is not a site of struggle, rather just a cultural signifier of what it is to be a well adjusted male. Michael’s emergence into mainstream society is constructed through contact with and objectification of young non-disabled women.

In My Left Foot the sacrifice that Mother undertakes for Christy is demonstrated in scenes when she carries him upstairs while pregnant and later begins to lay the bricks in the building of his new room. There is a sense that through Christy she herself can be fulfilled, which is implied explicitly when she says ‘Sometimes I think you are my heart’ to her son and then goes on to say if she could give him her legs she would. Eileen Cole is also seen to have a vested interest in Christy, she has devoted her career to the disabled. In a scene where the disabled artist is depressed she tells him ‘You know I don’t want to be a failure either.’ This statement could be read as her saying that nobody wants to fail but it could also mean that to some extent she is reliant on Christy’s success for furthering her own career. In this way we see a negotiation between the two oppressed groups to defeat dominant ideologies,

Thus hegemony has a national-popular dimension as well as a class dimension. It requires the unification of a variety of different social forces into a broad alliance expressing a national-popular collective will, such that each of these forces preserves its own autonomy and makes its own contribution in the advance towards socialism. It is this strategy of building up a broad bloc of varied social forces, unified by a common conception of the world, that Gramsci called a war of position. (Simon, 1982:25)

However, Christy’s liberation does not seem to bring much freedom for the women involved with the process. Eileen is still seen to be frightened of Christy’s artistic temperament as My Left Foot draws to its resolution. Indeed Christy’s final liberation comes through the resolution of an Oedipal complex with his father when he is able to provide his mother with money, earned from writing, for the upkeep of the family. While after seducing nurse Mary with his intelligence via her reading the autobiography he asks her whether she loves the man that she plans to meet after her time with Christy. There is a sense that he has a better grasp of emotional reality than Mary and therefore should trust in his faith in their future.

The character of Siobhan can be seen as another conduit of the disabled male, as she is vital in empowering Rory and Michael in their independent living. However there is less of a sense of women’s oppression is similar to that of the disabled, in Inside I’m Dancing, with the identification with sexist practices of patriarchal society occurring earlier than in My Left Foot. Sex and personal care are linked throughout the film with Rory replying, ‘You’ve got the best qualifications we’ve seen in a long time’, to Siobhan stating she has no experience.

However, although the objectification of women is presented in Inside I’m Dancing as a liberating force, it is ambiguous whether this is really the case. The conflict between the disabled male and the non-disabled female is explicitly shown in the scene where Rory tries to establish Siobhan’s role. Rory says ‘It’s not you job to make the rules, your jobs to do exactly what we tell you to do’. Here we see him establishing his dominance over Siobhan both as an employer and as a man. He then goes on to list her duties which consist of domestic tasks that the patriarchal system defines as women’s work. However as he is doing this Siobhan moves her tongue about in her mouth as to suggest that she is considering what is being said, but this is also a flirtation actions. As she approaches him slowly he says ‘You are our servant our skivvy, our slave’. Here Siobhan empowering role as personal assistant is turned into a sexual one by Rory’s usage of the word ‘slave’. However power relations are reversed when she says ‘Are you gonna shut up or am I gonna have to make you?’. Siobhan then utilises her sexual power to challenge Rory’s attempt of patriarchal dominance. She then places her hand over his mouth to make him shut up, as she removes her hand a single finger brushes against his lips and momentarily enters his mouth. Siobhan exposes Rory’s vulnerability both in terms of his physical impairment, he is unable to remove her hand, and sexually as she is aware of Rory’s desire for her.

This therefore makes this strategy of liberation through the oppression of women have more ambiguous effects than we see in My Left Foot. The fact that the revolution of Inside I’m Dancing sees Michael refusing Siobhan’s offer of help is a sign that liberation in this film is derived from self reliance.

So as I have shown when two oppressed groups are represented within film, there is an element of identification between minorities who live under the same hegemonic dominance. In the case of My Left Foot and Inside I’m Dancing the dominant power is a non disabled patriarchal system. The oppression of women is portrayed as truly hegemonic because it is never really challenged within the narrative of the two films. The oppression of the disabled however is not depicted as hegemony because the narrative drive of both plots is the attempt of emancipation of the disabled protagonist. The strategy of the oppression of women that is utilised by the disabled male characters has differing effects in the two narratives. However there is a theme that in order for an oppressed group, the disabled, to gain freedom they must mimic their oppressor, non-disabled men, by controlling other minorities, non-disabled women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Doane, M A. (1988) ‘Woman’s Stake; Filming the Female Body’ in eds. Constance Penley Feminism and Film Theory, London:BFI Publishing,

Forman, M. (1975) ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’

Foucault, M. (1990) ‘The Deployment of Sexuality’ in The History of Sexuality vol.1, London : Penguin

Hallam, J. (2000) Nursing the Image : Media, Culture and Professional Identity

Morris, J. (1997) ‘A Feminist Perspective’ in eds. Davies, C. and Pointon, A. Framed: Interrogating Disability in the Media, London : BFI

O’Donell. D. (2004) Inside I’m Dancing

Sheridan, J. (1989) My Left Foot

Simon, R. (1991) Gramsci’s Political Thought : An Introduction, London : Lawrence & Wishart

Testaferri, A.(1995)’Introduction’ in Feminisms in the cinema, eds. Pietropaolo, L. and Testaferri, A. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

1 comment:

The Goldfish said...

This was fantastic, thanks for sharing!

Romantic love of women is also often the cure for impairment in films. In As Good as it Gets and The Boy in the Bubble spring to mind; the effects of impairment magically fade away due to the love of a beautiful woman. *Sigh*

And there are very few films about disability with female protagonists. Those that manage to have a woman often overcome many of the other stereotypes.