Am I a person? (part IV)
In order to promote the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games to an audience biased by the repeated use of the insulting definition of “special Olympics”, Channel 4 produced a commercial that quickly became a classic. Yes, I can, featuring a great number of disabled athletes and musicians, is a statement of power, a celebration of adaptability, a middle finger to the medical model of disability.
It has also become, quite quickly, one of the worst examples of inspiration porn, and — regardless of the intentions of its writers — an ableist outlook of what makes a life with a disability worth living.
Consider an average able-bodied. This person has an office job, five days a week, nine-to-five. They try to keep active by going to work on a bicycle, working out three times a week, fitting in the occasional jog. They do not go over their way to eat healthy, but try nonetheless to limit their fast food and unhealthy options to social occasions. They do not abuse alcohol, privileging quality over quantity. This is a lifestyle that most people would find ranging from acceptable to satisfactory: few people are willing to endure the sacrifices necessary to maintain a level of physical excellence proper of a professional athlete, especially when the depressing diet of Cristiano Ronaldo would not come with his earnings, fame or satisfaction. Between an athlete’s and a couch potato’s lifestyle, there is a mentally and physically healthy compromise that most people happily adopt.
Now consider a disabled individual, with the same office job as the aforementioned able-bodied. They keep active by pushing around their wheelchair, they occasionally work out or undertake physiotherapy, and have the same eating and drinking habits of the able-bodied of the previous paragraph. There will be an astonishing number of people that will wonder — and ask them directly — how come they are not interested in sports, or why they do not want to participate in the Paralympic Games.
The answer is quite simple: there is only one Usain Bolt, and there is only one Trischa Zorn. However, while Usain Bolt is considered a role model primarily by other athletes who would make any sacrifice to achieve a fraction of his success as a sprinter, disabled people are all supposed (from an able-bodied perspective) to be as athletic, committed and successful as Trischa Zorn — namely, an individual with a combination of talent and genes with which only a handful of people have been blessed in the history of humanity.
Becoming a Paralympic athlete is just as hard, and often more expensive, as becoming an Olympic athlete. It takes a life of sacrifice, a full-time commitment to one’s sport of choice, the right genes, a sheer dose of luck, and the money to buy specialised equipment (e.g. wheelchairs that would not disintegrate after a hard tackle). One cannot become an Olympic athlete eating cheeseburgers daily, or training one hour three times a week — let alone if they were not born with the right muscular fibres, the necessary hand-eye coordination, in the right place or at the right time (case-study: basketball legends who never won a championship because they reached their prime at the same time as Michael Jordan). The same applies to those who want to become Paralympic athletes; and there are many disabled people who do not even want to see the Paralympic games on tv, nor they want fame or publicity — just like the vast majority of the people living in this planet. However, while able-bodied people can generally live their life according to their own inclinations (or their partner’s, or sometimes an intrusive parent), disabled people are subjected to a narrative according to which disabled lives are worth living only to the extent that the disabled individual “overcomes their disability”. Forget about going to work, having a quick pint at the pub and watching some Netflix before bedtime: disabled people must do something extraordinary, or else accept their fate as worthless semi-members of society.
What does “overcoming disability” really mean? And is overcoming disability really important? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the verb “overcoming” as i) to achieve a victory over someone or something or ii) to subject to incapacitating emotional or mental stress. Since disability is not a sentient entity that can be subjected to emotional stress, we can focus instead on the meaning of the verb that permeates the narrative surrounding disabled people. “Overcoming” disability means achieving a victory over the disability: in other words, to achieve something that the disability would otherwise prevent one from doing. This is an extremely ableist outlook on the life of a disabled individual: not only able-bodied people are never judged on the basis of their ability doing something normally seen as impossible (unless we missed the memo that deemed as failures those who cannot match Usain Bolt’s record on the 100 metres), but also disabled people are tested against an impossibility that, in fact, only exists in the eyes of the able-bodied. By way of example, let us consider the seven examples of “overcoming” disability in the previous link (I am excluding John Nash as he did not have a physical disability, and I do not have the necessary knowledge to test his achievements against his disability):
- Frida Kahlo: suffered polio and a bad childhood accident and possibly had spina bifida. How these issues negatively affect creativity is anyone’s guess, and indeed Frida Kahlo is widely considered one of the greatest artists of all time. She was in chronic pain all her life, and often forced to long periods of bedrest.
- Stephen Hawking: suffered from ALS for most of his adult life. With the aids necessary to research and write, he pursued an incredibly successful career as theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, cosmologist, and writer. Oh, and — unlike most able-bodied people — did a cameo in The Big Bang Theory. He died before recovering the ability to walk or speak.
- Nick Vujicic: born with tetra-amelia syndrome (which is medical for “without limbs”). Thanks to his brain, his speaking ability, and people’s passion for inspiration porn, he has become a very successful evangelist and motivational speaker. He has not grown limbs yet.
- Andrea Bocelli: born with congenital glaucoma, became fully blind at the age of 12. He continued to study music and singing and proceeded to sell more than 75 million records worldwide. He still cannot see.
- Michael J. Fox: diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991. He kept working as an actor; unfortunately, he will never be able to portray Muhammad Ali on the screen. That also applies to Russell Crowe, Brad Pitt, Jason Statham, Tom Hardy and Christian Bale who, unlike Michael J. Fox, do not have Parkinson’s disease.
- Alex Zanardi: lost both legs in a terrible racing car accident while competing in the NASCAR championship. He went back to driving after losing his legs and, more impressively, collected a remarkable amount of Paralympic and World Championship gold, silver and bronze medals in handcycling and triathlon, and completed an Iron Man. His legs remain a thing of the past.
- Aaron Fotheringham: has spina bifida. As a WCMX athlete (think about skateboarding, but on a wheelchair) he did some tricks that made him famous and placed his name in the Guinness World Records. Also, because of his passion for spectacular tricks, his speaking ability, the fact that he is a very nice fella and — again — people’s love for inspiration porn, he has pursued a rather successful career as a motivational speaker. He still cannot walk.
Let me add to this group Trischa Zorn, who I mentioned in the opening of this post. Blind from birth, Zorn is the most successful athlete in the history of the Paralympic Games, having won 55 medals (41 gold, 9 silver and 5 bronze). For comparison, Michael Phelps, with his “mere” 28, has the most Olympic medals of all time. In spite of all her medals, though, Zorn (like Andrea Bocelli) still cannot see.
This is a call to celebrate these people as extraordinary persons, not as extraordinary persons with disability. They are indeed extraordinary, but not because of their disabilities: Kahlo is the subject of countless books, films, exhibitions and studies, and most people do not even know she was disabled; Hawking retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge; Bocelli is one of the best-selling artists ever; Michael J. Fox is, and will always be, Marty McFly; Zanardi has competed professionally and won in four different sports; Zorn has won 27 (twenty-seven) medals more than Michael Phelps, the most successful Olympian in history; Fotheringham is in the Guinness World Records book and, like Vujicic, gets paid significant sums of money to basically tell people that they could do something with their life if they were not too busy eating crisps on their couch. These are not people who overcame their disabilities: their disabilities are still there, they will only go away along with the body they affect, and they do not prevent them from doing what they excel at. These are people who achieved the highest levels of their careers of choice, and their achievements trump those of the vast majority of their competitors globally, not only the disabled ones (should anyone object that Zanardi only competed in adapted cycling and triathlon, they should be reminded that, prior to losing his legs, Zanardi raced in the NASCAR and F1 championships; for those unfamiliar with motorsports, these two championships group the top 50 out of the 1.2 billion drivers worldwide, and Zanardi was among those 50 for more than a decade).
In light of this, we can turn to the second question: is overcoming disability really important? The eight afore-mentioned individuals prove that it is perfectly possible — given the right combination of commitment, genes, and luck — to reach the highest levels of one’s profession regardless of their level of ability: indeed, these people have overcome the limitations of any average human being, not their disability. They also prove that reaching the highest levels of one’s profession is incredibly difficult for anyone, and not a standard against which ordinary people should be tested. The average Jane is not measured against Michael Phelps’ 27 medals, Anne Walton’s net worth, or Marie Slodowska-Curie’s two Nobel prizes: society considers a 9 to 5 job, a family, a hobby, a house and a car as a lifestyle worth pursuing, not as the sign of not being able to overcome one’s limitations. Why are disabled people’s lives measured against those of individuals who are amongst the most successful ever (according to certain specific metrics)?
This discussion of the consideration of extraordinary disabled individuals underscores two contradictory points that ultimately show the impossibility, for disabled people, to be simply considered as persons. On one hand, these individuals are considered heroes and objectified as inspirational because they have achieved great success in spite of their disability; this qualification as heroes, however, conveniently ignores the fact that their disability does not make their achievements more impressive, because the said disability does not affect their ability to attain such achievements. On the other hand, these individuals are presented as the standard against which disabled people should test their lives — again, conveniently ignoring a very important aspect: their achievement are simply out of reach for the large majority of human beings, able-bodied or otherwise. This double standard puts disabled people before an unsurmountable wall. One must be extraordinary to be worthwhile but, should they reach extraordinary levels, their achievement will be downplayed, lest anyone forget to place them within the box they belong in: that of persons with disabilities. It is unrealistic to expect the law to abandon this undermining notion when such law is expression of a society that only wishes to hear about the select group of disabled people who achieve extraordinary things. The others must be too lazy anyways.
