Hi,
I've been meaning to respond to Paul Longmore's message including his
response to the director of the polio documentary. That list of questions
and advice was so good. If only the documentarian had listened to him.
Paul's consultation is exactly the kind of thing that I'm advocating. It
wasn't proscriptive; it wasn't PC; it just provided a perspective that
would have made the documentary a much better one.
If there is sentiment that we should have an anti-defamation kind of
committee, or, alternatively, simply a speaker/consultant list that could
be provided to the media how can we go about implementing it?
I suggest that this question be taken up at the next SDS meeting. Or is
there another organization that would be appropriate to house such a
service? I am speaking mainly of an organization in the US. I would
assume UK folks would have their own notions of the value or valuelessness
of such a service.
Opinions?
Best,
Lennard Davis
PS: There was mention that the polio documentary would be followed by a
shorter one on post-polio syndrome to be broadcast on PBS. I wonder if we
could find out when that will appear and then write some op-ed pieces on
the subject of media represenations of people with disabilities for local
and national newspapers.
At 11:10 AM 10/15/1998 -0700, you wrote:
>
>On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Lennard Davis wrote:
>
>> Oh, by the way,
>>
>> Why has the director of this unique film never bothered to respond to this
>> listserv if she was so interested in knowing about the disability
perspective?
>>
>> LJD
>
>
>I missed "Paralyzing Fear" when it aired in San Francisco, so I can't
>comment on the content of the film. In 1994 I was approached by the
>producer, Nina Seavey, Director of George Washington University's Center
>for History in the Media, about serving on the film's advisory panel. I
>expressed two concerns. I told her that it was imperative that she
>include people with disabilities in key paid positions on the project. I
>also offered suggestions about the content of the film. I wrote a letter
>of support (appended below) to help her get funded. After she got her
>initial grant, she discontinued communicating with me. Those of you who
>saw the program can decide whether or not she responded to my suggestions
>about content.
>
>Paul Longmore
>
>
>August 29, 1994
>
>Nina Seavey, Director
>George Washington University
>Center for History in the Media
>Washington, D.C. 20052
>
>Dear Ms Seavey:
>
>The film project you propose on the social impact and public perceptions
>of polio epidemics in the 20th-Century U.S. is an important one. The
>topic raises a range of significant historical and cultural questions.
>
>As a historian of disability and people with disabilities, I, of course,
>would note that the history of the epidemic disease of polio is a story of
>disability as well as illness because polio so often produced
>disabilities. It is impossible to recount the history of polio without
>examining the intertwined history of disability and people with
>disabilities in that same era.
>
>Among other questions, I would raise the following:
>
>How have Americans dealt with epidemic diseases and individuals who
>contract those diseases? What cultural beliefs did the polio campaigners
>rely upon to mobilize material and institutional resources to fight the
>epidemics and to treat and rehabilitate persons disabled by the polio
>virus?
>
>At a time when the demographics of polio was making it increasingly a
>disease of teenagers and young adults and no longer simply "infantile"
>paralysis, why did the organizers of the fund-raising efforts make the
>poster child the representative public image of persons disabled by polio?
>What impact did that child-image have on the social identities and roles
>of people who lived with post- polio disabilities?
>
>After FDR contracted polio, a friend of his mother said, "Now he is a
>cripple. Will he ever be anything else?" Why did FDR, the leading figure
>in the fight against polio, try to keep his disability hidden? What does
>"FDR's splendid deception" reveal to us about social attitudes in that era
>toward Americans who had post-polio and other disabilities?
>
>Why did the polio campaigners place so much emphasis on getting patients
>to walk again? What was the cultural meaning of "overcoming" a post-polio
>disability in this way? Did FDR and his colleagues (doctors,
>fund-raisers, and people who had had polio) transform people who had had
>polio into cultural heroes? If so, what sort of heroes were they?
>
>During these same decades, segregation of disabled people was enforced by
>such ordinances as "ugly laws" in Chicago and other cities that prohibited
>any "person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so
>as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person to be
>allowed in or on the public ways or other public places in this city" from
>exposing "himself to public view." Did institutionalized prejudice such
>as this in any way influence the polio fund-raising or treatment? Given
>this deeply entrenched bias, was "overcoming" another form of stigma or a
>step toward social inclusion?
>
>In the early 1950s, Salk and other virologists tested live-virus vaccines
>on institutionalized physically and mentally disabled persons. What does
>this tell us about social attitudes and values regarding people with
>disabilities in that era and in the anti- polio campaign?
>
>Many of the attitudes, values and institutionalized approaches toward
>illness and people who are sick or disabled that we now take for granted
>were fashioned during the first half of the 20th Century within the
>campaign against polio. Your film offers a valuable opportunity to
>explore a history that could illuminate an important but neglected aspect
>of our historical experience. I welcome the chance to work with you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>
>Paul K. Longmore
>Assistant Professor
>
>
>
>
>
>
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