Hi all,
Celebrated T-giving over here with a chicken burrito, so maybe it's a
turkey-nostalgia thing, but I gotta say, the Christopher Reeve TV-remake of
Hitchcock's *Rear Window* MUST have been better than the BBC's offering
this week: a documental (no, that's not misspelled) exploration into
plastic surgery for people with Down Syndrome.
Everyone interviewed--from the surgeons to the parents (of the two children
spotlighted) to the Bingo Hall acquaintances of the adult man who begged
for more and more "reconstructive" surgery--believed that the "Down"
appearance was a "mask" that prevented the subject from living a "normal"
life. There was eye-opening (literally), ear-pinning, nose-stretching, and
chin-reducing going on in the name of facial "improvement"; and there were
parents' justifications and doctors' boasts and friends' affirmations. But
there was complete lack of attention to what the children wanted. The
reason the adult male opted for a series of operations was to be "normal,"
to "marry and have a family." The two kids were not asked about their
ideals of normalcy, or even if they felt their appearance was a problem.
What impressed me the most was the look of shock/guilt/contriteness on a
father's face as he saw his son's pain just after the brutal slicing and
liposuction had been performed. For a moment, it seemed that he was sorry
to have inflicted this beauty-fix on his son. (But of course the editors
fast-forwarded to a post-surgery timeframe of some weeks hence, when the
little boy's appearance was a better fit for what the dad had wanted all
along: a son who looked "more like his normal brothers.")
So when Tom Connors writes, about the Christopher Reeve movie:
>I'm all for a cure but not to the exclusion of disability culture
>. . . . I found the idea of a spoiled identity in the quest of cure
unacceptable
I would have to add that for these two children (who both "enjoyed"
American surgeries), not only have their identities been spoiled, but the
"quest for cure" was not even of their own choosing.
And when Tom writes, about Reeve:
> Perhaps his fervor will eventuate in a cure for paralysis but at
what cost. What of our brethren
>who have disabilities not responsive to this cure
I would add, what of the unbeautiful children whose parents don't have the
money for plastic makeovers?
As Ben Mattlin wrote to the editor of the _NY Times_ (thanks, Martha):
>In the same evening, Americans watched Dr. Jack Kevorkian fatally
>inject Thomas Youk on "60 Minutes"...and then saw Christopher Reeve
reinvent
>himself as a quadriplegic actor in ABC's remake of "Rear Window"
--Apparently, those who can't *reinvent* themselves will be helped to
*reincarnate*.
Anyone else see the BBC show?
Dona
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Dona M. Avery
University of Bristol, England
Research Fellow, Graduate School of Education,
& Arizona State University, USA
PhD program, English: Rhetoric & Composition
UK Tele: 01793 487 424 Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.public.asu.edu/~donam
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