How Am I Doing?

Grade cutoffs (Photo credit: ragesoss)

I'm working on my final project for the course, a self-evaluation essay that goes with a portfolio.  And, I'm having a few problems.  I spent a lot of time over the past 7 weeks researching disability studies issues and watching Avatar (I must have seen the entire film 7 times and the scenes I used for the paper at least 30 times), which I remember doing, but the actual writing is kind of a blur.  So, I re-read what I wrote, and I'm kind of mortified by my first paper (a scene analysis with a DS approach, no outside research).  It looks like a sixth-grader wrote it.  On the other hand, I am now totally impressed by my research paper.  I gotta wonder, does everybody else in the class feel this way?

I won't know the grade until Monday, but I think that my improvement since early June has to count for something. 

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My Brilliant Conclusion about Disability in Avatar

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is it really a brilliant conclusion? Probably not.  Anybody who spends time thinking about disability (and all the issues that involves) while watching Avatar (repeatedly) will most likely see the same thing that I did.  The bottom line is that this film does, sadly, rely on a stereotype about the disabled, and it does so mainly as a matter of convenience in order to get its audience to accept Jake turning his back on humanity.  Even worse, this exploitation of disability is unnecessary and cowardly.  How much bolder a statement would it have made if an able-bodied Jake decided that he would rather belong to the ecologically responsible Na'vi  than the planet-raping humans?  More about this later-- I've really been thinking about this a lot.

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Better Dead than Disabled?

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 08: Jade Jones of Great Britain looks on after her race during the Visa London Disability Athletics Challenge LOCOG Test Event for the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on May 8, 2012 in London, England. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I'm taking a break from working on my draft, I just looked over my last few posts, and it hit me that I never talked about the second thing I mentioned from Siebers' list of myths about disability:  "It is better to be dead than disabled."  I don't know how I forgot about it, because Avatar says something really interesting as a kind of overall  position on disability. 

My first reaction to that myth was a memory of a guy in a restaurant (I think it was Chili's).  He was at the next table, and he and his wife (or girlfriend) were talking about a friend of theirs who had just come back from Iraq after being in an explosion.  I was trying not to listen, but he was loud, and we were all eating, so we were quiet.  Well, what he said was, "If that ever happens to me, just shoot me."  I didn't realize it then, but I've heard people say stuff like that lots of times.  And it makes no sense, now that I'm giving it some thought.  How do you know how you would feel if that really happened to you?  What about all the people who are living with disabilities and who seem to be enjoying life?  Where did this stupid idea come from, anyway?
So, what does Avatar say about it?  The movie basically says that it is better to be a blue alien on a planet millions of miles away from your home, surrounded by strangers, than it is to be a human with a disability. 

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What is Disability Studies?

English: A collection of pictograms. Three of them used by the United States National Park Service. A package containing those three and all NPS symbols is available at the Open Icon Library (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From what the Critical Model Packet says,  disability studies is nothing like what I thought it was when I saw the words on the assignment page.  According to the packet, disability studies uses what's called "the social model,  which looks at how a culture constructs the identity of persons with disabilities."  What I'm getting from this is that I'm supposed to be looking at my film (Avatar) to see how Jake is affected by other people's ideas -- and his own, too, I guess -- about people with disabilities.  For example, when he gets to Pandora, the people on the ship seem to be ignoring him completely and he has some problems getting his stuff together before he can exit, but when he leaves the ship, the guys in the landing area pick on him just as they pick on everyone else.  So, it seems to me that the people on the ship, the ones who made the ship, and the people in charge are basically discriminating against him, while the soldiers outside are not.  

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