Avatar, Exoskeletons, and the Disabled

from Eksobionics

The more I watch Avatar this way (I mean thinking about disability), the more I am amazed at how many things I didn't notice when I first saw it.  One of those things is that exoskeleton thing, which I have now learned is called an AMP suit.  I was watching that scene with Jake meeting Quaritch again, and it suddenly hit me that here's Jake in a beat-up, stripped-down wheelchair, while able-bodied Quaritch is in the suit, a machine that effectively makes him super-able-bodied.  And I thought, why isn't Jake in a suit of some kind?  If they have these AMP suits on Pandora, they should have a version for paraplegics available on Earth, shouldn't they?  Well, guess what -- they do.  For real, and right now, although they are horribly expensive.  The filmmakers would probably say that Jake can't have one for the same reason he can't have corrective surgery, which is that the VA won't pay for it, but hey, it's the future, and by then the cost should have come down, right?  He could maybe have a stripped-down, beat-up, secondhand one, couldn't he?

Well, my main point is that even though I didn't know these things already exist, plenty of other people who did were probably asking themselves the same question.  Incidentally, there are a lot of YouTube videos of the things.

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• Exoskeletons await in work/care closet (japantimes.co.jp)

Just one of the guys



Avatar (2009 film)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been looking for a scene in Avatar that shows a contrast to Quaritch's ableism, and I think I've found one that will work okay.  It's the landing scene.  First we see all the new soldiers exiting the shuttle, and as they walk past a group of soldiers who are working nearby, they are greeted with comments like "New meat!"  Jake rolls down the ramp and finds himself on a collision course with a guy in one of those exoskeletons, and it becomes clear that Jake is going to have to evade, not exo-guy.  There's two ways to look at this:  maybe exo-guy can't maneuver very fast, in which case, he's okay on the disability front, OR, he could, but he's forcing Jake to do so because he's another ableist jerk like Quaritch (and not a contrast).  However, he says something like "watch it, hot rod," which actually has a kind of accepting tone.  The next line comes from a guy next to the one who said "new meat."  He turns to NM-guy, and tells him to look (pointing at Jake).  NM-guy asks, "meals on wheels?"  Both this comment and the hot-rod line are the kind of things that men say to each other all the time as part of some weird ritual that I don't understand, but I think it means that they are, somehow, welcoming him just as they did the other soldiers.  I'm probably going to have to do some more research, since I'm pretty sure that some sociologist has come up with a name for this process.  Back to the library, or at least to its website.

Related articles

• Wearable Exoskeleton Can Help Users Carry Heavy Items With Ease (InnovationToronto.com)
• AMP Suit (the Avatar exoskeleton thing) with video

Ignore my Disability, Please

English: Rocks in mountains. Deutsch: Felsen im Huangshan-Gebirge. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Nondisabled people have the right to choose when to be able-bodied. Disabled people must try to be as able-bodied as possible all the time," which Tobin Siebers lists as a myth in American culture about disability, means that social pressure exists on the disabled to keep able-bodied people from noticing their disabilities.  In other words, overdoing things that are difficult is required of the disabled so that people without disabilities don't get uncomfortable.  Where I see this in Avatar is in the scene I was talking about before.  When Quaritch gets into the big exoskeleton thing, Jake has to be elevated so that they're on the same eye level, when it would have made more sense (and been more polite, too) if Quaritch had continued to sit on the weight bench while they were talking.  Moreover, there is no kind of railing on the raised platform, which would be kind of scary even for people who aren't using a wheelchair.  So Jake has this added burden, and you can imagine where in some cases, trying to act like he is able bodied would be bad for his health, maybe even dangerous.  

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• How Hollywood Casts The Handicapped (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
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• Justice for the Sick and Disabled (believersbrain.com)