"Retarded"

I watched many shows in my research for this project.  I heart the word "retarded" quite a bit.  I do not like this word whatsoever.  I do not allow it in my classroom, and I do not say this word at all.  For the first time, I heard this word bleeped out on television.  I was watching the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I was very surprised to hear the word bleeped out.  It is really refreshing to see that someone in the media is advocating for individuals with disability and eradicating this horrible word.  

Freaks and Geeks

One afternoon I was flipping channels and decided to watch a re-run of the show Freaks and Geeks on IFC.  It was the middle of the episode, but the main character Sam was walking  up to the bleachers to three boys.  One of the boys had some sort of developmental disability, and the other two were asking him questions to make fun of him.  Sam walks up and tells the first boy that the others are laughing at him and not with him.  Sam gets very upset because the boys will not stop and she finally yells out, "They are only laughing at you because you're retarded!" He yells back , "I'm not retarded, I'm special.  You're retarded!"The boy is really hurt by what Sam says and tells her she is the one that is being mean, not the other boys.  Sam that he does not want to go to the school dance with her anymore, runs away from the bleachers, falls and breaks his arm.  The whole chain of events was very emotional.  I always feel very sad when I see a person being taken advantage of, but to then see the boy defend himself and then completely embarrass himself was really heart-wrenching.  It all had a happy ending when hit they made up and shared a dance in the school gym. 

South Park

This season on South Park there was an episode called "Ass Burgers."  You can only imagine what this episode is about. One of the main characters on the show, Stan, gets diagnosed with Asperger's because he is withdrawn and depressed and had received a vaccination the previous year.  When Stan goes for treatment at a medical facility, the other patients tell him that there is really no thing as Asperger's, but just a group of people that see the world for how it really is, "shitty."  Oh and of course, the "shittiness" is caused by a group of aliens trying to take over the world.  The other patients give Stan medicine so that he can see the world the way he used to is alcohol.  The "patients" pump Stan with whiskey to make him find the aliens.

Meanwhile, Cartman is completely fascinated with the name Asperger's.  He interprets the diseases name to be ass burgers and creates a hamburger company where he sells burgers that have been in his pants.  The whole town goes crazy for the burgers until they realize the secret ingredient. 

The episode ends with Stan accepting that his life isn't perfect and becoming a childhood alcoholic.  South Park does not really address disability in this episode.  The main comment they have is that the name Asperger's sounds silly.

House

I was flipping through channels one afternoon and stumbled upon an episode of Fox's House.  This is a medical show about a very arrogant doctor.  Each episode they highlight a specific patient's journey through a serious illness.  This episode highlights the case of a piano-playing savant played by Dave Matthews.  The character originally became a savant because of a car accident, and later in his life began to have seizures.  As it turned out, half of the patient's brain was dead.  The patient's father had a choice to remove half of the brain or keep it.  If the doctors removed the dead half of the brain then the patient would gain brain productivity btu lose the ability to plat the piano.  If they did not operate, the patient could continue to play the piano, but he would live with a life of seizures. At the end the father decided to get the operation and it was immediately apparent that the patient gained brain function because of it.


I took a few things from this episode.  First of all, I thought that it was interesting to see disability viewed in a medical way. I also noticed the difference between how parents view their children and how the rest of the world does. 

Abed

NBC's Community, in my opinion, is one of the best shows on television.  One of my favorite characters on the show is Abed, played by Danny Pudi.  As far as the audience is concerned, there has never been a moment on the show when Abed is identified with having Asperger's, but it is fairly obvious to an informed observer that the character has traits that land him on the Autism spectrum.  There are moments in the show where Abed's suspected disability is mentioned.  For example, in the first episode of the series, Abed's character is accused of having Asperger's.  In a later episode, the same character says, "Abed, you're a computer," commenting on his ability to sort information.  In true fashion of a individual with Autsim, Abed does not portray a great deal of emotion.  This lack of expression provides Community with some very interesting story lines.  For example, in last season's Christmas episode, Abed was having difficulty presented with an overwhelming amount of emotion.  Because of this, he imagined him and all of the other characters in the show in a claymation Christmas world.  I found this very interesting that they did not mention his disability but use it to enhance the show as a whole.

Happy Accidents

I just want to note how many of my observations for this assignment are occurring by accident.  When I began thinking of the ways to tackle this project, it seemed like a daunting task to find many examples of disability on television.  When in fact, most of my observations are from shows that I was watching by chance. I do admit that I watch a lot of television, but I think this really says something about how much disability is really represented in the media, specifically television.  There are many different ways that it is represented including negatively, positively, scientifically, fantastical, or true. Each way that disability is represented makes a statement about how American society views disability as a whole.