Hello lovely people!
Yeah, it's a Halloween video.
I'm wearing a witches hat.
That's about it.
That's all the ilusion to Halloween you are going to get.
A lot is happening at the moment.
I keep losing people in my life.
And... [speechless]
Also I have a migraine.
That’s not new.
We work through migraines here because if we didn't what would we do with those 22 days
of the month??
Moving on!
Let’s make a video shall we?
It’s that time of year where we carve pumpkins, tell ghost stories, and watch horror movies
– absolutely none of which should prompt me to make a whole video about how when you
look closely at aspects of our society, you begin to notice the deep, dark stigma against
disabled people and those with visible differences, right…?
Riiiiight….?
Wrong.
Wrong my friends!
Let’s talk about it in a lengthy, chatty youtube video where I get worked up about
things.
Because why not?
I feel really worked up and kind of angry right now like the Hulk.
I'm just always angry!
I’m not.
I’m not really, I’m quite a calm person.
But I feel angry right now!
I have a lot of feelings kind of about unrelated things but I cannot talk about those so we
are going to talk about this.
Because this also makes me angry.
So we are going to talk about the history of how marginalised groups are stigmatised
by the media and that uphold shame!
And if that sounds like your kind of thing you should subscribe and stick around
I also have other videos…
They’re less angry.
Kind of.
I’m just calmer and presented better.
As I was saying…
While Halloween is filled with fun traditions, if we were to peel off its mask like the villain
at the end of an episode of Scooby Doo, we’d find some pretty horrific ableism hiding below
the surface.
Also like Scooby Doo.
Because Halloween is when many of us enjoy being frightened by things that scare us.
But just think about the villains in your favourite movies.
Freddy Kruger.
Tony Montana.
Kylo Ren.
The Joker.
Even Scar in the Lion King, or Shere Khan in the live action remake of Disney’s Jungle
Book.
What do they have in common?
Yes, they all have facial scarring.
- And why IS your reaction ‘fear’?
Is it because movies have been priming us to think that way FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
OF CINEMA?
Throughout mainstream media but especially in horror films, disabled and visibly different
people are literally vilified.
Their bodies are used to shock and disgust audiences.
A quick note on language before we dive in: I will be talking about disabled people and
people with visible differences in this video, and at times using language like ‘disfigured’.
There isn’t always a consensus throughout marginalised communities about the quote-unquote
“right” language to use, so I will be taking my cue from organisations and people
who have things like facial scars and limb differences who have talked about their own
experiences.
I’ll also be using some of the not-great language used to describe disabled and visibly
different people in the past, to add some historical context.
That language is NOT okay to use, but we don’t know what not to say unless someone says it
so that is why it has been included.
On that note, it’s time for some super fun history!
UGLY LAWS
Did you know that there used to be laws to stop disabled people being in public?
No, I’m not kidding and yes, it’s pretty much as awful as it sounds.
Although they didn’t get their nickname until 1975, the ‘ugly laws’ broadly refer
to legislation passed by a number of cities in the US in the late 19th century.
In their book, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public, Susan M. Schweik – Professor of
English and co-director of the Disability Studies Program at the University of California
– explains that these laws were used as a means of removing poor, unhoused and disabled
people from sight.
These laws were literally dehumanising.
The ugly law added to the Chicago City Code in 1881 read: “Any person who is diseased,
maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object,
or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares, or
public places in the city, shall not therein or thereon expose himself or herself to public
view.”
Let that sink in for a second.
These laws literally described disabled and visibly different people as objects.
*Shudder.*
The first of the ugly laws was passed by the city of San Francisco on 9th July 1867.
It was: “Order No. 783.
To Prohibit Street Begging, and to Restrain Certain Persons from Appearing in Streets
and Public Places.”
Further laws were passed in a number of other states, the last of which was passed in Reno,
Nevada, in 1905.
And the last ugly laws weren’t repealed until 1974 – that’s less than fifty years
ago!
This is not some weird victorian thing that happened back then and oh we never do that
now.
Oh no haven’t heard of that before.
Yeah.
The Ugly Laws banned disabled people from begging for money or food, or even selling
small items – their main source of income at the turn of the century!
- welfare state?
Where be you?
Just by existing as a disabled person in public you could be seen as making other people feel
guilty.
So essentially…
This is the end result of trickle down economics.
Because if those above you are meant to be taking care of you then your visual presence
begging on the street is a reminder that they aren’t.
So you’re getting arrested for simply existing in a public place even if you aren’t breaking
any other laws.
According to an article published in the Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research in 2011, the
driving force behind the Ugly Laws was the: “Charity Organization Society (COS), an
upper class movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
COS set out to eliminate pauperism by ‘scientific’ organised charity that was meant to put a
stop to begging by detecting fraudulent cases and channelling the benevolent but often misguided
acts of charity to cases considered as worthy and deserving.”
- They’re just looking for… the good ones.
This is very much giving me blonde orphans.
The Ugly Laws were put in place to deny visibly-disabled people agency, and protect non-disabled people
from having to interact with them.
An article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
in 2013 acknowledges that these laws were explicitly designed to deny poor and disabled
people “not only rights, but dignity and socioeconomic mobility.”
And while these laws no longer exist, the discrimination against disabled and visibly
different people hasn't gone away.
I mean…
We could get into the ways disabled people are still excluded from society today, albeit
less through laws and more through inaccessible structures and social stigma, but that’s
for another video…
It’s interesting to note that the article ‘Diseased, maimed, mutilated: categorizations
of disability and an ugly law in late nineteenth-century Chicago’ – which was published in the
Journal of Social History in 2010 – explains that: “While the law APPEARS to be a blanket
indictment of all physically disabled people, multiple sources indicate that the public
expected disabled veterans, workers, and freak show performers to occupy the public realm;
they therefore cannot be the intended objects of the ordinance.”
So, basically, disabled people weren’t allowed to exist in the same spaces as the general
public if that would inconvenience abled people, BUT they were still expected to work if they
could AND abled people could pay to go and stare at visibly different people for entertainment.
Wait is that… the token wheelchair user in the advert calling?
WHY IS THE BAD GUY ALWAYS DISFIGURED?
Don’t get me wrong though, even before the Ugly Laws made it illegal for disabled people
to exist in public, our society has always linked morality and appearance.
The good guys are handsome and the bad guys have scars, limb differences, or other visible
differences.
It’s a trope in storytelling that’s become so ingrained in our society that we don’t
seem to question why we’ve accepted that disability can be a short hand for a character’s
evilness.
Just look at the James Bond franchise.
The villains in numerous films have disabilities or facial disfigurements, and while you might
hope that we’re moving forward, the latest Bond film, No Time To Die, actually features
three villains with facial disfigurements.
Three!
In 2021!
And none of them are played by actors with facial scars themselves.
Yay for representation!
The film’s producer, Michael G. Wilson, actually defended this choice.
He said: “It’s very much a Fleming device that he uses throughout the stories – the
idea that physical deformity and personal deformity goes hand in hand […] a motivating
factor in their life, and what makes them the way they are.”
Oh, I’m sorry, are we all just agreeing that everything written in the 1950s is good?
Did I miss something?
Because I’m pretty sure we agreed to at least TRY and leave the racism behind.
But noooo, disability is still seen as a moral failing, with appearance a way of determining
your moral character, both in real life and in books and films.
And absolutely no one who has ever encountered fatphobia or appearance related bullying is
in the least bit shocked here, I realise.
In an article for Dazed, Mikaela Moody says: “We're the villainous subjects of films
and costumes, and our disfigurements, disabilities and divergences are shown as weird at best,
or at worst as punishments, to deliver a moral message to the audience.”
Case in point: what is Colin Farrell’s Penguin doing with a big facial scar in The Batman?
He’s never had one before!
Were the filmmakers worried we wouldn’t know he was evil because… there’s a pretty
dark vibe going on here, we get that he’s evil.
You don’t need to rely on cinema tropes.
It’s Batman!
These depictions of disabled and visibly different people as villains in horror films and other
mainstream media reinforce the idea that we can and even should judge people based on
their appearance.
Moody actually coined the term ‘disfiguremisia’ to describe the erasure of, and prejudice
against, visibly different people.
She says that: “As a Disfigured person, I needed a word like ‘disfiguremisia’
to describe what happens to people like me, socially and institutionally.”
By the way, I'm going to link to some really good pieces from Mikaela Moody down in the
description below.
Absolutely go follow her.
While most people can walk out of the cinema after watching a horror film and carry on
with their day,
- Putting aside the keeping all the lights on and being scared to walk through your house
alone,
These depictions subconsciously fuel ableism and disfiguremisia that disabled and visibly
different people experience in real life.
After the release of No Time To Die, Ryan Foan, a campaigner for UK charity Changing
Faces, wrote in an article for i news that: “It was humiliating to see a part of my
identity being used to provoke disgust and signify brutality.
[...] What I had just witnessed on-screen and the harassment I was experiencing were
connected: both regarded people like myself as inhuman and undeserving of respect.”
Aside from disabled and visibly different people rarely getting the chance to see characters
who look like them who aren’t the villains, their bodies are also treated as horrifying
in and of themselves.
At Halloween we traditionally dress up as things that scare us: spiders, ghosts, clowns…
- *stage whispers* Having to make phone calls.
In a post for Face Equality International, Brittany Leigh explains that Halloween is
a difficult time for people with facial differences: “Because people still think it’s okay
to dress up as us for their Halloween costume.
People with facial differences already feel like we are different, we don’t also need
people wearing our differences as costumes in order to appear ‘scary’.”
There is also an unnecessary focus on disabled and visibly different people’s bodies – and
especially on the reveal of scars or limb differences – in horror movies for no other
reason but to shock and disgust audiences.
It’s literally othering, asking audiences to separate themselves.
Specially with burn scars.
What is up with that?
C’mon.
A recent example of this is the recent adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches.
In the book, the witches are described as having bald heads, clawed hands, blue spit,
and square, toeless feet.
The film – despite being made in 2020 – decided to take this further.
Not only do the witches have facial scars, but we see Anne Hathaway peeling off her gloves,
only to discover that the filmmakers had chosen to show how evil her character is by giving
her ectrodactyly, which is defined by the National Organization for Rare Disorders as:
“a condition characterised by absence or malformation of one or more of the fingers
or toes.”
- Why?
Just why??
In the book they just have very pointed fingers not an actual disability that exists within
the world and people have.
It’s a pointless addition of disability for the sole purposes of audiences enjoying
being disgusted and grossed out to see a depiction of people who don’t look like them.
- Remember how the Ugly Laws didn’t exclude disabled people from spaces where audiences
wanted to look at them for entertainment?
Just a little casual body horror for your Saturday matinee (!)
When The Witches was released, bestselling author Jen Campbell – who, unlike Anne Hathaway,
does have ectrodactyly (and also writes great books, link in the description…)– talked
about how she loved the book growing up but also saw herself as the bad guy in it.
In an instagram post she said: “As much as I think witches (in other contexts) are
pretty badass, I am so exhausted with this representation.
I am tired.
I am sad.
I am extremely glad that I no longer work in a bookshop as (if we lived in non-COVID
times), the coming months would be especially hellish.”
And these depictions only serve to further the idea that disabled and visibly different
people are to be feared.
In an article for Huffington Post talking about The Witches, Catrin Pugh says: “Enough
children stare at me and fear me because of my scars and hand without another movie telling
them I’m scary too.
I can only imagine what the children and young people with visible differences are feeling
when they head back into school knowing their peers are watching the latest film that shows
their scars and differences as evil.”
When do those children get to see characters with ectrodactyly saving the world?
Where are the characters with facial scars who get to fall in love?
THIS SHOULDN’T BE THE ONLY REPRESENTATION WE GET
Bu-bum.
Hello, main issue.
Visibly different people are so rarely visible in mainstream media outside of these roles
and tropes.
The problem is not the existence of disabled and visibly different people on-screen, the
problem is the highly limited and very harmful representation.
- Even worse, regardless of whether or not they’re the villain, it is rarely disabled
and visibly different people themselves who get to portray those characters, further denying
them agency.
We need to see disabled and visibly different characters in rom coms, in westerns, in action
films, in sci-fi.
People deserve to see characters like them on screen saving the world, falling in love,
and having adventures.
Until we get representation that doesn’t revolve around characters’ disabilities
and visible differences making them evil, it’s pretty hard to change the narrative
that people who don’t look quote-unquote “normal” aren’t scary and aren’t monsters
but are, you know, just people!
- And honestly?
If you need to use a character’s physical appearance rather than their actions to show
audiences who they should be rooting for in a film, that’s just bad writing.
British charity Changing Faces is working to get filmmakers to reconsider these harmful
narratives.
Their ‘I Am Not Your Villain’ campaign calls on the film industry to stop using scars,
burns, marks and other visible differences as a shorthand for villainy.
Their research found that:
Only 1 in 5 people with a visible difference have seen a character who looks like them
cast as the hero in a film or on TV.
Even fewer (at 15%) have seen someone with a visible difference playing the love interest
on screen.
But nearly double (at 39%) have seen someone with a visible difference cast as the villain
or “baddie”.
Again, It is the ableism and disfiguremisia in these films- particularly horror ones-
that is shocking and awful, not the inclusion disabled or visibly different people themselves.
Obviously we want disabled a visibly different people to be included just not only ever as
the villain.
As a gal-dem article puts clearly: “While there are a number of ways that society makes
life difficult and actively dangerous for disabled people, fundamentally, there is nothing
horrifying about having a disability – and we should rightly call out and reject anything
that so much as subtly reinforces that idea.”
Pointing out the harm these depictions have isn’t about being a kill-joy or telling
people that they can’t watch or like these films.
In an article about No Time To Die, Jen Campbell says: “This is not a call for a boycott
of James Bond, no; this is a request for better storytelling, as well as more positive representation
of disability and disfigurement, not just in Bond but more widely, across literature
and film.”
- That feels like a pretty reasonable ask, right?
Right?
Halloween is supposed to be fun, but… uh… stigmatising marginalised groups isn’t fun.
Unless it is vampires, stigmatise them.
They know what they did.
Turning people’s disabilities, facial scars, limb differences, and other visible differences
into Halloween costumes just serves to “other” disabled and visibly different people.
- Who, despite what mainstream media would have you think, actually exist all year round.
So let’s mix it up!
Do you have any recommendations for portrayals of visibly different characters who aren’t
villains, either in horror movies or in other media?
Share in the comments below!
I hope you’ve enjoyed watching this more analytical type of video, it’s sort of part
of the media tropes series I have going.
You can find the whole playlist by clicking the card up here or the link down in the description.
Subscribe if you enjoyed this video.
I know that half of people who continue to watch videos on my channel haven’t yet subscribed
so if that’s you make sure you HAVE actually subscribed before, whoops, the YouTube algorithm
takes you elsewhere, you forgot where you were and you can’t find your way back!
I hate when that happens to me and I haven't subscribed and then can’t find the person…
also: Instagram!
You can find me there @jessicaoutofthecloset.
Finally, a special thank you to my clubbies for their continued support of this channel
and making videos like this with harder topics possible.
The Kellgren-Fozard Club is a membership club right here on my YouTube channel that includes
special perks like a shoutout in your birthday month AND an exclusive behind-the-scenes monthly
video, your comments rise to the top and you get my face after your name wearing a succession
of adorable crowns!
Thank you so much for watching, see you in my next video, bye!