Comments on: Television & Disability: Joan of Arcadia

By: peanutbutter

peanutbutter — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:22:12 +0000

The title line totally took me off in the wrong direction . For me, television & disability is about the continual failure of visual media to be properly captioned. Things aren’t too bad for actual broadcast, but even broad cast clips put online are stripped, extra material in dvd’s are not captioned (so much for all that bonus material) and so on.

But this show does sound interesting. I’ll have to see if I can locate sync’d subtitles for it…

By: Renee

Renee — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:02:12 +0000

When Joan was on the air, I was an able bodied person. I don’t really think I gave much thought to Kevins struggle. I am sure today I would view it with completely different eyes. Today I am so aware of how little representation in the media PWD’s have. Perhaps I will try and re-watch the show.

By: Quixotess

Quixotess — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:03:06 +0000

OMG I looooooooove joan of arcadia! I do not think you will be disappointed. There’s a part where the fact that he’s basically dealing with this fall from overprivilege into (some) oppression is made explicit in this big fight he has with his black employer. And there’s an ongoing dynamic between Luke and Kevin where it’s made explicit that he’s STILL abusing this golden boy status that he STILL has some of, and it’s making Luke really angry. Looove this show. They have an episode about teenage pregnancy done really well and an episode about rape done really well, and, I dunno, I’m just totally enamored. Happy watching!
.-= Quixotess´s last blog ..IRC 101 =-.

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:00:43 +0000

Hi Personal Failure,

I know that we have some posts on that specific topic upcoming, especially the “But you don’t look sick” aspect of it. Many of the women who contribute to this blog have invisible physical disabilities, including fibro and CFS, so they totally get where you’re coming from.

I, myself, don’t have any strategies yet, other than the ongoing awareness building. But I’ll ponder.

By: Personal Failure

Personal Failure — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:47:33 +0000

I need this blog. Thank you.

I hope you wouldn’t mind a request. I am “invisibly disabled”. I don’t yet need an assistive device (cane’s coming up quick, though), so I look fine. And it takes me 3 days to mop 800 sq ft of hardwood floors. Between pain and exercise intolerance, I am incapable of doing what “normal” people do, and because I look fine, they (family members, friends) accuse me of laziness or just not wanting to and using illness as an excuse. “If you just got more exercise, you’d be able to do it.” Actually, I’d just incur more muscle/heart damage, but thanks for the suggestion.

Have you found an effective way of dealing with this? Even if you haven’t, maybe talking about it will help the nondisabled among us understand this issue.

Thanks again.
.-= Personal Failure´s last blog ..Some Things Make Me Stabby =-.