Klaus is a good representation of what he suffers from, PTSD, Depression, Drug abuse etc. And the way some people may "self medicate" in whatever way they can in order to cope with the world around them. I think there is a possibility to talk about how he may be representation for Schizo affective disorders but I am not in a position to make that comparison with any confidence as that is not something I struggle with.
Agreed about Klaus. I also adore Diego and how they don't act like a stammer is a childhood thing. Also the siblings are never shown to mock him for the stutter even though most things are fair game between them. And as mental health goes, they all had PTSD as childhood abuse survivors but respond in different ways, Klaus is the most clearly damaged at first glance but they all ares on their own ways and its shown so well imo.
@@lelalu101 wow! Interesting. My dad is schizophrenic (doesn't accept the diagnosis he believes his delusions and is unmedicated). They think it started when he was 13 but because that's when he started drinking and drugs, we can't be sure. It was when he tried to get clean that he had his breakdown. But even without meds he's not dangerous like the lies movies tell because "God" only tells him to save people's souls by crying in church and by staring "evil witches" he kills the evil in them. When he talked about "killing witches" shen I was 13, it scared me until I saw him do it. Person was real creeped out by my 6'8" powerlifter dad staring at them right in the eye with unwavering intensity. He's become more gentle after his breakdown.
whenever i think about hawkeye i always remember the comics "hawkeye vs deadpool" wherein deadpool spends the majority of the time with his mask lifted up to reveal his mouth so that hawkeye can lipread and he also uses sign language at certain points. pretty cool imo
I loved that series, it was the first time I discovered that DP could sign and made me feel like he understood me. I get so annoyed constantly asking people to stop turning away from me when they are talking, just so I can see what they are saying. If I have to ask them more than two times, I simply stop trying to listen to them. If they can't be bothered to look at me while talking, then I can't be bothered trying to lip read the back of their heads 😂
Deadpool is one of these characters I just love because even though he is clearly an anti-hero and morally grey he also still has morals and just gets struggling because he does as well. He is respectful even of his enemies.
Pretty good representation. I remember a Moon Knight series where the titular hero (who wears a full mask) was working with Echo (a deaf hero). He’s talking to her with his mask on, and when she tells him to show his face so she could read his lips, he remembers she’s deaf and says “you don’t act deaf”. Oof, the cringe…
@@anitanielsen1061 to be fair, the comics kind of go all over the place about whether he’s deaf and how it happened. It’s been a writer’s choice thing since the 80s.
My favourite at the moment is Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She is blind, and has compensating plausibly with Earthbending. This isn't perfect however - the show often addresses the issues she faces. And my favourite part? They don't avoid blind jokes, but they are all about how the others in the group forget that she is blind. So they'll ask how they look she'll sat great and then the penny drops. It's awesome.
The blind jokes aren't at the expense of her disability. Everyone loves jokes! There's a difference between joking about disability and making fun of disabled people. She even makes a few blind jokes herself "That's a great drawing Sokka, it looks just like him" "Thank you... why do you do this". Because it's important to show that disabled people are just people who have full emotions, not just sad all the time.
I think my favorite part about her is she's so used to being aggressively coddled by her parents who are like "our poor disabled baby can't POSSIBLY have any independence" that at first she refuses to accept help or give help to the team, wanting to prove that she can be completely independent, and over time softening as it's clear that they know she's independent but there's nothing wrong with needing help at times, culminating in the end fight when Sokka helps guide her on a giant airship away from danger she can't see when she isn't on earth or metal. And then my favorite joke is when they're putting up posters for Appa and Sokka says "Toph, you should come with me." and she says, "What, because I'm blind I can't put up posters?!" then slams a poster onto the wall the wrong way. She then asks, defeated, "It's upside down, isn't it? Yeah I'll go with you."
Toph was/is such good representation. She is very well adjusted to her disability because that's just how she has lived her entire life but you also see her struggle. You also often just forget that she so disabled because that's just not an important aspect of the story at all times, sometimes it's just about some fun times and you can have those with all kinds of abilities.
As someone who lives with someone who is legally blind, this is 100% true. I think it's why I love Toph so much. Her bending helps her, but it doesn't solve it all for her.
i really wanna see a disabled superhero whose power has absolutely no connection to or impact on their disability. give me a deaf superhero who just happens to be pyrokinetic. they still can't hear but they can spice up their sign language with some flames.
Actually!! Even though I didn't absolutely love the movie as a whole, Eternals have a deaf-mute character whose skill is super-speed! She's played by a deaf actress and she uses sign language (and lip reading I guess? the other characters sometimes just talk to her and she understands).
@@NoOneReallySpecialthis. I’m only deaf in one ear, but I still have difficulty. A world of background noise makes it really hard for me to hear people properly. Yes, I have hearing aids and no, they aren’t helpful. My frequent requests for people to repeat themselves and their annoyance at needing to face me and speak clearly can be embarrassing, and sometimes I feel like I am being perceived as an idiot. Even more frustrating for me is how consistently I have to ask my spouse and teen and adult children to repeat themselves. Like, wtf? I’ve been like this since I was a child, so for the last 26 years of marriage and the entirety of my 21, 17, and 15 years of my kids lives I have built up this feeling of being disrespected and that my involvement in a discussion is not really important.
My pet peeve in the disabled superpower trope is the ADHD character who can think of a way out of the situation in a few seconds because they THINK REALLY FAST and see details the neurotypical characters don't. Sure my brain goes a mile a minute sometimes, but I have no control over where it goes and I don't choose what I hyperfocus on. A random scene in a movie can make me ask myself "how deep IS the deepest part of the ocean anyway" and five minutes later I'll be stuck reading about the reproductive habits of anglerfish or looking at submarine schematics.
As someone with ADHD I do often see details others don't, but I'm fairly sure that's less directly from ADHD and more of a coping mechanism of meticulous detail-oriented anxiety after dealing with untreated ADHD long term. Also if I'm in any high pressure situation I'm definitely just gonna get overwhelmed and shut down. Not very helpful.
Yeah. A d they never address the reality of having that diagnosis. So many of us have depression and or other mental illness bc of the struggles that come with having adhd. They like the fast paced comic relief character type but it doesn't go deeper than that.
sometimes it really is like "I get a different really smart and out of the box answer" to solve problems or can be "stuck with the wrong idea and when it doesn't work can't change my plan because my last idea is the only thing I can focus on" or "oh look this random thing" And proceeds to get distracted in something completely different.
The doomsday machine is at 99%. Everyone dramatically looks at the ADHD character for a solution. The ADHD character is staring at the window because there's a bird. Anglerfish are pretty cool tho, they're really weird, but in a way where most people are freaked out by them, but they're just weird fish. I don't even remember when I first saw them even. If you want to make a cool ADHD character, have them know random facts that sometimes come in handy. An ADHD character can't think on command, in fact stress makes some of us freeze.
A movie i really love when it comes to disability representation is "how to train your dragon". I know, it isn't a superhero movie. But the disability is just Part of the life of many characters. Hiccup himself, is disabled. But a character i really love is Gothi, an elder woman who speaks by drawing signs in the ground. She has an important Position in the village due to her wisdom and healing Powers. Not because of her disability and Not dispite her disability. I loved These movies and the Show when I was a kid. But since I am disabled the movie became more important to me, when it comes to disability representation.
I also love how in those movies none of the vikings let any of their physical disabilities really impact how they live. They just keep chugging along with seemingly no issues. As you said. And sure, Hiccup probably had a bit of a learning curve, but even he seemed to be doing fine by the second movie. And! It doesn't change how any of the characters are viewed! Its not seen as taboo or a sad "poor you" situation. Astrid loves Hiccup just the same.
@@lemontree666333 i think its less about them "letting" their disabilities stop them and more about their society being accessible to different disabilities
@@everfluctuating 100% I agree. "let" probably wasn't the best word to use, however it certainly does seem like their society was far more accessible. You could almost say the same about some of the Pirates movies. I know Barbossa gets a wooden leg at some point. Also I think there's a mute character as well at some point. And in both instances it's not dwelled upon as some big sad thing.
I think a lot of people see Batman as a disabled hero. He's been canonically been diagnosed with depression, OCD, PTSD, and possible autism. He does need Alfred to take care of him - on many adaptations he relies on Alfred to make him food and remind him to sleep, far beyond him being his butler. Really, more as a general caretaker.
YES! There have also been many occasions where Alfred was the only reason Batman sought medical attention for things like broken bones and other serious injuries. (For people not familiar with the Batman storyline, he sees a doctor named Leslie Maurin Thompkins who was close friends with his parents. She's a sort of godmother to him who also does work with low-income people in her community to ensure they have access to at least basic medical care.)
A lot of very talented people need a caretaker/agent/partner to manage and market their art/services and mitigate the negative effects their insanity. This is frequently the case with great artists. For example, Larry David created Seinfeld (one of the most successful TV shows of all time) but without Jerry to communicate with the network and convince Larry not to quit every week, there would be no TV show. The most intelligent and creative people in the world often need a spokesperson to verbalize their vision.
Love that the X-Men mansion is one of the least accessible buildings I've ever seen. Way to make your own life much harder than it needs to be, Charlie
The mansion could definitely do with more ramps and mobility aids, but was there an elevator? Perhaps it was only in the first Xmen movie with Hugh Jackman that it. I'm sure it was in more than one of those movies though. I suppose it's not as much of an issue in the comics for Charles because his chair hovers above the ground. I know he uses an electric wheelchair when teaching so perhaps he has made part of the mansion more accessible for himself, like an extra private elevator or two on his side of the house. It would be cool to see a mock up of an X-mansion schematic that shows Xavier's accessibility adaptations.
I know a lotta people are gonna mention Toph (luv u gurl) but I gotta defend my boys Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist and Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon who both have prosthetic limbs. I appreciated the scenes that showed that their respective mobility aids were not automatic fixes for their problems. Edward feels phantom pains from his missing limbs, his prosthetics need to be upgraded to accommodate his physical growth, and their expensive. Hiccup stumbles when he first stands up on his peg leg. It takes time to get used to, like it took time for Toothless to get used to the prosthetic that lets him fly again.
Why didn’t I think of Elric! And it takes him a whole year to recover, get used to his prosthetic, and feel confident traveling. Not only that but his ptsd still affects him. He has such range in the manga!
I feel that “you’re too young to require so much assistance/medication” at a soul level. It’s especially maddening when strangers accost me after I lawfully park in a disabled parking space; they’re just so certain that I am gaming the system, stealing from taxpayers, and taking parking spots from those who “really need it!”
I've felt that too deep in my soul. I know that hip issues are more common in old age but I was quite literally born with it just that mine didn't start acting up until my mid 20s. It's just how it is and I wish I was too young but I'm not.
I don't consider myself to be disabled, but I developed scoliosis during puberty, and one time my middle school guidance counselor joked that I was too young to have back pain, and I was like ??? but I... do have back pain...
I think there’s also a stereotype of any obese disabled person, that they aren’t “actually” disabled as much as lazy. Because OBVIOUSLY they are disabled due to being fat, rather than struggling with weight gain due to mobility and/or dietary issues, medication side effects, depression, etc.
Oh, my God. Yes. A side effect of several of my medications is weight gain. And people act as if I just lost some weight I would be so much healthier and happier. I mean... I'd love that. But I kind of have to choose between taking my medications and become extremely sick. I suppose I could end up skinny, but I'd also end up in the hospital and ruin my life. Not quite worth it...
100% agree! I was so skinny before I got super sick and needed steroids, was laid up for several months, and put on 90 pounds and now cannot lose it do to the inability to exercise.
being disabled can really suck. especially if it's an invisible disability. people often assume I'm rude for not answering them when they speak. truth is I'm deaf
Totally agree, I’ve got autism & not actually a disability it being left handed in a world designed for right handed people suuuucks, just the other day I was eating at a fancy restaurant & I rearranged my silverware to work with my hand & got my seat at the end so I didn’t bump into people and every course when the waiter brought me food he would also rearrange my whole setup to be right handed
@@claytonwilde5750 As a former server myself, I have to wonder if that was a personal thing or if his boss had given him crap before about not keeping everything "in the correct place" at each serving. I'm curious, did you say anything to him about it?
@@ErykaSoleil I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t think he was doing it on purpose and he was very nice, I was never upset at him so much as the fact that every little element of our society is geared towards right handedness
I like Dr. Strange, too. While not a neurosurgeon, I am a musician with severe arthritis. A few years ago, I had to choose between playing the guitar or the piano. I've had 7 surgeries on my hands in order to be able to type, and continue with the piano. I'll never play the guitar again. So, his struggle is also one that I can identify with.
Advanced Cubital tunnel syndrome made my hands hurt/numb and arthritis/deformities/bone disease in my elbows made my arms fatigue and numb and stuck. Dr. Strange's powers made me jealous!
Classic iron man comics focused heavily or primarily on his disability. His iron man suit was basically his pacemaker and if he spent too long not wearing his suit he would fall ill. So doing the tony stark stuff was physically tasking for him, while doing iron man stuff was easier. Common plotlines would be stuff like he spent too long pretending to be able bodied walking around without his suit on. Or he gets kidnapped while not wearing the suit. Or the suit gets damaged in some way. I actually prefer these storylines over the modern iterations of him where the arc reactor is his pacemaker. Felt more in line with my own experiences of forgetting to wear sunglasses and earplugs ruining the rest of my day and possibly the days after
i did not read the comics, and as a result i only have the image of Iron Man in the MCU (very many movies he is featured in). But i did kinda get the implication that when he spent too much time without wearing the actual full suit he got a decline in mental health and that he certainly had PSTD. To me he would always be a disabled superhero. Comics representing his life in a different way does actually sound really interesting, maybe one day i will have time and energy to read them and expand my vision on Iron Man.
As someone who stutters, I appreciate the representation of Diego in Umbrella Academy. I like seeing the cool, tough guy with knives who also just happens to stutter. I like that his superpowers are completely unrelated to his stuttering and how even when it’s not completely obvious, you can tell from the way he talks that he’s always managing it
I remember reading a book where a bit after a character is introduced the main character realises they aren’t stuttering out of nervousness, they just have a stutter and that stands out to me for some reason. I don’t have a stutter, I just liked that small bit of characterisation for a bit player.
It seems like a lot of these boil down to "disability exists only to illustrate a theme," so the underlying idea is that you can't just depict disability, but need some additional, significant reason to justify its inclusion (so the story is _about_ disability or disability is there to teach a lesson, etc.)
As a person with epilepsy, Vanillopie from Wreck It Ralph is one of my favorites because she has seizures ("glitches") that severely hinder her from accomplishing her goal, but she presses on. And it turns out the glitches are because another character is suppressing her true nature, and she is eventually "cured", but for me that just played into my ADHD and how I was constantly treated as being too much and told I needed to dial it back.
As a dynamically disabled person, I always loved Daredevil on Netflix! I really liked that they showed how his disability affected him and the adaptations and help he needed, while also showing his strengths. I guess I just related it to myself as someone whose needs vary a lot and it felt cool to have a character who shares that.
I completely agree. I loved how they showed him relying on Foggy for descriptions or crossing streets, and casually using different assistive devices. I also loved that they showed him utilizing what he still had (his heightened other senses) to his advantage. He didn’t restrict himself because of his blindness, he went out and protected people because he could, and needed to because of elements of mental trauma. I’m disabled, and I’ve always been a defender of MCU/Netflix Daredevil.
Because I was in med school and needed to use a cane, my fellows began referring to me as Dr. House. I am marginally alright because in their mind they were using a positive representation of chronic pain and disability to build up their colleague. However I find Dr. House is problematic because he falls victim to the trope of the addict who abuses his pain medication. It’s complicated isn’t it.
Someone explained that it isn't actually complicated: every character has good and bad parts to their representation. And because there's not a lot of representation we have to hold on to problematic characters. When we get more representation we will be able to pick and identify with better ones
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 it’s a beggars can’t be choosers allegory, at least I wasn’t there for inspiration in their minds. Though they did ask me for help in Differential and Diagnosis.
Also Dr. House is just generally a jerk, from what I've seen. And surely there are more interesting and fun things about you that could inspire a better nickname?
I think Dr. House is mostly problematic due to him being a selfish jerk whose coworkers enable him because, for better or worse, he really is a genius in his field. They frequently value his diagnosing skills above ethical issues and have lied and outright faked tests to cover for him and help him do what he does. Yes, they save lives in the process, but the only reason more people aren't horrified is because his diagnoses are correct the vast majority of the time. He even uses his own chronic pain to manipulate other characters on occasion into doing what he wants (to be fair, this is something that an already-manipulative person would do if they became disabled in real life). His opioid addiction is an issue that many people of all walks of life struggle with (in the US for sure, not as familiar with how it is in the rest of the world). The show at least has the decency to depict how the drug addiction slowly starts to unravel his life, and how his high-demand job interferes with his attempts to kick it (it's been a bit since I watched it, but I do believe he has to take a full hiatus from work to successfully get off opioids).
I get it. I was given a cane, but haven't been using it. I have a lot of invisible disabilities and cannot work. I'm tired of people acting as if I can work just because I don't look sick.
I like Toph from avatar the last airbender a lot but that's because it's avatar. Glimmer from She-ra in the early seasons can be read as disabled, having limited energy to do magic with unlike the other princesses, but it's just a metaphor and not an actual disability, and it goes away in later seasons (for reasons that make sense in-universe). Edalyn from The Owl House has a disability metaphor that I think was done really well. It's a magic curse. There's an episode in which Eda's mother is trying to fix her curse against Eda's will. Eda is like 'no I've learned to live with it, these potions help me keep it at bay, I've accepted it and I don't want to fix it anymore'. Her mom takes away her potions and tries the nth sham cure, and it just makes everything worse. And then her mom learns to accept Eda the way she is and apologizes for her years of mistakes, trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed, rather than accepting her kid for who she is. I liked that episode a lot.
I was hoping someone would mention Eda. She's kind of the opposite of the "super crip" trope, since the curse weakens her powers, and eventually causes her to lose them. I also really love that when she gets her powers back, it was only after she truly accepted the curse as part of her and stopped trying to fight it.
But if the Artie in Glee was played by an actual wheelchair user they couldn't do the dream sequence scene where he dances because all wheelchair users obviously wish they were non-disabled there's no way to dance or display musicality in a wheelchair /s 🙄
He used to be able bodied, which is way different than being born disabled. I can't blame formerly healthy people for wanting to be free from pain again. As a disabled person from birth.
I was thinking about this kind of trope in terms of casting non-disabled actors to play disabled characters. I can imagine the writer / director / producer arguing: "But if we cast a disabled actor, how will we do the scene where they remember being non-disabled / fantasise about being non-disabled / show the totally pointless scene of how they acquired their disability / gets magically cured?" Rather than asking, "Hmmm... why are we so determined to erase this person's identity?"
@@RollingDutchmann It’s absolutely fine for real life people who acquired their disabilities to have pre-disabled dreams. The problem is that movies and tv use “pre-disabled life” as an excuse not to hire actors that have the actual disability… despite the same medium having an entire field of work dedicated to body-doubles and stunt doubles to perform shots even able-bodied actors can’t do.
I don't know if you've seen but Marvel have a new Spiderverse hero Sun-Spider aka Charlotte Weber who uses mobility aids ie wheelchair and crutches. She had EDS and Marvel asked a disabled writer Tee Franklin to write the comic that's coming out soon! I'm really hopeful for good representation because of that. Also the character was original created by a fan who has EDS and wanted to see rep of someone like themself in superheroes. And now her fan art of an alt world character for the Spiderverse in a real Marvel character!
That's so cool! EDS is one of my illnesses and I never would have thought EDS and Marvel would mingle. It is the best feeling when you read or watch something and you know that one or several people behind the media come from the community being portrayed, it just feels right. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the comic and stray from my manga and webcomics ridden way. Thanks for the tip!
Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist! He is an amputee in his arm and leg who doesn't quite accept his disability, however it is realistically portrayed as something he has to deal with-getting improved automail, sensitivity to extreme cold or heat, stunted growth from the weight of the metal, etc. I just think he's a wonderful character and I think he is written with great depth and respect.
Spoilers: . . . . I love that while he does get partially cured, he isn’t completely fixed. He is still disabled but learns to accept it at the end, goes on to have a family, and lives a fulfilling life. (Can you tell I was smiling like an idiot when the credits started rolling? LOL.)
I live in the Netherlands on disability, and for more than 11 years I got a mandatory 6 monthly magazine from the government about happy disabled people making miraculous recoveries or somehow 'against all odds' found ways to do paid labour. Where every page implied: If there is a will, there is way!' As a highly motivated person, but having 'no way' this is deeply upsetting because it is suggesting disabled people just have a motivational problem. I couln't find a way to unsubscribe from it. Even when I moved 3 times, the magazine kept finding me. I called it the government propaganda magazine. Only for the last year or so, I haven't seen the magazine in the post. Hopefully, some people more able than me have put a stop to that toxic nonsense. Or maybe they just ran out of money to produce the magazine. I dunno. It still upsets me to this day that they even did that.
I live in the US and am disabled. I have to significant assistance just to function around my own home, triple for any time I have to leave it. And at least a couple times a year I get emails from government disability services about how many hours I can work without losing my benefits, assistance I qualify for in terms of job searching and vocational rehab, etc. I feel bad enough about the level of assistance I need, and still struggle to accept my disability and the fact that I'll likely never be able to live fully independently again despite how relatively recent a development all of these issues are on my life, and those emails never fail to make me feel worse. I can't even imagine what it must've been like to be constantly inundated with whole magazines filled with that crap. I'm very sorry you had to go through that.
@@cricket8875 I'm so sorry for your loss.. (worsening) disability is a loss after all. Losing autonomy is upsetting. We don't need the added whip of abled people judging us, but we don't get to choose. I hope you send those emails directly to the trash where they belong.
This is horrendous. I had no idea. In Western Europe, we often think of the Netherlands as some kind of progressive paradise. I'm keeping this story to add to the "there is no country on earth where disabled people are emancipated" arsenel. This is unimaginably cruel.
I would argue that Oracle was handled pretty well given that Barbara was already smart and capable, being the daughter of the police chief and apprentice to the world's greatest detective. Tbh I was super worried that after she became disabled she would be rendered Pity Fuel TM, but no. She channeled her already existing talents through a different medium now that she couldn't do all the acrobatics (ha. bat.) the rest of the batfam is known for. I found it nice, but maybe I've missed the mark?? Also, hi, old school DC fan here, haven't kept up with the comics since I was a kid. That being said, they did WHAT to Barbara?!
I got no idea what they've done to Barbara in other media but recently DC launched a webtoon series called Wayne Family Adventures and Barbara is there with her wheelchair! And she's just as badass and smart and important to the team as everyone else, she just happens to be in wheels. If you're into webtoons I really recommend it, it's really cute and funny
I thought the same! While the circumstances/reasoning by Alan Moore et al for paralysing Barbara are really not great she was extremely cleaver etc. before and that wasn’t a result of her being paralysed. The way the og Birds of Prey took that very yikes story line for Barbara and turned it into something I know a lot of disabled people really appreciated as representation was really important at the time! And yeah The New 52 retconned the character so she was magically cured so Barbara could appear as Batgirl again :/ don’t get me started on how the birds of prey film didn’t even include Barbara as Oracle, imo she brings The Birds of Prey together so seemed ridiculous not to have her.
She has some sort of implant that lets her walk. There's a random issue where something happens to it and she can't walk again, but it gets fixed. Honestly, I thought she was a better character as Oracle. I prefer Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, preferably the non-verbal version from when she had her own book.
I remember one time when i was in secondary school, we had an assembly where the teacher stood at the front of the hall and told us all about a past student who had physical disabilities and mobility issues and talked about how “even though she was off ill or at doctors appointments for about 50% of the year, she still tried really hard in school and was able to achieve A*s so you can too!” And young me, who hadn’t yet been diagnosed with ADHD and was struggling at school but no one had realised or believed me yet, felt Awful hearing that. Also… this is the same school who heavily penalised students for having less than 90% attendance. Love the double standards. It’s… interesting (for want of a better word) to see how many comics have dodgy disability rep. It’s unfortunately not surprising honestly. It’s very much the same sort of “everyone still needs to meet the same standards” attitude that I’ve heard countless times (and only recently even though to start questioning). I will say that I thought they did a better job with the disability rep in the Moon Knight tv show than they did in the comics. It’s still not perfect and they didnt make much of an effort to explain away the misconceptions that they showed but it was also not terrible? Tho the rep in the comics just bugs me.
A counselor at uni tried the one with me of "but OTHER people CAN (work, study, whatever) with (the same condition that I have)" with the implication that I am both lesser and worse than other people because I can't do those things. I refer to her as The Demon Counselor, and have cancelled all subsequent appointments because that attitude is not helpful. Apparently my inability to eat regularly is because I am stupid/lazy/not trying hard enough, instead of an interaction between ADHD, anaemia, multiple vitamin deficiencies and an existing very unhealthy relationship with food, because I can manage to feed my ferrets. Who would die if I didn't feed them, because I live alone, and who get fed at irregular times because I am not *that* organised. Seriously, the next person who tries to tell me that ADHD is a superpower will be given several pieces of my mind. Yes, there are things that I can do better than neurotypical people because of it, but there are many things that I do worse because of it, and I am tired of being judged for not developing a compensatory superpower.
@@skiingowl feeding ourselves is harder than it should be. people thought i was exagerating when i meant that i literally could not remember to eat 3 times everyday, or when i say it is literally harder to pick a food to eat, cooking requires energy i normally dont have, even eating something that its just heating up takes me anergy. I did figure out i also have an eating disorder, before having any access to good info about ADHD and getting that diagnose as well
@@skiingowl ugh im sorry you’ve had to deal with that. I’ve had a uni tutor who was somewhat like that. I told her i was struggling to organise myself around deadlines so I could get all my work done on time, rather than cramming essays in the last 48hrs and she told me “have you tried keeping a planner to help with your organisation?” (I have. I showed her my planner. Her response was “thats good. You should try using that to stay on track”). Sometimes, uni mentors can be the most unhelpful people ever. I’m sorry that you’ve had that experience with a uni counsellor coz its most definitely not true. You’re not stupid or lazy or not trying hard enough. Feeding dependent animals is easier because they rely on you to feed them so that gives an extra level of responsibility and makes it more memorable. Also, they tend to eat the same, or similar, things every time so you don’t have to try and decide on stuff. Feeding yourself, however? Way more difficult. Theres so many steps that most people dont even realise are steps. I rarely eat lunch coz I struggle to know what to make for myself so instead, I tend to prefer to eat snacks if im hungry until dinner time and then make dinner. And for dinner, sometimes I know what I want to make so I make it but sometimes I have no idea so I keep a bunch of quick meals in the freezer that I have when I have no idea what I want. Minimal prep and I’m fed. I wish people understood more about ADHD in general coz I feel its so misunderstood.
I literally missed a full year of school (7th grade) due to shattering my right arm/dominant arm and needing emergency surgery. I was in a hard cast for a year (had to rebuild my arm so it was rough). My arm was numb, fingers couldn’t move... it was rough, yet I went out of my way to ask for make-up assignments, taught myself to use left hand, and worked hard to pass. I also have ADD (didn’t get diagnosed til just now at 32) and struggled to be great in school but hearing about others with disabilities doing well (the kids in special education that I was friends with in 6th grade did great in school and they had it harder than me) gave me confidence to fight to graduate. It shouldn't make you feel bad cause of what he said. You should root for people who struggle like you and use it as a strength. I've now had 11 surgeries on both arms and my knee and I've graduated college, etc. Use your struggles as strength.
Irt Deadpool, I also love that the reason his cancer got WORSE when he got his healing factor is because cancer isn't the kind of disease a healing factor would necessarily, well, "heal". It's generally caused by a genetic mutation that results in cells losing the capacity for programmed cell death (apoptosis), so they just keep growing and multiplying and invading surrounding body tissues. So because Wade's healing factor doesn't affect any DNA damage that doesn't lead to cell death, it actually makes his cancer better and more efficient at being cancer. As a huge genetics nerd, I really love that level of detail -- and as a disabled person with a bunch of chronic illnesses, I find the cruel irony of something that's supposed to help actually making things worse super relatable 😅😅😅
In one comic (i forget which one), deadpool says "I have never-ending terminal cancer. Every day I pray for death as a sweet release to my eternal, bone-deep agony. So yeah, I'm good." Even though he can heal from wounds caused from the outside, he's still in intense pain every day but masks it under a sarcastic/funny exterior.
I’m mentally ill, and one of my deepest guilty pleasures are narratives with mentally ill villains, particularly if there is a redemption arc. I have to play nice all of the time, and I’m deeply afraid of abandonment because I feel like I’m too much effort? So, I REALLY love watching a mentally ill character doing massive damage to people who aren’t themself! And it’s even better if they can make all of these mistakes and still be allowed to grow and be forgiven and loved at the end of it. I’ll also settle for disabled characters being given help without “earning” it first. Like, get Timmy medication to deal with his debilitating chronic pain even though he’s kind of an asshole because people shouldn’t have to be in pain all the time if it’s preventable. And, hey, maybe he ends up being somewhat less of an asshole because he functions better and has more patience when his nerves aren’t screaming in agony.
bro, have you read six of crows? The (kind of) main character is both physically disabled and suffers from a lot of trauma (and ptsd?). Basically his entire motivation is just taking his anger and trauma out on the people who wronged him in very morally dubious ways. It's a bit more sinister than you described but it's so satisfying, especially since he's surprisingly likable for how cruel he is.
The show Moon night is actually really good and his disability is demonstrated more as a hindrance to his super powers rather than upgrade, and it's not until he addresses his mental health that he becomes a "successful" superhero. It's really well done and I also love the Egyptian representation ☺️
Ikr! He's not a superhero because of his disability, he is a superhero that just happen to also be mentally ill. It's a great represention of how trauma and mental illness hindrance one's life even if they have a god by their side
Representation for Dissociative Identity Disorder has actually come a long way, especially in comic book shows. DID was used for exotic serial killers, but in shows like the recent Moon Knight, Doom Patrol and Iron Fist it's actually respectful. They're heroes, there's a fantastical twist, but they still follow the rules of DID like trauma and triggers. It's still complicated and it's still an example of turning a disability into powers, but it's improving based also on what people with DID said.
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 Considering how TikTok is full of people pretending to have DID and have 50+ anime-like personalities I'd say it really needs good representation, because such people are gonna ruin it soon.
Reading the books I could really relate to this part of him. I also look pretty much normal to other people, my partially green hair is certainly weird to some but you can't see my disability. I just go through life and am in pain sometimes more and sometimes less. It's just a part of who I am like me being left handed. Also something not everyone even notices.
Note on Professor X, there are comic storylines, and a movie, where Professor X loses his powers and as a result regains the ability to walk, so it is his powers that renders him disabled...
A little known Marvel superhero with a disability is Silhouette. She's (was?) an Indonesian-American superhero who needed crutches to walk, but could teleport between shadows, and was highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. She was well ahead of her time, originally appearing in the 90's. I don't really know what's happened to her more recently; I don't think she's been featured for a while.
ana sofia is a deaf character in the marvel squirrel girl books who I thought was fairly well represented (although i am not deaf so I can't fully judge that). She's not a superhero, but she does get a lot of storyline and I think the way they presented the language barrier for her seemed good. No one ever tries to cure her disability, and she signs or texts when she needs to communicate, but most of her character is not based around the fact that she is deaf and it is simply a part of her identity not the whole thing
Hiccup and Gobber from the "How To Train Your Dragon" franchise. They are missing body parts, it comes up sometimes, it's not a super power (though every now and again it works out) and every one moved on with their lives in the new normal. His friends also joke about it on occasion. As a young ish disabled person, the social pressure to be serious all the time is a downer. Also, Toothless as a disabled animal is great too. I have had disabled pets who have had long and happy lives.
Actually!! Even though I didn't really love the movie as a whole, Eternals (MCU) have a deaf-mute character whose skill is super-speed! She's played by a deaf actress and she uses sign language (and lip reading I guess? the other characters sometimes just talk to her and she understands) and the skill really has nothing to do with all that. (I'm able-bodied so I'm just guessing she's good representation from what you've talked about.) And they also have some POC and gay representation that is just casually there, so it doesn't seem as "representation to fill the quota".
Her name is Mikari and yes her portrayal is absolutely amazing, as is Phastos, a gay black man and his husband is also Muslim which I thought was an amazing representation as well. That movie is actually one of my favorite Marvel movies ever.
Thank you - this is the only positive example I could think of!!! A disabled super-hero whose powers are not a compensation for her impairment! Plus, casting a disabled actor to play a disabled character... radical!!!! #DisabilityPrideMonth
Barbara Gordon is Batgirl not cat woman. And she was immensely intelligent and computer savvy before her disability. Love your videos but felt that was an under studied part of this one.
Likewise with Matt Murdock’s power - in fact it does come from the toxic waste that caused him to go blind. I’m just glad she didn’t try to “critique” X-men- it was literally my only source of sanity/pride growing up as kid with disabilities in a abusive environment.
@@jrojala There are a lot of different versions of most popular superheroes. As the "toxic waste gives superpowers" trope became more and more cliched, people moved away from it, and more recent incarnations of Daredevil don't really mention how he got his superpowers. MCU has both Daredevil and Stick just kind of having super-perception for no good reason. I took her comment on that as saying that the incarnations of Daredevil where his superpowers come from the toxic waste work, but the ones where he's just blind and awesome don't.
It's probably due to DC making all of their lore super convoluted for no reason lolll But yeah, Barbara was always super smart, her earliest stories have her outsmarting Batman many times. Too bad DC thinks that isn't good enough for her and puts her in the batgirl suit all the time when that could be going to another disabled character - Cass
You mention how the daredevil super senses is fine if it's the chemicals that gave him the super senses, rather than his blindness. And yea. That's cannon. It was the chemicals. And they do still do a good job (at least in some of the comics) of portraying how he still faces disability (not being able to read printed text is a big one) and how he faces ableism as an even larger obstacle at times. He also "takes advantage" of the ableism directed toward him to help conceal his secret identity with the whole "well shucks, there's no way I could be daredevil, I'm blind!" schtick.
Yeah I love Jessica and this channel, but I feel like she didn't watch or read enough of the comics, shows or movies to make sure that her opinion was accurate enough. Normally she does a fantastic job of it, but if you actually WATCH the entirety of the movies or shows, or READ all of the comics of that hero, you can see the ableism and issues they do face. Also some of these, like Captain Rhodes, is only able to do whatever he wants because the technology exists for him to be able to. If the technology existed in our world, then every paraplegic would be able to walk around with no effort too. I just feel like some of this video was reaching a bit idk...
I thought there was a really interesting episode in series 1 of the Daredevil TV series (haven't read the comics cos can't read comics). It was where Murdock's best friend discovers that he's Daredevil and totally freaks out. Tellingly, his first accusation is "Are you really blind?". One of the biggest tools of #disableism is assuming that we lie about being disabled or about the extent of our impairments.
I don't remeber if it was a comic or the show, but at some point he also says that using his powers can be draining and overwhelming. Meaning using his cane is something he needs (because he'd burn out using his powers to orient himself 24/7) and that he sometimes enjoys Foggy for example leading him when they walk together for similar reasons. I also really enjoy how both of them always sue people/threaten to sue people for not abiding by the Americans with disabilities act pointing out all the little and less little ways things are inaccesible for blind or otherwise diabled people. And finally just Matt & Foggy in general. I love how Foggy treats Matt Bc he's trying to be helpful (like offering to lead him or narrating movies to him) in a really non-infantilising way and never treats Matt like he's less bc of beeing blind long before knowing of his superpowers which I really enjoy. (Which is very basic but the world sucks so yeah to meeting the minimal decency requirements) Also the creators said in an interview they were worried that Daredevil might be a bad representation bc blind people don't get sonar-superhearing without magic radioactive sludge (shocking I know), but received a lot of positive feedback. Bc you sometimes just want a superhero who's like you. While beeing completely aware that them having unrelated superpowers or futuristic tech means they can do things you can't.
@@YourQueerGreatAuntie I mean I get the issue, it has some parallels to "Oh you can walk, guess you're faking needing a wheelchair." But at the same time it's also pretty different. Like the original comment states Matt uses the "I'm blind I can't be Daredevil" thing a lot. Which yes. A 100% blind person without super-powers could not do what Daredevil does. (Side note is it ableist to assume a seeing person without superpower could? Maybe, but it's also kind of ableist to not recognise that beeing blind is a pretty big handycap for doing the things Daredevil does that a seeing person would not have starting out at an advantage) And also Matt pretty much lied to Foggy for years about the impact of his disability. If the amount of perception he always told and showed Foggy he had was true he couldn't be Daredevil the way he is. So he lied to Foggy, who thought he knew Matt really well, making Foggy question everything about him. So for Foggy to react that way is pretty understandable because of the whole double life thing. The only question is on the level of the writers, like did them using that question support that kind of behaviour in their viewers or did it do the opposite bc Matt is indeed still blind. Where they just showing how an abled person reacts do diabled people doing stuff they think they can't. Where they portraying an acceptable reaction for this very specific situation or where they portraying an ableist question showing how nonexistant or rare an acceptable context would be and for the latter portrayed how even in this context the answer is yes the person is disabled. Did they even think about it or just write what they thought bc of their own ableism meaning there's no critisism behind questioning people disabilities at all. Does that matter at all for how their viewers read it, does it have an impact on them. Would have writing that differently had a different impact. Does any of it matter. And on that hell if I know.
@@freakyfridayfun In hindsight, it was pretty smart to make Matt a lawyer. Because that gives him a way to advocate for himself even without his powers.
I believe in the show Daredevil, Matt mentions that the chemicals are what gave him his enhanced senses (though I haven't read the comics so I don't know if that's in his original story). Another character, Stick, who I believe was born blind and was Matt's teacher for a while - yeah, he doesn't have a reason for his super senses and fighting ability beyond the fact that he was born blind and therefore his other senses had to compensate.
Professor X is my favorite!! I love how his disability isn’t directly related to his powers, and how, even with his fancy power/flying chairs, it still does cause obstacles for him to navigate. Also, the storyline where he does gain the ability to walk again at the “cost” of his powers does a really good job of subverting the trope because it turns out he takes the drugs to keep his powers away because of how emotionally painful they are, and it’s really not about being able to walk again!
There's a good scene in X-men Evolution where he's talking about something Really Important, and he just stops and looks really annoyed; the camera pans out and he's faced with stairs and no ramp in sight.
Yeah... the villain trope, I've talked to alot of starwars fans over the years about Darth Vader and most people don't even come close to thinking of him as disabled...needing a respirator or as an amputee, it's been an interesting time to see the Ahha! ohh people seem to circle through.
People just don't notice disability until it's shown to them, They associate disability with... weakness, impairness, for the lack of a better word, so they can't see a superhero or villain as disabled. On the topic of Star Wars and disability: when the good guy gets disabled it's just an arm and he wears a prosthetic hand that covers it so completely it might as well not exist. When the villain gets disabled he is disfigured and in pain and has to wear visible prosthesis. A disabled hero is fixed and it isn't brought up again, a villain is in constant pain.
@HotDogTimeMachine385 Star Wars The Clone Wars is interesting for this cos it shows Anakin Skywalker (before he becomes Vader) having problems because of his prosthetics in interesting ways. One time being that on a mission an EMP device is used to break the droids they are fighting, but it also affects his arm (suggesting no one in universe considered what would happen if the EMP was used by someone with electronic prosthetics) and one time strong magnet is used (I can’t remember why, maybe to confiscate weapons?) and cos Anakin’s arm is metal he gets dragged into the air by the magnet too. So there are examples of Anakin’s disability in this show, but i think only 2 of them. The Bad Batch, the spin off if The Clone Wars, also shows examples of good guys with disabilities, but that is a whole other rant cos I am very conflicted on how that show handles the topic
Ooh my absolute favorite right now is sun-spider! She’s a spiderperson with EDS and an ambulatory wheelchair user. Her crutches are her webshooters and she’s overall a badass in my opinion. She uses her hyper mobility to her advantage but uses mobility aids to avoid extreme bendiness.
Not super heroes, but one thing I actually really enjoy is fantasy with disability - and specifically seeing how people would adapt. Like a mage, who just so happens to be blind, who uses their wind magic to see shapes in their world to navigate, but that doesn't mean that they can suddenly read the books without braille. In a world where there is magic, there absolutely -should- be disabled people... With magic. And it should show how that would affect them.
The webcomic Spinnerette has probably my favorite example of a Disability Superhero. Mecha Maid has a super suit that doubles as a mobility aid for her ALS (the first time I ever heard of this disease btw, years before the ice bucket challenge) Even though her suit "cancels out" her disability, when she ISN'T in her suit her disability is extremely daunting and she struggles with her relationship with her suit as she becomes more and more reliant on it for basic bodily functions. She compares it to living in a tricked out iron lung, rather than a magic device fixing all her problems. On the one hand she gets to be the "supercripple", but she also has to process through a lot of resentment about needing her mobility aide, something many disabled people can relate to. Also she gets to have a girlfriend🥰
Avatar: The Legend of Korra season 3 and 4 come to mind in terms of representing the physical and emotional struggles that come with becoming physically disabled in a VERY sudden and traumatic way. It shows the stages of rehabilitation through physical therapy (very briefly), coming to terms with the trauma, ACTUALLY LIVING with that trauma and the long term consequences. Despite the character only becoming physically disabled temporarily, PTSD still affects the plot in a big way.
While the tropes about blind people are genuinely terrible, it is important to note that they are always about totally blind people, yet a larger percentage of the blind actually have some vision. I'm trying to remember the last time I encountered a character who was visually impaired but not totally blind. Let's see, there were a handful of villains with thick glasses (this trope went into decline when the technology for contact lenses improved). Then there was Mr. Magoo (pardon me a moment while I gag ... ugh ... okay, I'm back). And, um, that's about all I can think of.
@@andreacook7431 if I remember correctly, she only had a problem when she wasn't wearing her glasses. I was thinking about characters who were visually impaired even with a correction.
There was this BBC mini series “Second Sight“ with Clive Owen as the lead. He plays a police officer who becomes visually impaired because of some genetic condition. He keeps on working and solving crimes while trying to hide that he can't see so well anymore and continuing to let his colleagues believe he has a drinking problem instead because he thinks it's less likely to get fired this way. The showrunner based the character's journey with legal blindness on her father. I felt the representation was alright when I first watched it 13 years ago. But yeah! That show is from 2001. So it's been a while.
One thing that's kind of overlooked about Daredevil is that his "heightened senses" have the potential to be extremely disabling as well. His Kryptonite is sensory overload and he has to work very hard not to be overwhelmed and disoriented. So that complicates his superpowers merely making up for his blindness. But it really depends on the portrayal or the writer.
I'd love to see a mainstream movie about disabled people where they're just, like, people. But also the main character. And not one of these tropes. If I was really going for it, I'd want to see someone with a chronic non-life-threatening illness. Pipe dream!
Exactly bc we always seem to straddle this Purgatory-like middle ground between the "normal" vs. "crippled" checkbox that ppl just seem to have to throw us into to compute or "excuse" our basic existence.
I'm not a fan of the "disability as superpower" trope but LOVE the "superpower as disability" trope, which I've seen happen most often with enhanced senses. Spider-Man, Superman, and Daredevil (among others, I'm sure) all have stories/arcs that explore how their powers can be disabling in situations where they're bombarded with stimuli. I adore these types of narratives because they don't frame disability as something to pity, but instead present disabled characters for everyone (including and perhaps especially abled people) to ASPIRE to.
When you mentioned Dr.midnight (I hadn't heard of the character), it hit close to home for me. i have been struggling with extreme photophobia that's only gotten worse and more apparent with age. I've always had different vision and a huge part is ridiculously good low light/night vision while being near blind and very debilitated in brightly lit environments or with any lights directed towards me. I come from a family of artists and grew up knowing i saw and looked at things differently but often the greatest artists had described similar experiences. My vision does hinder me a lot in life, but i hold on to these moments when my sight feels like a superpower or special ability and something truly special i can share through art. I know how visual impairment has cost me a lot, but photosensitivity how mine presents is nearly never reflected in a character so even if unrealistic, i felt seen.
Barbara is Batgirl, not Catwoman. And her arcs have been all over the place. But she doesn't 'get powers' when she becomes Oracle. It was just her new moniker. She becomes disabled and remains involved in the world and causes she wants to be active in. That ended up being surveillance and tech as support for her allies and friends. The Killing Joke is a journey though. Easily skippable and I would love a better redo that wasn't so focused on her as a piece of property/not being so dang gross overall. But if you know anything about Alan Moore, then you understand. That's not to say maybe her disability isn't handled amazing as I haven't read everything about it ever created. Because, as this video shows, people really miss the mark a lot of the time. And making her abled again. Sigh. Why. Edit: just adding to the not erasing part. Her arcs really don't erase her disability. She is as much a part of the team as the rest of the Batfam and the League. In fact she is probably valuable across the board in that her intel and guidance touch so many of them, before, during, and after missions and all that. I understand that having it be more integral to her characterization would be important. Now I think I gotta read more of her stuff and revisit some oldies to get a better sense.
It's impossible to keep up with all the comic book characters and their histories, but I was wincing a little at that part. Barbara was *always* smart (in various continuities she's been a librarian and a sharp, young congresswoman). Intelligence was not an added "superpower" after her disability. (She just decided to focus her intellect on computing.) I actually found Barbara Gordon's portrayal as Oracle really refreshing. (Especially after the trashfire of her treatment in TKJ.) There are some good scenes related to her disability in the Birds of Prey series, but what resonated with me down in my bones was the story "Oracle: Year One" in Batman Chronicles #5. It felt like it came from a place of knowledge. When I learned that Kim Yale was extremely sick from breast cancer while writing that, I thought, "Yeah, you understood."
@@bethanybrengan9795 I'll have to check those out! And yes, I sometimes consider that take on Barbara resulting from people maybe only reading a comic or two that don't handle it well and getting turned off. Which is fair, the amount of options is so dense and hard to sift through. But there are some really good versions out there.
@@aurifulgore So true! I often find myself recommending comic book series to people like "It's great! Except for all the parts where it's utterly terrible!"
Wanted to leave a random message to thank you, your dysautonomia awareness video led to me chasing a pots diagnosis and I finally have it! My life has changed for the better and I might of still been lost for years if I hadn't seen all my symptoms summed up so well! So thank you, you literally changed my life!
as a neurodivergent person i have always loved the way percy jackson's disabilities are represented because while they mention that his adhd and dyslexia cause his brain to work differently which definitely helps him in different ways, but it also mentions the way his disabilities negatively impact him at times. i've always felt very represented in that series
I got my hEDS and POTS dx this spring and among other youtubers, I credit your to my education about myself and motivation to pursue it. If anyone is on the East Coast or near Maryland, had the money, and is able to handle the wait, check out Dr. Zingman, she has the conditions herself which was incredible. Though some cancellations were made as a result of that. Thanks so much Jessica!!! Plus being queer and seeing your family is amazing too.
@@jk-jl2lo I’m also from NJ! I go to college in De so that’s why I chose Maryland but it’s probably no more than 3 or 4 hours from North NJ since it is 2 hours to get to my school from where I am in NJ and from my school another hour or so to her clinic in Silver Spring Maryland! It’s a super long wait and not covered by insurance though sadly but I saved up and am glad I was able to.
This is wonderful seeing you giving others a doctor who is well versed and also experiences the conditions herself to try and go to. That’s maybe an hour or two from where I live and I have had to drive quite a ways to find doctors that specialized in rare conditions I have been diagnosed with. As much as waiting May but be fun with the waiting we have done for so long to find a doctor to actually listen, I may be alone on saying I’d happily take the wait to get in to Dr.Zingman over another doctor who just won’t listen or wants to stick to certain symptoms over some of the others that may manifest instead. *hugs* to you sugar!
I had always been under the impression that Daredevil’s super senses did come from the chemicals (that also made him blind) because he’s able to hear really well very soon after and there are other blind characters in the show who do seem to not have them (Stick being the exception but he was also in a secret organization so we don’t know how he got his powers and he’s not as good as Matt)
Makkari from the Eternals!! She doesn't get a ton of screen time (honestly the cast was too big so that can be said of all of them, hoping she's a bigger main in the sequel) but she's played by an ACTUAL deaf woman (Lauren Ridloff). She signs in the movie and the others just sign and speak to her where she can read lips, AND she has a romantic plotline!! That, within its collective four minutes of screentime, is somehow one of the best relationships Marvel has ever done. Her superpower is being the fastest woman in the universe so it's got nothing to do with her hearing, she's gorgeous and she has a fantastic personality- very mischievous, independent and and caring. Also she's like 5'2 and will wreck your shit. I love it and I'm praying they make her a much bigger part of the sequel and don't do anything stupid with her character.
I'm stealing this one. I usually respond with "no my sight isn't heightened but I have a nose like a bloodhound, and you need to learn to wipe your arse properly"
Hi! I was wondering if you’d ever make anymore ‘tropes in the media ‘ videos after this about adhd ! I find the representation of my neurodivergency a troublesome thing that is sorely lacking !!! Your videos about chronic fatigue have been really helping me recently ! Thankyou!
Harlan from Umbrella Academy was a great one for me. Especially coz I feel like autistic people actually can be extra sensitive in the way that it's shown in season two. And sometimes I loved in season 3 was that when Viktor meets Harlan again and realizes he talks now he starts saying something along the lines of "that's amazing" , but stops himself, which I think was a really great way of showing that it isn't inherently better to be a speaking person
I’ve never been this early! Love you and claud!! Not sure what you will cover but toph from avatar the last airbender is great use of this trope where her blindness gives her extra skills but still showing her struggling with her blindness realistically, unlike most superheroes with disabilities
i really liked toph's portrayal because i feel it more so shows her as adapting to her disability, and it also shows her as both having specific struggles with her blindness (like not being able to read, not knowing what she looks like to other people) while also having work arounds to be as self-sufficient as she can be, which is honestly way more than i was at her age.
@@jk-jl2lo exactly, I especially liked how often she was holding onto sokka because it was in the air or water and she truly couldn’t see and no one ever mentioned it, making it so casual that I didn’t notice it until rewatching the show a few times
That's a good one, imo, admittedly from the perspective of someone who isn't blind. Especially since it's not "she's blind so her earthbending is better to compensate", it's that her earthbending is different/better because she learnt from the (magical) source instead of learning from knowledge filtered down through generations of humans, and then it was up to her to work _hard_ to learn how to use that to navigate the world I also always really appreciated how it showed just how wrong her parents were to treat her the way they did as though she was incapable of doing anything - like, even if their daughter _wasn't_ hyper-competent and was instead just a normal kid, they'd still be wrong and cruel to treat her the way that they do
I think Toph is a well done disabled character cause her disability still feels realistic. Her strength as an earthbender is great but it’s still different for her than the sighted characters and not a complete “new better sense” thing.
one of the only times ive seen "gaining a new ability from disability" done well was in the show bones- a main character, dr hodgins, becomes paralyzed from the waist down after an explosion and uses a wheelchair . he went through a long phase of hating his disability because he couldn't go out in the field as much, and his job was his life (he's a forensic scientist, specifically an entomologist !!! the "dirty work" is his fav part of the job) . however, theres a scene where he is retrieving evidence from an elevator shaft and his harness breaks- anyone else would have fallen and died, but he is able to hold himself up and hang on because of his increased arm strength (from pushing his chair and intense physiotherapy), and it helps him accept that his disability is not just a miserable part of his life and he actually learns to love his disability and his chair 😊😊😊
This was really well done. I could never put words to it before but so many people glorify care givers as if they are some magical being that protects and deeply cares for disabled people with unending love and respect but nothing could be further from the truth in many cases. As it was not for me resulting in abuse. Care givers are in positions where they are given access to things that can easily be taken advantage of. As able bodied people they can hold and are often permitted to taking power and control over those with disabilities. When in reality they are often involved in things that infringe on the dignity and privacy of those they care for. In some cases/situations it's needed for a caregiver to assist with dressing tioletting and bathing BUT that does not equal wanted or being comfortable with those things as a disabled person especially in the case where money is exchanged where those things are seen as a service being provided. It's quite a challenge in the aftermath of abuse when the ways you needed help were used as opportunity but after it's happened you still require the things.
My favourite trope is when someone gets blinded by a slashing attack, they wear a cloth over their eyes, and by the end of the second act can see using spirit stuff. See daredevil, Kenshi, that guy from the the force unleashed, neo, and so on
Jessica Jones is great, because she had powers before she got the disability (PTSD), so it doesn't affect her abilities. Also Dustin from Stranger Things, it is incorporated to the character, but doesn't give him any superpowers. It does him the advantage of climbing through narrow spaces though, as he doesn't have collar bones and can squeeze his arms closer to his body. Also Becky from Glee, it shows that people with disabilities are just people, so they can be nice or they can be mean, and nit every disabled person is all sun and smiles.
Moon Knight surprised me with some of the accurate depictions of things I've gone through with a dissociative disorder (for me it's Schizoaffective disorder depressive type)
As a disabled person, I’ve always really enjoyed stories about disabled superheroes bc I love seeing disabled characters as the heroes. But I will agree that some disabled heroes aren’t portrayed the best and it’s on a case by case basis. My favorite superhero of all time is Daredevil though. I love him, personally.
As someone who rarely has the strength to do something regularly enough to be called a series myself, I think you should indeed be allowed to call this a series. This was a great video by the way!
Telling comic book fans to argue with you, whether you realize it or not, is the bravest thing you've ever done. Forget the parenting thing. It's that.
Love this video. The trope I always dislike is the one where disability leads to a choice of " do I choose to be a hero or villain" but then when the character chooses to be a villain they get more disabled...like one disability leads to another. Or the whole...the hero is a hero because they did something cool "despite" having the disability. These just get old.
I’ve argued with insurance about NSAIDS I had to take because I was allergic to all the other ones. ::sigh:: Why don’t you have that on file? Didn’t we have this conversation last time?
I mean, the worst part of the Barbara Gorden storyline is that in a creative meeting when Alan Moore asked if DC would have a problem with him crippling her he was told to “cripple the bitch.” Not that Alan Moore doesn’t have enough other bs to answer for.
Oh my gosh I’m dying. My eyes did a double take when I looked at her profile picture. For a good 15 seconds I didn’t realize that she was holding a camera and I thought it was a handgun for some reason.
I have recently watched a k-drama called It's Okay to Not Be Okay, and I would really like to see what you think about their portrayal of mental illness and disability. It's a bit long, but I liked that they didn't shy away from showing the messy parts of both having a mental illness and taking care of others.
there's a famous quote that "Daredevil's superpower is that he's not *quite* blind" Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great version of the "blind badass" trope because the way she compensates for it makes sense in the magic system of the setting instead of her senses just being enhanced, and her blindness still affects her in many instances
My favourite thing is when a character's disability helps them solve a problem, but but in a realistic way. Like they see things differently or notice something the others don't because of their experience. Even something as simple as it being useful that they know sign language or braille.
I've had that happen in real life a couple of times. I can't see super well, even with bifocals (which I've had since my early 20s) so my computer settings are really big. I also work in tech support. A few times people have called in with weird issues with programmes that I support, and I can just tell them it's because they have their screens in the size they do, and there's nothing actually malfunctioning. (As my co-workers with normal eyesight want to know how I figured it out so fast 🙄)
i absolutely love the scene in strange new worlds in the second episode when uhura offers to help hemmer because if he were human he would be impaired but then spock steps up and explains that SO WELL like the only ONLY reason he ISNT is because he’s an alien. which like bless.
I love Makkari played by Lauren Ridloff in "Eternals"! They don't bring up her deafness at all, her teammates just all understand sign language and her love interest in particular signs with her frequently.
Flash Thompson is one you missed, he was Peter Parker's bully in the movies, but in the comics he also has storylines that involve him reforming, joining the military, going to war, losing his legs, developing PTSD, and getting the Venom symbiote to become Agent Venom and later becomes Agent Anti-Venom. He gets cybernetic legs because he can't be in the Venom form 24/7. He also takes drugs to suppress the symbiote and maintain control. There's a lot more to the character than what I just typed, but this comment is probably long enough!
The chemicals that gave Daredevil his powers were the same that created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the comics there was no doubt that his abilities were a result of the chemicals, but even then he had to train hard with Stick in order to learn how to fight. I don't know how Stick got those skills, however.
YES!!!! In one of her recent polls about what she wanted to know about what we wanted to see from her, I mentioned more analysis of disability tropes in media (including LGBTQI depictions). I don't know if she read my comment or not but I feel like I've been heard!
Hermann Gottlieb in Pacific Rim comes to mind! He's not a superhero, but he IS a heroic character (even more so in the sequel) and a cane-user, and as far as I remember they treat his disability pretty damn well, characterization-wise. It's entirely separate from his role in the plot and his capabilities as a scientist and mathematician. They never even address why he uses the cane, rather than making it an issue, or using it as a ~tragic backstory~
The other day I had this idea for a magical girl OC who uses a wheelchair that transforms into a mini tank in her magical girl form, which would also be her weapon. She'd be quite a powerful attacker what with using a tank and all but she'd still have some issues with stairs or narrow passageways and the like.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Moon Knight TV series - all the way through I thought that Marc's DID would be because of his superpowers + connection to Khonshu, or that he was only able to have the superpowers because he had DID in the first place, but the narrative showed that he just happened to be a person who had both powers and the mental illness to deal with which felt pretty refreshing compared to the blind-person-with-magically-enhanced-hearing flavour of tropes
I would love to hear your thoughts on Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, especially regarding his portrayal in the manga where his chronic pain and disabilities are more wholy shown
As someone with BPD, I really enjoyed watching how Wanda's struggle to control the intensity of her emotions affects her powers. I haven't watched Multiverse of Madness yet, but I think they portrayed this really well in Wandavision. Also, the fact that she wants to do good, but often feels like she inadvertently becomes a villain is very accurate to how it feels to have BPD. I also really like Raven's portrayal in the original Teen Titan's cartoon for that reason. Both of my parents also have personality disorders, so I really relate to Raven's struggle with whether or not she can ever use her powers for good since they came from an evil place. She's constantly afraid of becoming her father, and that's super accurate for me, too. I also relate to Harley Quinn's lack of impulse control, not realizing that she's self-sabotaging until she's already messed herself up and struggling to stay out of a codependent relationship with someone who she loves being with but who is extremely toxic. Finally, I think Mariko Tamaki's run on the She-Hulk comic was a good representation of how isolating mental illness can be and how sometimes it's easier to lose yourself in media and connect with characters and online personalities who you can never truly have a relationship with then it is to reach out to the actual people in your life who care but can never truly understand what you're going through. It's not a superhero movie, but Silver Linings Playbook is garbage, and I hate that movie with an undying passion.
You are correct that Matt Murdock got his powers by the same chemical that blinded him. As bad as the Daredevil movie was, they got the 'waking up to too much everything' scene right
As a disabled woman myself, I have all kinds of complicated feelings about Barbara Gordon and the treatment of the circumstances surrounding her disability. On the one hand, you can make a very solid argument that because she doesn't have superpowers, her disability makes her a great example of superhero status having nothing to do with how able-bodied she is. And to address the point about her being a disabled genius, as someone who has been disabled for most of my life, I spent a lot of time overcompensating for the fact that I couldn't be physically active by learning as much as I could and being an overachiever academically, so I definitely find her post-Batgirl career relatable. On the other hand, she famously became disabled in an incredibly sexist manner and, as certain critics have pointed out many times over the years, Batman's spine was broken once, but unlike Barbara, he was restored to being completely able-bodied much faster than she was. And I would definitely agree that it was massively stupid and thoughtless on DC's part to restore the use of her legs without some kind of explanation, especially when her being shot by The Joker is still considered a certain part of her character history.
Your point on "you're too young to need..." really struck a chord with me. I have had to go to certain specialist doctors for, albeit minor, health issues, and I can't stand it when some well-meaning nurse tells me that I'm too young to need to be at this specialist. I'm not happy to be there either and it makes the situation so much worse for me mentally. I really appreciate the content that you share on this channel.
You mentioning Professor X makes me think of all the times Marvel has made him walk in the comics. And I don't just mean in the mental realm or in flashbacks. Marvel is constantly trying to get him out of the chair, and it's really a question of why the heck they'd want to do that. He's their most prominent character with a disability whose power doesn't make said disability irrelevant. Heck, I could just say he's their most prominent character with a disability, full stop (or was, until the MCU and Iron Man technically having one--and I know Captain America has had a range of disabilities in different versions of canon before the serum, but since the serum gets rid of them completely, that absolutely doesn't count). The most prominent time of him being able to walk again is recently, with him taking on the new code name X, and I hate that idea because why do you need Charles to walk so badly, Marvel?
![Autism Tropes in Media [CC]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/k7q2A3ic0-w/mqdefault.jpg)
I really like Klaus from umbrella academy because his power doesn’t magically fix his mental health but actually makes it worse at times
Klaus is a good representation of what he suffers from, PTSD, Depression, Drug abuse etc. And the way some people may "self medicate" in whatever way they can in order to cope with the world around them. I think there is a possibility to talk about how he may be representation for Schizo affective disorders but I am not in a position to make that comparison with any confidence as that is not something I struggle with.
Agreed about Klaus. I also adore Diego and how they don't act like a stammer is a childhood thing. Also the siblings are never shown to mock him for the stutter even though most things are fair game between them. And as mental health goes, they all had PTSD as childhood abuse survivors but respond in different ways, Klaus is the most clearly damaged at first glance but they all ares on their own ways and its shown so well imo.
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@@lelalu101 wow! Interesting. My dad is schizophrenic (doesn't accept the diagnosis he believes his delusions and is unmedicated). They think it started when he was 13 but because that's when he started drinking and drugs, we can't be sure. It was when he tried to get clean that he had his breakdown. But even without meds he's not dangerous like the lies movies tell because "God" only tells him to save people's souls by crying in church and by staring "evil witches" he kills the evil in them.
When he talked about "killing witches" shen I was 13, it scared me until I saw him do it. Person was real creeped out by my 6'8" powerlifter dad staring at them right in the eye with unwavering intensity. He's become more gentle after his breakdown.
@@lelalu101 I have Schizo Affective Disorder, and I DEFINITELY feel like Klaus is good (if not neutral) representation!
whenever i think about hawkeye i always remember the comics "hawkeye vs deadpool" wherein deadpool spends the majority of the time with his mask lifted up to reveal his mouth so that hawkeye can lipread and he also uses sign language at certain points. pretty cool imo
I loved that series, it was the first time I discovered that DP could sign and made me feel like he understood me. I get so annoyed constantly asking people to stop turning away from me when they are talking, just so I can see what they are saying.
If I have to ask them more than two times, I simply stop trying to listen to them. If they can't be bothered to look at me while talking, then I can't be bothered trying to lip read the back of their heads 😂
Deadpool is one of these characters I just love because even though he is clearly an anti-hero and morally grey he also still has morals and just gets struggling because he does as well.
He is respectful even of his enemies.
Pretty good representation. I remember a Moon Knight series where the titular hero (who wears a full mask) was working with Echo (a deaf hero). He’s talking to her with his mask on, and when she tells him to show his face so she could read his lips, he remembers she’s deaf and says “you don’t act deaf”. Oof, the cringe…
I was surprised when I discovered Deaf Clint was canon, cuz the MCU didn’t seem to show it
@@anitanielsen1061 to be fair, the comics kind of go all over the place about whether he’s deaf and how it happened. It’s been a writer’s choice thing since the 80s.
My favourite at the moment is Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She is blind, and has compensating plausibly with Earthbending. This isn't perfect however - the show often addresses the issues she faces. And my favourite part? They don't avoid blind jokes, but they are all about how the others in the group forget that she is blind. So they'll ask how they look she'll sat great and then the penny drops. It's awesome.
The blind jokes aren't at the expense of her disability. Everyone loves jokes! There's a difference between joking about disability and making fun of disabled people.
She even makes a few blind jokes herself "That's a great drawing Sokka, it looks just like him" "Thank you... why do you do this". Because it's important to show that disabled people are just people who have full emotions, not just sad all the time.
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 Yes - that's what I was trying to say. Apparently it wasn't that clear. Thanks for clarifying.
I think my favorite part about her is she's so used to being aggressively coddled by her parents who are like "our poor disabled baby can't POSSIBLY have any independence" that at first she refuses to accept help or give help to the team, wanting to prove that she can be completely independent, and over time softening as it's clear that they know she's independent but there's nothing wrong with needing help at times, culminating in the end fight when Sokka helps guide her on a giant airship away from danger she can't see when she isn't on earth or metal. And then my favorite joke is when they're putting up posters for Appa and Sokka says "Toph, you should come with me." and she says, "What, because I'm blind I can't put up posters?!" then slams a poster onto the wall the wrong way. She then asks, defeated, "It's upside down, isn't it? Yeah I'll go with you."
Toph was/is such good representation. She is very well adjusted to her disability because that's just how she has lived her entire life but you also see her struggle. You also often just forget that she so disabled because that's just not an important aspect of the story at all times, sometimes it's just about some fun times and you can have those with all kinds of abilities.
As someone who lives with someone who is legally blind, this is 100% true. I think it's why I love Toph so much. Her bending helps her, but it doesn't solve it all for her.
i really wanna see a disabled superhero whose power has absolutely no connection to or impact on their disability. give me a deaf superhero who just happens to be pyrokinetic. they still can't hear but they can spice up their sign language with some flames.
i know i’m projecting with this one, but ms. marvel definitely has adhd.
update:turns out that it is canon that ms. marvel has adhd
I would 100% go see this - heck, if it was being made, I'd find a way to work on it. That would be epic!
Actually!! Even though I didn't absolutely love the movie as a whole, Eternals have a deaf-mute character whose skill is super-speed! She's played by a deaf actress and she uses sign language (and lip reading I guess? the other characters sometimes just talk to her and she understands).
I mean in the hawkeye comics he's deaf right? And wasn't there something about a series? I think jessica has a video on it
I lost a significant amount of my hearing in a car accident, and now my super power is ignoring people at work.
That can be a heck of a super power, depending on who you work with lol
I have had back and shoulder injuries, my super power is good posture. Or else.
Hearing loss is so fun! You ask people to repeat themselves a million times then finally you pretend you understood.
@@NoOneReallySpecialthis. I’m only deaf in one ear, but I still have difficulty. A world of background noise makes it really hard for me to hear people properly. Yes, I have hearing aids and no, they aren’t helpful. My frequent requests for people to repeat themselves and their annoyance at needing to face me and speak clearly can be embarrassing, and sometimes I feel like I am being perceived as an idiot. Even more frustrating for me is how consistently I have to ask my spouse and teen and adult children to repeat themselves. Like, wtf? I’ve been like this since I was a child, so for the last 26 years of marriage and the entirety of my 21, 17, and 15 years of my kids lives I have built up this feeling of being disrespected and that my involvement in a discussion is not really important.
My pet peeve in the disabled superpower trope is the ADHD character who can think of a way out of the situation in a few seconds because they THINK REALLY FAST and see details the neurotypical characters don't.
Sure my brain goes a mile a minute sometimes, but I have no control over where it goes and I don't choose what I hyperfocus on.
A random scene in a movie can make me ask myself "how deep IS the deepest part of the ocean anyway" and five minutes later I'll be stuck reading about the reproductive habits of anglerfish or looking at submarine schematics.
As someone with ADHD I do often see details others don't, but I'm fairly sure that's less directly from ADHD and more of a coping mechanism of meticulous detail-oriented anxiety after dealing with untreated ADHD long term.
Also if I'm in any high pressure situation I'm definitely just gonna get overwhelmed and shut down. Not very helpful.
+
Yeah. A d they never address the reality of having that diagnosis. So many of us have depression and or other mental illness bc of the struggles that come with having adhd. They like the fast paced comic relief character type but it doesn't go deeper than that.
sometimes it really is like "I get a different really smart and out of the box answer" to solve problems or can be "stuck with the wrong idea and when it doesn't work can't change my plan because my last idea is the only thing I can focus on" or "oh look this random thing" And proceeds to get distracted in something completely different.
The doomsday machine is at 99%. Everyone dramatically looks at the ADHD character for a solution. The ADHD character is staring at the window because there's a bird.
Anglerfish are pretty cool tho, they're really weird, but in a way where most people are freaked out by them, but they're just weird fish. I don't even remember when I first saw them even.
If you want to make a cool ADHD character, have them know random facts that sometimes come in handy. An ADHD character can't think on command, in fact stress makes some of us freeze.
A movie i really love when it comes to disability representation is "how to train your dragon". I know, it isn't a superhero movie. But the disability is just Part of the life of many characters. Hiccup himself, is disabled. But a character i really love is Gothi, an elder woman who speaks by drawing signs in the ground. She has an important Position in the village due to her wisdom and healing Powers. Not because of her disability and Not dispite her disability.
I loved These movies and the Show when I was a kid. But since I am disabled the movie became more important to me, when it comes to disability representation.
Oh yeah, I love those movies (haven't seen the last one)! I also love Gobber the Belch too!
I also love how in those movies none of the vikings let any of their physical disabilities really impact how they live. They just keep chugging along with seemingly no issues. As you said. And sure, Hiccup probably had a bit of a learning curve, but even he seemed to be doing fine by the second movie. And! It doesn't change how any of the characters are viewed! Its not seen as taboo or a sad "poor you" situation. Astrid loves Hiccup just the same.
@@lemontree666333 i think its less about them "letting" their disabilities stop them and more about their society being accessible to different disabilities
@@everfluctuating 100% I agree. "let" probably wasn't the best word to use, however it certainly does seem like their society was far more accessible. You could almost say the same about some of the Pirates movies. I know Barbossa gets a wooden leg at some point. Also I think there's a mute character as well at some point. And in both instances it's not dwelled upon as some big sad thing.
I would love to see a video about positive disability representations. I need more things to watch
I think a lot of people see Batman as a disabled hero. He's been canonically been diagnosed with depression, OCD, PTSD, and possible autism. He does need Alfred to take care of him - on many adaptations he relies on Alfred to make him food and remind him to sleep, far beyond him being his butler. Really, more as a general caretaker.
I never considered that and really like it a lot!
Hello from ab autistic person can change the wording of your comment to autistic rather than autism for respect for the autistic community
Add he's also a male survivor of sexual assault, which I think they should really do more with.
YES! There have also been many occasions where Alfred was the only reason Batman sought medical attention for things like broken bones and other serious injuries. (For people not familiar with the Batman storyline, he sees a doctor named Leslie Maurin Thompkins who was close friends with his parents. She's a sort of godmother to him who also does work with low-income people in her community to ensure they have access to at least basic medical care.)
A lot of very talented people need a caretaker/agent/partner to manage and market their art/services and mitigate the negative effects their insanity. This is frequently the case with great artists. For example, Larry David created Seinfeld (one of the most successful TV shows of all time) but without Jerry to communicate with the network and convince Larry not to quit every week, there would be no TV show. The most intelligent and creative people in the world often need a spokesperson to verbalize their vision.
Love that the X-Men mansion is one of the least accessible buildings I've ever seen. Way to make your own life much harder than it needs to be, Charlie
And the lives of any students who might be like you
#MagnetoWasRight ??? 🤣
and with how often it gets destroyed and rebuilt, you'd think it would be easier to remodel to be wheelchair accessible.
The mansion could definitely do with more ramps and mobility aids, but was there an elevator? Perhaps it was only in the first Xmen movie with Hugh Jackman that it. I'm sure it was in more than one of those movies though. I suppose it's not as much of an issue in the comics for Charles because his chair hovers above the ground. I know he uses an electric wheelchair when teaching so perhaps he has made part of the mansion more accessible for himself, like an extra private elevator or two on his side of the house. It would be cool to see a mock up of an X-mansion schematic that shows Xavier's accessibility adaptations.
I know a lotta people are gonna mention Toph (luv u gurl) but I gotta defend my boys Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist and Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon who both have prosthetic limbs. I appreciated the scenes that showed that their respective mobility aids were not automatic fixes for their problems. Edward feels phantom pains from his missing limbs, his prosthetics need to be upgraded to accommodate his physical growth, and their expensive. Hiccup stumbles when he first stands up on his peg leg. It takes time to get used to, like it took time for Toothless to get used to the prosthetic that lets him fly again.
Why didn’t I think of Elric! And it takes him a whole year to recover, get used to his prosthetic, and feel confident traveling. Not only that but his ptsd still affects him. He has such range in the manga!
Ed!
I feel that “you’re too young to require so much assistance/medication” at a soul level. It’s especially maddening when strangers accost me after I lawfully park in a disabled parking space; they’re just so certain that I am gaming the system, stealing from taxpayers, and taking parking spots from those who “really need it!”
I've felt that too deep in my soul. I know that hip issues are more common in old age but I was quite literally born with it just that mine didn't start acting up until my mid 20s. It's just how it is and I wish I was too young but I'm not.
I know, it's so strange that people assume you can't have issues if you're young!
I found it interesting that one can be "too young" to have physical disabilities, but also "too old" to have ADHD or autism, like what??
I've had actual nurses say "you're so young to have had cancer!!"
It doesn't check ID.
I don't consider myself to be disabled, but I developed scoliosis during puberty, and one time my middle school guidance counselor joked that I was too young to have back pain, and I was like ??? but I... do have back pain...
I think there’s also a stereotype of any obese disabled person, that they aren’t “actually” disabled as much as lazy. Because OBVIOUSLY they are disabled due to being fat, rather than struggling with weight gain due to mobility and/or dietary issues, medication side effects, depression, etc.
Oh, my God. Yes. A side effect of several of my medications is weight gain. And people act as if I just lost some weight I would be so much healthier and happier.
I mean... I'd love that. But I kind of have to choose between taking my medications and become extremely sick.
I suppose I could end up skinny, but I'd also end up in the hospital and ruin my life.
Not quite worth it...
Yupppp fatigue and joint pain and other activity effecting things are definitely not a thing that will effect weight gain
100% agree! I was so skinny before I got super sick and needed steroids, was laid up for several months, and put on 90 pounds and now cannot lose it do to the inability to exercise.
@@May-or-May-not ditto!
No, no, never! 🤣
being disabled can really suck.
especially if it's an invisible disability.
people often assume I'm rude for not answering them when they speak.
truth is I'm deaf
Totally agree, I’ve got autism & not actually a disability it being left handed in a world designed for right handed people suuuucks, just the other day I was eating at a fancy restaurant & I rearranged my silverware to work with my hand & got my seat at the end so I didn’t bump into people and every course when the waiter brought me food he would also rearrange my whole setup to be right handed
I have an invisible disability too Elhers danlos syndrome it's a fucking pain but most of the time it's just a minor annoyance
@@claytonwilde5750 As a former server myself, I have to wonder if that was a personal thing or if his boss had given him crap before about not keeping everything "in the correct place" at each serving. I'm curious, did you say anything to him about it?
@@ErykaSoleil I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t think he was doing it on purpose and he was very nice, I was never upset at him so much as the fact that every little element of our society is geared towards right handedness
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I like Dr. Strange, too. While not a neurosurgeon, I am a musician with severe arthritis. A few years ago, I had to choose between playing the guitar or the piano. I've had 7 surgeries on my hands in order to be able to type, and continue with the piano. I'll never play the guitar again. So, his struggle is also one that I can identify with.
My mom saw that movie when her hands were injured
Advanced Cubital tunnel syndrome made my hands hurt/numb and arthritis/deformities/bone disease in my elbows made my arms fatigue and numb and stuck. Dr. Strange's powers made me jealous!
In a bodyswap comic with Cpt Marvel and Black Widow, it's also implied he has chronic pain from his injury.
Classic iron man comics focused heavily or primarily on his disability. His iron man suit was basically his pacemaker and if he spent too long not wearing his suit he would fall ill. So doing the tony stark stuff was physically tasking for him, while doing iron man stuff was easier. Common plotlines would be stuff like he spent too long pretending to be able bodied walking around without his suit on. Or he gets kidnapped while not wearing the suit. Or the suit gets damaged in some way. I actually prefer these storylines over the modern iterations of him where the arc reactor is his pacemaker. Felt more in line with my own experiences of forgetting to wear sunglasses and earplugs ruining the rest of my day and possibly the days after
i did not read the comics, and as a result i only have the image of Iron Man in the MCU (very many movies he is featured in). But i did kinda get the implication that when he spent too much time without wearing the actual full suit he got a decline in mental health and that he certainly had PSTD. To me he would always be a disabled superhero. Comics representing his life in a different way does actually sound really interesting, maybe one day i will have time and energy to read them and expand my vision on Iron Man.
Thank you so much for sharing, this sounds really great.
As someone who stutters, I appreciate the representation of Diego in Umbrella Academy. I like seeing the cool, tough guy with knives who also just happens to stutter. I like that his superpowers are completely unrelated to his stuttering and how even when it’s not completely obvious, you can tell from the way he talks that he’s always managing it
I remember reading a book where a bit after a character is introduced the main character realises they aren’t stuttering out of nervousness, they just have a stutter and that stands out to me for some reason. I don’t have a stutter, I just liked that small bit of characterisation for a bit player.
It seems like a lot of these boil down to "disability exists only to illustrate a theme," so the underlying idea is that you can't just depict disability, but need some additional, significant reason to justify its inclusion (so the story is _about_ disability or disability is there to teach a lesson, etc.)
Essentially we are cyphers or a moral example / counter-example for the abled viewer / reader. We are rarely considered as the audience.
69 Noice
As a person with epilepsy, Vanillopie from Wreck It Ralph is one of my favorites because she has seizures ("glitches") that severely hinder her from accomplishing her goal, but she presses on. And it turns out the glitches are because another character is suppressing her true nature, and she is eventually "cured", but for me that just played into my ADHD and how I was constantly treated as being too much and told I needed to dial it back.
As a dynamically disabled person, I always loved Daredevil on Netflix! I really liked that they showed how his disability affected him and the adaptations and help he needed, while also showing his strengths. I guess I just related it to myself as someone whose needs vary a lot and it felt cool to have a character who shares that.
I completely agree. I loved how they showed him relying on Foggy for descriptions or crossing streets, and casually using different assistive devices. I also loved that they showed him utilizing what he still had (his heightened other senses) to his advantage. He didn’t restrict himself because of his blindness, he went out and protected people because he could, and needed to because of elements of mental trauma. I’m disabled, and I’ve always been a defender of MCU/Netflix Daredevil.
Because I was in med school and needed to use a cane, my fellows began referring to me as Dr. House. I am marginally alright because in their mind they were using a positive representation of chronic pain and disability to build up their colleague. However I find Dr. House is problematic because he falls victim to the trope of the addict who abuses his pain medication. It’s complicated isn’t it.
Someone explained that it isn't actually complicated: every character has good and bad parts to their representation. And because there's not a lot of representation we have to hold on to problematic characters. When we get more representation we will be able to pick and identify with better ones
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 it’s a beggars can’t be choosers allegory, at least I wasn’t there for inspiration in their minds.
Though they did ask me for help in Differential and Diagnosis.
Also Dr. House is just generally a jerk, from what I've seen. And surely there are more interesting and fun things about you that could inspire a better nickname?
I think Dr. House is mostly problematic due to him being a selfish jerk whose coworkers enable him because, for better or worse, he really is a genius in his field. They frequently value his diagnosing skills above ethical issues and have lied and outright faked tests to cover for him and help him do what he does. Yes, they save lives in the process, but the only reason more people aren't horrified is because his diagnoses are correct the vast majority of the time. He even uses his own chronic pain to manipulate other characters on occasion into doing what he wants (to be fair, this is something that an already-manipulative person would do if they became disabled in real life).
His opioid addiction is an issue that many people of all walks of life struggle with (in the US for sure, not as familiar with how it is in the rest of the world). The show at least has the decency to depict how the drug addiction slowly starts to unravel his life, and how his high-demand job interferes with his attempts to kick it (it's been a bit since I watched it, but I do believe he has to take a full hiatus from work to successfully get off opioids).
I get it. I was given a cane, but haven't been using it. I have a lot of invisible disabilities and cannot work. I'm tired of people acting as if I can work just because I don't look sick.
I like Toph from avatar the last airbender a lot but that's because it's avatar.
Glimmer from She-ra in the early seasons can be read as disabled, having limited energy to do magic with unlike the other princesses, but it's just a metaphor and not an actual disability, and it goes away in later seasons (for reasons that make sense in-universe).
Edalyn from The Owl House has a disability metaphor that I think was done really well. It's a magic curse. There's an episode in which Eda's mother is trying to fix her curse against Eda's will. Eda is like 'no I've learned to live with it, these potions help me keep it at bay, I've accepted it and I don't want to fix it anymore'. Her mom takes away her potions and tries the nth sham cure, and it just makes everything worse. And then her mom learns to accept Eda the way she is and apologizes for her years of mistakes, trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed, rather than accepting her kid for who she is.
I liked that episode a lot.
I was hoping someone would mention Eda. She's kind of the opposite of the "super crip" trope, since the curse weakens her powers, and eventually causes her to lose them. I also really love that when she gets her powers back, it was only after she truly accepted the curse as part of her and stopped trying to fight it.
@@emmacarter6033 Except she got different powers than the ones she started out with
But if the Artie in Glee was played by an actual wheelchair user they couldn't do the dream sequence scene where he dances because all wheelchair users obviously wish they were non-disabled there's no way to dance or display musicality in a wheelchair /s 🙄
thanks for the sarcasm tag! hahah I was comming in pure rage for you!!! hahahahaahhhaha :D
He used to be able bodied, which is way different than being born disabled. I can't blame formerly healthy people for wanting to be free from pain again. As a disabled person from birth.
there’s a dance scene in glee when Artie fully yeets himself into the pool whilst in his wheelchair. it’s so bonkers that it’s hilarious 😅
I was thinking about this kind of trope in terms of casting non-disabled actors to play disabled characters. I can imagine the writer / director / producer arguing: "But if we cast a disabled actor, how will we do the scene where they remember being non-disabled / fantasise about being non-disabled / show the totally pointless scene of how they acquired their disability / gets magically cured?"
Rather than asking, "Hmmm... why are we so determined to erase this person's identity?"
@@RollingDutchmann It’s absolutely fine for real life people who acquired their disabilities to have pre-disabled dreams. The problem is that movies and tv use “pre-disabled life” as an excuse not to hire actors that have the actual disability… despite the same medium having an entire field of work dedicated to body-doubles and stunt doubles to perform shots even able-bodied actors can’t do.
I don't know if you've seen but Marvel have a new Spiderverse hero Sun-Spider aka Charlotte Weber who uses mobility aids ie wheelchair and crutches. She had EDS and Marvel asked a disabled writer Tee Franklin to write the comic that's coming out soon! I'm really hopeful for good representation because of that. Also the character was original created by a fan who has EDS and wanted to see rep of someone like themself in superheroes. And now her fan art of an alt world character for the Spiderverse in a real Marvel character!
I love sun-spider!
Yes! And they’ve even gotten the crutches right!
I had no idea! That's amazing!
That's so cool! EDS is one of my illnesses and I never would have thought EDS and Marvel would mingle. It is the best feeling when you read or watch something and you know that one or several people behind the media come from the community being portrayed, it just feels right. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the comic and stray from my manga and webcomics ridden way. Thanks for the tip!
Yes! My EDS teen group chat is super psyched about it, especially the mobility aid users!
Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist! He is an amputee in his arm and leg who doesn't quite accept his disability, however it is realistically portrayed as something he has to deal with-getting improved automail, sensitivity to extreme cold or heat, stunted growth from the weight of the metal, etc. I just think he's a wonderful character and I think he is written with great depth and respect.
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I love that while he does get partially cured, he isn’t completely fixed. He is still disabled but learns to accept it at the end, goes on to have a family, and lives a fulfilling life. (Can you tell I was smiling like an idiot when the credits started rolling? LOL.)
I live in the Netherlands on disability, and for more than 11 years I got a mandatory 6 monthly magazine from the government about happy disabled people making miraculous recoveries or somehow 'against all odds' found ways to do paid labour. Where every page implied: If there is a will, there is way!' As a highly motivated person, but having 'no way' this is deeply upsetting because it is suggesting disabled people just have a motivational problem. I couln't find a way to unsubscribe from it. Even when I moved 3 times, the magazine kept finding me. I called it the government propaganda magazine. Only for the last year or so, I haven't seen the magazine in the post. Hopefully, some people more able than me have put a stop to that toxic nonsense. Or maybe they just ran out of money to produce the magazine. I dunno. It still upsets me to this day that they even did that.
That is awful. It sounds like a group of people who know nothing about disabilities thought that would be inspiring to people.
I live in the US and am disabled. I have to significant assistance just to function around my own home, triple for any time I have to leave it. And at least a couple times a year I get emails from government disability services about how many hours I can work without losing my benefits, assistance I qualify for in terms of job searching and vocational rehab, etc. I feel bad enough about the level of assistance I need, and still struggle to accept my disability and the fact that I'll likely never be able to live fully independently again despite how relatively recent a development all of these issues are on my life, and those emails never fail to make me feel worse.
I can't even imagine what it must've been like to be constantly inundated with whole magazines filled with that crap. I'm very sorry you had to go through that.
@@cricket8875 I'm so sorry for your loss.. (worsening) disability is a loss after all. Losing autonomy is upsetting. We don't need the added whip of abled people judging us, but we don't get to choose. I hope you send those emails directly to the trash where they belong.
@@jennifers5560 Thank you.. I think they knew what they were doing. I think prejudice had a lot to do with it.
This is horrendous. I had no idea. In Western Europe, we often think of the Netherlands as some kind of progressive paradise. I'm keeping this story to add to the "there is no country on earth where disabled people are emancipated" arsenel. This is unimaginably cruel.
I would argue that Oracle was handled pretty well given that Barbara was already smart and capable, being the daughter of the police chief and apprentice to the world's greatest detective. Tbh I was super worried that after she became disabled she would be rendered Pity Fuel TM, but no.
She channeled her already existing talents through a different medium now that she couldn't do all the acrobatics (ha. bat.) the rest of the batfam is known for.
I found it nice, but maybe I've missed the mark??
Also, hi, old school DC fan here, haven't kept up with the comics since I was a kid.
That being said, they did WHAT to Barbara?!
I got no idea what they've done to Barbara in other media but recently DC launched a webtoon series called Wayne Family Adventures and Barbara is there with her wheelchair! And she's just as badass and smart and important to the team as everyone else, she just happens to be in wheels. If you're into webtoons I really recommend it, it's really cute and funny
I thought the same! While the circumstances/reasoning by Alan Moore et al for paralysing Barbara are really not great she was extremely cleaver etc. before and that wasn’t a result of her being paralysed. The way the og Birds of Prey took that very yikes story line for Barbara and turned it into something I know a lot of disabled people really appreciated as representation was really important at the time! And yeah The New 52 retconned the character so she was magically cured so Barbara could appear as Batgirl again :/ don’t get me started on how the birds of prey film didn’t even include Barbara as Oracle, imo she brings The Birds of Prey together so seemed ridiculous not to have her.
She has some sort of implant that lets her walk. There's a random issue where something happens to it and she can't walk again, but it gets fixed.
Honestly, I thought she was a better character as Oracle. I prefer Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, preferably the non-verbal version from when she had her own book.
I remember one time when i was in secondary school, we had an assembly where the teacher stood at the front of the hall and told us all about a past student who had physical disabilities and mobility issues and talked about how “even though she was off ill or at doctors appointments for about 50% of the year, she still tried really hard in school and was able to achieve A*s so you can too!” And young me, who hadn’t yet been diagnosed with ADHD and was struggling at school but no one had realised or believed me yet, felt Awful hearing that.
Also… this is the same school who heavily penalised students for having less than 90% attendance. Love the double standards.
It’s… interesting (for want of a better word) to see how many comics have dodgy disability rep. It’s unfortunately not surprising honestly. It’s very much the same sort of “everyone still needs to meet the same standards” attitude that I’ve heard countless times (and only recently even though to start questioning). I will say that I thought they did a better job with the disability rep in the Moon Knight tv show than they did in the comics. It’s still not perfect and they didnt make much of an effort to explain away the misconceptions that they showed but it was also not terrible? Tho the rep in the comics just bugs me.
A counselor at uni tried the one with me of "but OTHER people CAN (work, study, whatever) with (the same condition that I have)" with the implication that I am both lesser and worse than other people because I can't do those things. I refer to her as The Demon Counselor, and have cancelled all subsequent appointments because that attitude is not helpful. Apparently my inability to eat regularly is because I am stupid/lazy/not trying hard enough, instead of an interaction between ADHD, anaemia, multiple vitamin deficiencies and an existing very unhealthy relationship with food, because I can manage to feed my ferrets. Who would die if I didn't feed them, because I live alone, and who get fed at irregular times because I am not *that* organised. Seriously, the next person who tries to tell me that ADHD is a superpower will be given several pieces of my mind. Yes, there are things that I can do better than neurotypical people because of it, but there are many things that I do worse because of it, and I am tired of being judged for not developing a compensatory superpower.
oh, the ableism you had to endure. it is literally a weapon of bigotry that can have lasting impacts. im sorry you had to deal with all that :/
@@skiingowl feeding ourselves is harder than it should be. people thought i was exagerating when i meant that i literally could not remember to eat 3 times everyday, or when i say it is literally harder to pick a food to eat, cooking requires energy i normally dont have, even eating something that its just heating up takes me anergy. I did figure out i also have an eating disorder, before having any access to good info about ADHD and getting that diagnose as well
@@skiingowl ugh im sorry you’ve had to deal with that. I’ve had a uni tutor who was somewhat like that. I told her i was struggling to organise myself around deadlines so I could get all my work done on time, rather than cramming essays in the last 48hrs and she told me “have you tried keeping a planner to help with your organisation?” (I have. I showed her my planner. Her response was “thats good. You should try using that to stay on track”). Sometimes, uni mentors can be the most unhelpful people ever.
I’m sorry that you’ve had that experience with a uni counsellor coz its most definitely not true. You’re not stupid or lazy or not trying hard enough. Feeding dependent animals is easier because they rely on you to feed them so that gives an extra level of responsibility and makes it more memorable. Also, they tend to eat the same, or similar, things every time so you don’t have to try and decide on stuff. Feeding yourself, however? Way more difficult. Theres so many steps that most people dont even realise are steps. I rarely eat lunch coz I struggle to know what to make for myself so instead, I tend to prefer to eat snacks if im hungry until dinner time and then make dinner. And for dinner, sometimes I know what I want to make so I make it but sometimes I have no idea so I keep a bunch of quick meals in the freezer that I have when I have no idea what I want. Minimal prep and I’m fed.
I wish people understood more about ADHD in general coz I feel its so misunderstood.
I literally missed a full year of school (7th grade) due to shattering my right arm/dominant arm and needing emergency surgery. I was in a hard cast for a year (had to rebuild my arm so it was rough). My arm was numb, fingers couldn’t move... it was rough, yet I went out of my way to ask for make-up assignments, taught myself to use left hand, and worked hard to pass. I also have ADD (didn’t get diagnosed til just now at 32) and struggled to be great in school but hearing about others with disabilities doing well (the kids in special education that I was friends with in 6th grade did great in school and they had it harder than me) gave me confidence to fight to graduate. It shouldn't make you feel bad cause of what he said. You should root for people who struggle like you and use it as a strength. I've now had 11 surgeries on both arms and my knee and I've graduated college, etc. Use your struggles as strength.
Irt Deadpool, I also love that the reason his cancer got WORSE when he got his healing factor is because cancer isn't the kind of disease a healing factor would necessarily, well, "heal". It's generally caused by a genetic mutation that results in cells losing the capacity for programmed cell death (apoptosis), so they just keep growing and multiplying and invading surrounding body tissues. So because Wade's healing factor doesn't affect any DNA damage that doesn't lead to cell death, it actually makes his cancer better and more efficient at being cancer.
As a huge genetics nerd, I really love that level of detail -- and as a disabled person with a bunch of chronic illnesses, I find the cruel irony of something that's supposed to help actually making things worse super relatable 😅😅😅
In one comic (i forget which one), deadpool says "I have never-ending terminal cancer. Every day I pray for death as a sweet release to my eternal, bone-deep agony. So yeah, I'm good." Even though he can heal from wounds caused from the outside, he's still in intense pain every day but masks it under a sarcastic/funny exterior.
I’m mentally ill, and one of my deepest guilty pleasures are narratives with mentally ill villains, particularly if there is a redemption arc.
I have to play nice all of the time, and I’m deeply afraid of abandonment because I feel like I’m too much effort?
So, I REALLY love watching a mentally ill character doing massive damage to people who aren’t themself! And it’s even better if they can make all of these mistakes and still be allowed to grow and be forgiven and loved at the end of it.
I’ll also settle for disabled characters being given help without “earning” it first. Like, get Timmy medication to deal with his debilitating chronic pain even though he’s kind of an asshole because people shouldn’t have to be in pain all the time if it’s preventable. And, hey, maybe he ends up being somewhat less of an asshole because he functions better and has more patience when his nerves aren’t screaming in agony.
bro, have you read six of crows? The (kind of) main character is both physically disabled and suffers from a lot of trauma (and ptsd?). Basically his entire motivation is just taking his anger and trauma out on the people who wronged him in very morally dubious ways. It's a bit more sinister than you described but it's so satisfying, especially since he's surprisingly likable for how cruel he is.
@@killitwithfire5377 I have not, but I will add it to The List!
Love these stories too.
This is why I loved Ghost/Ava Starr in Ant Man and the Wasp 💜 I haven't read the comics but found it so cathartic.
The show Moon night is actually really good and his disability is demonstrated more as a hindrance to his super powers rather than upgrade, and it's not until he addresses his mental health that he becomes a "successful" superhero. It's really well done and I also love the Egyptian representation ☺️
Ikr! He's not a superhero because of his disability, he is a superhero that just happen to also be mentally ill. It's a great represention of how trauma and mental illness hindrance one's life even if they have a god by their side
His "disability" isn't even a real condition. DID is not a real disorder, it's a Hollywood disorder.
Representation for Dissociative Identity Disorder has actually come a long way, especially in comic book shows. DID was used for exotic serial killers, but in shows like the recent Moon Knight, Doom Patrol and Iron Fist it's actually respectful. They're heroes, there's a fantastical twist, but they still follow the rules of DID like trauma and triggers.
It's still complicated and it's still an example of turning a disability into powers, but it's improving based also on what people with DID said.
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@@HotDogTimeMachine385 Considering how TikTok is full of people pretending to have DID and have 50+ anime-like personalities I'd say it really needs good representation, because such people are gonna ruin it soon.
Geralt of Rivia in the books makes me so happy - he lives with chronic pain and its just a part of his life and the background of the story.
Reading the books I could really relate to this part of him.
I also look pretty much normal to other people, my partially green hair is certainly weird to some but you can't see my disability.
I just go through life and am in pain sometimes more and sometimes less.
It's just a part of who I am like me being left handed. Also something not everyone even notices.
Did I miss any examples of this trope? Add them here!
Note on Professor X, there are comic storylines, and a movie, where Professor X loses his powers and as a result regains the ability to walk, so it is his powers that renders him disabled...
A little known Marvel superhero with a disability is Silhouette. She's (was?) an Indonesian-American superhero who needed crutches to walk, but could teleport between shadows, and was highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. She was well ahead of her time, originally appearing in the 90's. I don't really know what's happened to her more recently; I don't think she's been featured for a while.
not in film, but there's a new spiderman being created who has EDS! she shoots webs out of her crutches
If love you to do IVAR from VIKINGS
ana sofia is a deaf character in the marvel squirrel girl books who I thought was fairly well represented (although i am not deaf so I can't fully judge that). She's not a superhero, but she does get a lot of storyline and I think the way they presented the language barrier for her seemed good. No one ever tries to cure her disability, and she signs or texts when she needs to communicate, but most of her character is not based around the fact that she is deaf and it is simply a part of her identity not the whole thing
Hiccup and Gobber from the "How To Train Your Dragon" franchise. They are missing body parts, it comes up sometimes, it's not a super power (though every now and again it works out) and every one moved on with their lives in the new normal. His friends also joke about it on occasion. As a young ish disabled person, the social pressure to be serious all the time is a downer. Also, Toothless as a disabled animal is great too. I have had disabled pets who have had long and happy lives.
Actually!! Even though I didn't really love the movie as a whole, Eternals (MCU) have a deaf-mute character whose skill is super-speed! She's played by a deaf actress and she uses sign language (and lip reading I guess? the other characters sometimes just talk to her and she understands) and the skill really has nothing to do with all that.
(I'm able-bodied so I'm just guessing she's good representation from what you've talked about.)
And they also have some POC and gay representation that is just casually there, so it doesn't seem as "representation to fill the quota".
A small note here, the movie is Eternals and not celestials, also the character is Minari... She's one of my favourite reps in media honestly
@@kojagoribhattacharya7720 Ooh, you're right lol, the beings are Celestials. Thanks, will edit!
Her name is Mikari and yes her portrayal is absolutely amazing, as is Phastos, a gay black man and his husband is also Muslim which I thought was an amazing representation as well. That movie is actually one of my favorite Marvel movies ever.
Thank you - this is the only positive example I could think of!!! A disabled super-hero whose powers are not a compensation for her impairment! Plus, casting a disabled actor to play a disabled character... radical!!!! #DisabilityPrideMonth
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Barbara Gordon is Batgirl not cat woman. And she was immensely intelligent and computer savvy before her disability. Love your videos but felt that was an under studied part of this one.
Thank you. I just made the same point in another comment.
Likewise with Matt Murdock’s power - in fact it does come from the toxic waste that caused him to go blind.
I’m just glad she didn’t try to “critique” X-men- it was literally my only source of sanity/pride growing up as kid with disabilities in a abusive environment.
@@jrojala There are a lot of different versions of most popular superheroes. As the "toxic waste gives superpowers" trope became more and more cliched, people moved away from it, and more recent incarnations of Daredevil don't really mention how he got his superpowers. MCU has both Daredevil and Stick just kind of having super-perception for no good reason. I took her comment on that as saying that the incarnations of Daredevil where his superpowers come from the toxic waste work, but the ones where he's just blind and awesome don't.
Thank you for mentioning this. It annoyed me a bit, because I loved that Babs has always been an intelligent, badass girl / woman.
It's probably due to DC making all of their lore super convoluted for no reason lolll
But yeah, Barbara was always super smart, her earliest stories have her outsmarting Batman many times. Too bad DC thinks that isn't good enough for her and puts her in the batgirl suit all the time when that could be going to another disabled character - Cass
You mention how the daredevil super senses is fine if it's the chemicals that gave him the super senses, rather than his blindness. And yea. That's cannon. It was the chemicals. And they do still do a good job (at least in some of the comics) of portraying how he still faces disability (not being able to read printed text is a big one) and how he faces ableism as an even larger obstacle at times. He also "takes advantage" of the ableism directed toward him to help conceal his secret identity with the whole "well shucks, there's no way I could be daredevil, I'm blind!" schtick.
Yeah I love Jessica and this channel, but I feel like she didn't watch or read enough of the comics, shows or movies to make sure that her opinion was accurate enough. Normally she does a fantastic job of it, but if you actually WATCH the entirety of the movies or shows, or READ all of the comics of that hero, you can see the ableism and issues they do face. Also some of these, like Captain Rhodes, is only able to do whatever he wants because the technology exists for him to be able to. If the technology existed in our world, then every paraplegic would be able to walk around with no effort too. I just feel like some of this video was reaching a bit idk...
I thought there was a really interesting episode in series 1 of the Daredevil TV series (haven't read the comics cos can't read comics). It was where Murdock's best friend discovers that he's Daredevil and totally freaks out. Tellingly, his first accusation is "Are you really blind?". One of the biggest tools of #disableism is assuming that we lie about being disabled or about the extent of our impairments.
I don't remeber if it was a comic or the show, but at some point he also says that using his powers can be draining and overwhelming. Meaning using his cane is something he needs (because he'd burn out using his powers to orient himself 24/7) and that he sometimes enjoys Foggy for example leading him when they walk together for similar reasons.
I also really enjoy how both of them always sue people/threaten to sue people for not abiding by the Americans with disabilities act pointing out all the little and less little ways things are inaccesible for blind or otherwise diabled people.
And finally just Matt & Foggy in general. I love how Foggy treats Matt Bc he's trying to be helpful (like offering to lead him or narrating movies to him) in a really non-infantilising way and never treats Matt like he's less bc of beeing blind long before knowing of his superpowers which I really enjoy. (Which is very basic but the world sucks so yeah to meeting the minimal decency requirements)
Also the creators said in an interview they were worried that Daredevil might be a bad representation bc blind people don't get sonar-superhearing without magic radioactive sludge (shocking I know), but received a lot of positive feedback. Bc you sometimes just want a superhero who's like you. While beeing completely aware that them having unrelated superpowers or futuristic tech means they can do things you can't.
@@YourQueerGreatAuntie I mean I get the issue, it has some parallels to "Oh you can walk, guess you're faking needing a wheelchair."
But at the same time it's also pretty different. Like the original comment states Matt uses the "I'm blind I can't be Daredevil" thing a lot. Which yes. A 100% blind person without super-powers could not do what Daredevil does. (Side note is it ableist to assume a seeing person without superpower could? Maybe, but it's also kind of ableist to not recognise that beeing blind is a pretty big handycap for doing the things Daredevil does that a seeing person would not have starting out at an advantage) And also Matt pretty much lied to Foggy for years about the impact of his disability. If the amount of perception he always told and showed Foggy he had was true he couldn't be Daredevil the way he is. So he lied to Foggy, who thought he knew Matt really well, making Foggy question everything about him. So for Foggy to react that way is pretty understandable because of the whole double life thing.
The only question is on the level of the writers, like did them using that question support that kind of behaviour in their viewers or did it do the opposite bc Matt is indeed still blind. Where they just showing how an abled person reacts do diabled people doing stuff they think they can't. Where they portraying an acceptable reaction for this very specific situation or where they portraying an ableist question showing how nonexistant or rare an acceptable context would be and for the latter portrayed how even in this context the answer is yes the person is disabled. Did they even think about it or just write what they thought bc of their own ableism meaning there's no critisism behind questioning people disabilities at all. Does that matter at all for how their viewers read it, does it have an impact on them. Would have writing that differently had a different impact. Does any of it matter.
And on that hell if I know.
@@freakyfridayfun In hindsight, it was pretty smart to make Matt a lawyer. Because that gives him a way to advocate for himself even without his powers.
I believe in the show Daredevil, Matt mentions that the chemicals are what gave him his enhanced senses (though I haven't read the comics so I don't know if that's in his original story). Another character, Stick, who I believe was born blind and was Matt's teacher for a while - yeah, he doesn't have a reason for his super senses and fighting ability beyond the fact that he was born blind and therefore his other senses had to compensate.
Professor X is my favorite!!
I love how his disability isn’t directly related to his powers, and how, even with his fancy power/flying chairs, it still does cause obstacles for him to navigate.
Also, the storyline where he does gain the ability to walk again at the “cost” of his powers does a really good job of subverting the trope because it turns out he takes the drugs to keep his powers away because of how emotionally painful they are, and it’s really not about being able to walk again!
There's a good scene in X-men Evolution where he's talking about something Really Important, and he just stops and looks really annoyed; the camera pans out and he's faced with stairs and no ramp in sight.
Yeah... the villain trope, I've talked to alot of starwars fans over the years about Darth Vader and most people don't even come close to thinking of him as disabled...needing a respirator or as an amputee, it's been an interesting time to see the Ahha! ohh people seem to circle through.
Yeah, no one talks about that, but as soon as she said “villain”, I immediately thought of Darth Vader.
I thought about the villain in the Will Smith movie "Wild Wild West".
People just don't notice disability until it's shown to them, They associate disability with... weakness, impairness, for the lack of a better word, so they can't see a superhero or villain as disabled.
On the topic of Star Wars and disability: when the good guy gets disabled it's just an arm and he wears a prosthetic hand that covers it so completely it might as well not exist. When the villain gets disabled he is disfigured and in pain and has to wear visible prosthesis. A disabled hero is fixed and it isn't brought up again, a villain is in constant pain.
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@HotDogTimeMachine385 Star Wars The Clone Wars is interesting for this cos it shows Anakin Skywalker (before he becomes Vader) having problems because of his prosthetics in interesting ways. One time being that on a mission an EMP device is used to break the droids they are fighting, but it also affects his arm (suggesting no one in universe considered what would happen if the EMP was used by someone with electronic prosthetics) and one time strong magnet is used (I can’t remember why, maybe to confiscate weapons?) and cos Anakin’s arm is metal he gets dragged into the air by the magnet too. So there are examples of Anakin’s disability in this show, but i think only 2 of them.
The Bad Batch, the spin off if The Clone Wars, also shows examples of good guys with disabilities, but that is a whole other rant cos I am very conflicted on how that show handles the topic
Ooh my absolute favorite right now is sun-spider! She’s a spiderperson with EDS and an ambulatory wheelchair user. Her crutches are her webshooters and she’s overall a badass in my opinion. She uses her hyper mobility to her advantage but uses mobility aids to avoid extreme bendiness.
My EDS teen group chat is super excited about it!
I don't remember if I already commented this on the Autism in Media video but I loved that video!
Hi Autie sibling
Autie sibling means that we are on the Autism Spectrum. I have Asperger's Syndrome.
@@elizabethlynch6544 autie sibling 🥺
Not super heroes, but one thing I actually really enjoy is fantasy with disability - and specifically seeing how people would adapt.
Like a mage, who just so happens to be blind, who uses their wind magic to see shapes in their world to navigate, but that doesn't mean that they can suddenly read the books without braille.
In a world where there is magic, there absolutely -should- be disabled people... With magic. And it should show how that would affect them.
The webcomic Spinnerette has probably my favorite example of a Disability Superhero.
Mecha Maid has a super suit that doubles as a mobility aid for her ALS (the first time I ever heard of this disease btw, years before the ice bucket challenge)
Even though her suit "cancels out" her disability, when she ISN'T in her suit her disability is extremely daunting and she struggles with her relationship with her suit as she becomes more and more reliant on it for basic bodily functions. She compares it to living in a tricked out iron lung, rather than a magic device fixing all her problems.
On the one hand she gets to be the "supercripple", but she also has to process through a lot of resentment about needing her mobility aide, something many disabled people can relate to.
Also she gets to have a girlfriend🥰
And yeah she's a "genius" but in the "I went to college for years to get this PHD" way, not in a superhuman way
Avatar: The Legend of Korra season 3 and 4 come to mind in terms of representing the physical and emotional struggles that come with becoming physically disabled in a VERY sudden and traumatic way. It shows the stages of rehabilitation through physical therapy (very briefly), coming to terms with the trauma, ACTUALLY LIVING with that trauma and the long term consequences. Despite the character only becoming physically disabled temporarily, PTSD still affects the plot in a big way.
While the tropes about blind people are genuinely terrible, it is important to note that they are always about totally blind people, yet a larger percentage of the blind actually have some vision. I'm trying to remember the last time I encountered a character who was visually impaired but not totally blind. Let's see, there were a handful of villains with thick glasses (this trope went into decline when the technology for contact lenses improved). Then there was Mr. Magoo (pardon me a moment while I gag ... ugh ... okay, I'm back). And, um, that's about all I can think of.
The closest I can think of is Velma from Scooby-doo
@@andreacook7431 if I remember correctly, she only had a problem when she wasn't wearing her glasses. I was thinking about characters who were visually impaired even with a correction.
the only example I can think of is Godot from the Ace Attorney games.
There was this BBC mini series “Second Sight“ with Clive Owen as the lead. He plays a police officer who becomes visually impaired because of some genetic condition. He keeps on working and solving crimes while trying to hide that he can't see so well anymore and continuing to let his colleagues believe he has a drinking problem instead because he thinks it's less likely to get fired this way. The showrunner based the character's journey with legal blindness on her father. I felt the representation was alright when I first watched it 13 years ago.
But yeah! That show is from 2001. So it's been a while.
I think Blindspot is low vision, but not fully blind. And yes, that is his superhero name.
One thing that's kind of overlooked about Daredevil is that his "heightened senses" have the potential to be extremely disabling as well. His Kryptonite is sensory overload and he has to work very hard not to be overwhelmed and disoriented. So that complicates his superpowers merely making up for his blindness. But it really depends on the portrayal or the writer.
I'd love to see a mainstream movie about disabled people where they're just, like, people. But also the main character. And not one of these tropes. If I was really going for it, I'd want to see someone with a chronic non-life-threatening illness. Pipe dream!
Exactly bc we always seem to straddle this Purgatory-like middle ground between the "normal" vs. "crippled" checkbox that ppl just seem to have to throw us into to compute or "excuse" our basic existence.
I'm not a fan of the "disability as superpower" trope but LOVE the "superpower as disability" trope, which I've seen happen most often with enhanced senses. Spider-Man, Superman, and Daredevil (among others, I'm sure) all have stories/arcs that explore how their powers can be disabling in situations where they're bombarded with stimuli. I adore these types of narratives because they don't frame disability as something to pity, but instead present disabled characters for everyone (including and perhaps especially abled people) to ASPIRE to.
When you mentioned Dr.midnight (I hadn't heard of the character), it hit close to home for me. i have been struggling with extreme photophobia that's only gotten worse and more apparent with age. I've always had different vision and a huge part is ridiculously good low light/night vision while being near blind and very debilitated in brightly lit environments or with any lights directed towards me.
I come from a family of artists and grew up knowing i saw and looked at things differently but often the greatest artists had described similar experiences.
My vision does hinder me a lot in life, but i hold on to these moments when my sight feels like a superpower or special ability and something truly special i can share through art.
I know how visual impairment has cost me a lot, but photosensitivity how mine presents is nearly never reflected in a character so even if unrealistic, i felt seen.
Wow the MC Universe one makes me think of my dad. Hes constantly wearing sunglasses because the light hurts his eyes and has THE BEST night vision.
Barbara is Batgirl, not Catwoman. And her arcs have been all over the place. But she doesn't 'get powers' when she becomes Oracle. It was just her new moniker. She becomes disabled and remains involved in the world and causes she wants to be active in. That ended up being surveillance and tech as support for her allies and friends.
The Killing Joke is a journey though. Easily skippable and I would love a better redo that wasn't so focused on her as a piece of property/not being so dang gross overall. But if you know anything about Alan Moore, then you understand.
That's not to say maybe her disability isn't handled amazing as I haven't read everything about it ever created. Because, as this video shows, people really miss the mark a lot of the time. And making her abled again. Sigh. Why.
Edit: just adding to the not erasing part. Her arcs really don't erase her disability. She is as much a part of the team as the rest of the Batfam and the League. In fact she is probably valuable across the board in that her intel and guidance touch so many of them, before, during, and after missions and all that. I understand that having it be more integral to her characterization would be important. Now I think I gotta read more of her stuff and revisit some oldies to get a better sense.
She already had a degree in library science, and is/was still doing information management as Oracle.
@@23rdFoot ahh that's right!! Thanks for adding that :)
It's impossible to keep up with all the comic book characters and their histories, but I was wincing a little at that part. Barbara was *always* smart (in various continuities she's been a librarian and a sharp, young congresswoman). Intelligence was not an added "superpower" after her disability. (She just decided to focus her intellect on computing.) I actually found Barbara Gordon's portrayal as Oracle really refreshing. (Especially after the trashfire of her treatment in TKJ.) There are some good scenes related to her disability in the Birds of Prey series, but what resonated with me down in my bones was the story "Oracle: Year One" in Batman Chronicles #5. It felt like it came from a place of knowledge. When I learned that Kim Yale was extremely sick from breast cancer while writing that, I thought, "Yeah, you understood."
@@bethanybrengan9795 I'll have to check those out! And yes, I sometimes consider that take on Barbara resulting from people maybe only reading a comic or two that don't handle it well and getting turned off. Which is fair, the amount of options is so dense and hard to sift through. But there are some really good versions out there.
@@aurifulgore So true! I often find myself recommending comic book series to people like "It's great! Except for all the parts where it's utterly terrible!"
Wanted to leave a random message to thank you, your dysautonomia awareness video led to me chasing a pots diagnosis and I finally have it! My life has changed for the better and I might of still been lost for years if I hadn't seen all my symptoms summed up so well! So thank you, you literally changed my life!
as a neurodivergent person i have always loved the way percy jackson's disabilities are represented because while they mention that his adhd and dyslexia cause his brain to work differently which definitely helps him in different ways, but it also mentions the way his disabilities negatively impact him at times. i've always felt very represented in that series
I got my hEDS and POTS dx this spring and among other youtubers, I credit your to my education about myself and motivation to pursue it. If anyone is on the East Coast or near Maryland, had the money, and is able to handle the wait, check out Dr. Zingman, she has the conditions herself which was incredible. Though some cancellations were made as a result of that. Thanks so much Jessica!!! Plus being queer and seeing your family is amazing too.
She’s one of the reasons I found out I had POTS too! Jessica is fantastic. I hope you have extra spoons today 💖
i'm from nj and i'm actively looking for a new doctor who specializes in conditions like hEDS so thank you so much for the comment!!!
@@jk-jl2lo I’m also from NJ! I go to college in De so that’s why I chose Maryland but it’s probably no more than 3 or 4 hours from North NJ since it is 2 hours to get to my school from where I am in NJ and from my school another hour or so to her clinic in Silver Spring Maryland! It’s a super long wait and not covered by insurance though sadly but I saved up and am glad I was able to.
This is wonderful seeing you giving others a doctor who is well versed and also experiences the conditions herself to try and go to. That’s maybe an hour or two from where I live and I have had to drive quite a ways to find doctors that specialized in rare conditions I have been diagnosed with. As much as waiting May but be fun with the waiting we have done for so long to find a doctor to actually listen, I may be alone on saying I’d happily take the wait to get in to Dr.Zingman over another doctor who just won’t listen or wants to stick to certain symptoms over some of the others that may manifest instead. *hugs* to you sugar!
th-cam.com/video/vDdj4s-p4Yc/w-d-xo.html
I had always been under the impression that Daredevil’s super senses did come from the chemicals (that also made him blind) because he’s able to hear really well very soon after and there are other blind characters in the show who do seem to not have them (Stick being the exception but he was also in a secret organization so we don’t know how he got his powers and he’s not as good as Matt)
Yes, this is correct. Daredevil has been around for 60 years and that has always been the canon.
@@bengtstrand4476 Daredevil was trained by Stick, so he got to learn it and later become an expert at using his powers.
Makkari from the Eternals!! She doesn't get a ton of screen time (honestly the cast was too big so that can be said of all of them, hoping she's a bigger main in the sequel) but she's played by an ACTUAL deaf woman (Lauren Ridloff). She signs in the movie and the others just sign and speak to her where she can read lips, AND she has a romantic plotline!! That, within its collective four minutes of screentime, is somehow one of the best relationships Marvel has ever done. Her superpower is being the fastest woman in the universe so it's got nothing to do with her hearing, she's gorgeous and she has a fantastic personality- very mischievous, independent and and caring. Also she's like 5'2 and will wreck your shit. I love it and I'm praying they make her a much bigger part of the sequel and don't do anything stupid with her character.
“Can you see better because you are deaf?”
-Yes, can you see me staring through your soulless body?
I'm stealing this one. I usually respond with "no my sight isn't heightened but I have a nose like a bloodhound, and you need to learn to wipe your arse properly"
@@petrolhead0387 I think your response is hilarious!
Hi! I was wondering if you’d ever make anymore ‘tropes in the media ‘ videos after this about adhd ! I find the representation of my neurodivergency a troublesome thing that is sorely lacking !!! Your videos about chronic fatigue have been really helping me recently !
Thankyou!
In my experience DID would more make processing slower rather than faster, 'cause if you want each other's perspectives you gotta talk to each other
Harlan from Umbrella Academy was a great one for me. Especially coz I feel like autistic people actually can be extra sensitive in the way that it's shown in season two.
And sometimes I loved in season 3 was that when Viktor meets Harlan again and realizes he talks now he starts saying something along the lines of "that's amazing" , but stops himself, which I think was a really great way of showing that it isn't inherently better to be a speaking person
I’ve never been this early! Love you and claud!! Not sure what you will cover but toph from avatar the last airbender is great use of this trope where her blindness gives her extra skills but still showing her struggling with her blindness realistically, unlike most superheroes with disabilities
i really liked toph's portrayal because i feel it more so shows her as adapting to her disability, and it also shows her as both having specific struggles with her blindness (like not being able to read, not knowing what she looks like to other people) while also having work arounds to be as self-sufficient as she can be, which is honestly way more than i was at her age.
@@jk-jl2lo exactly, I especially liked how often she was holding onto sokka because it was in the air or water and she truly couldn’t see and no one ever mentioned it, making it so casual that I didn’t notice it until rewatching the show a few times
That's a good one, imo, admittedly from the perspective of someone who isn't blind. Especially since it's not "she's blind so her earthbending is better to compensate", it's that her earthbending is different/better because she learnt from the (magical) source instead of learning from knowledge filtered down through generations of humans, and then it was up to her to work _hard_ to learn how to use that to navigate the world
I also always really appreciated how it showed just how wrong her parents were to treat her the way they did as though she was incapable of doing anything - like, even if their daughter _wasn't_ hyper-competent and was instead just a normal kid, they'd still be wrong and cruel to treat her the way that they do
I think Toph is a well done disabled character cause her disability still feels realistic. Her strength as an earthbender is great but it’s still different for her than the sighted characters and not a complete “new better sense” thing.
@@Nightman221k It is used as a "better sense" tho, she can "hear" peoples hearts and uses that to determine if they are lying.
one of the only times ive seen "gaining a new ability from disability" done well was in the show bones- a main character, dr hodgins, becomes paralyzed from the waist down after an explosion and uses a wheelchair . he went through a long phase of hating his disability because he couldn't go out in the field as much, and his job was his life (he's a forensic scientist, specifically an entomologist !!! the "dirty work" is his fav part of the job) . however, theres a scene where he is retrieving evidence from an elevator shaft and his harness breaks- anyone else would have fallen and died, but he is able to hold himself up and hang on because of his increased arm strength (from pushing his chair and intense physiotherapy), and it helps him accept that his disability is not just a miserable part of his life and he actually learns to love his disability and his chair 😊😊😊
I loved that scene. And that they allowed him to do what he was able to do in the first place instead of just "nope, too disabled."
Have never seen any of those movies. In US simply become disabled, forced into poverty,ignored, die quietly.... you know , the American way
This was really well done. I could never put words to it before but so many people glorify care givers as if they are some magical being that protects and deeply cares for disabled people with unending love and respect but nothing could be further from the truth in many cases. As it was not for me resulting in abuse. Care givers are in positions where they are given access to things that can easily be taken advantage of. As able bodied people they can hold and are often permitted to taking power and control over those with disabilities. When in reality they are often involved in things that infringe on the dignity and privacy of those they care for. In some cases/situations it's needed for a caregiver to assist with dressing tioletting and bathing BUT that does not equal wanted or being comfortable with those things as a disabled person especially in the case where money is exchanged where those things are seen as a service being provided. It's quite a challenge in the aftermath of abuse when the ways you needed help were used as opportunity but after it's happened you still require the things.
Sending the love
@@YourQueerGreatAuntie inappropriate
Wolverine also has regenerative abilities but is also in constant pain because of his metal skeleton at the very least
My favourite trope is when someone gets blinded by a slashing attack, they wear a cloth over their eyes, and by the end of the second act can see using spirit stuff. See daredevil, Kenshi, that guy from the the force unleashed, neo, and so on
Jessica Jones is great, because she had powers before she got the disability (PTSD), so it doesn't affect her abilities. Also Dustin from Stranger Things, it is incorporated to the character, but doesn't give him any superpowers. It does him the advantage of climbing through narrow spaces though, as he doesn't have collar bones and can squeeze his arms closer to his body. Also Becky from Glee, it shows that people with disabilities are just people, so they can be nice or they can be mean, and nit every disabled person is all sun and smiles.
Moon Knight surprised me with some of the accurate depictions of things I've gone through with a dissociative disorder (for me it's Schizoaffective disorder depressive type)
As a disabled person, I’ve always really enjoyed stories about disabled superheroes bc I love seeing disabled characters as the heroes. But I will agree that some disabled heroes aren’t portrayed the best and it’s on a case by case basis. My favorite superhero of all time is Daredevil though. I love him, personally.
As someone who rarely has the strength to do something regularly enough to be called a series myself, I think you should indeed be allowed to call this a series. This was a great video by the way!
To this day I think Toph from Avatar and Edward from FMA are some of the best disabled rep we've ever gotten😭
Telling comic book fans to argue with you, whether you realize it or not, is the bravest thing you've ever done. Forget the parenting thing. It's that.
Love this video. The trope I always dislike is the one where disability leads to a choice of " do I choose to be a hero or villain" but then when the character chooses to be a villain they get more disabled...like one disability leads to another. Or the whole...the hero is a hero because they did something cool "despite" having the disability. These just get old.
I’ve argued with insurance about NSAIDS I had to take because I was allergic to all the other ones. ::sigh:: Why don’t you have that on file? Didn’t we have this conversation last time?
I mean, the worst part of the Barbara Gorden storyline is that in a creative meeting when Alan Moore asked if DC would have a problem with him crippling her he was told to “cripple the bitch.” Not that Alan Moore doesn’t have enough other bs to answer for.
Oh my gosh I’m dying. My eyes did a double take when I looked at her profile picture. For a good 15 seconds I didn’t realize that she was holding a camera and I thought it was a handgun for some reason.
Oh man, now I will think of your comment every time I see that picture of Jessica with her camera. 😬
I didn't even realize she was holding a camera until I read this comment and I've been following her for at least a year now. lol!
Tbf Dr Strange wouldn't be as much of a superhero movie if after his injury he went home, got a caretaker and came to terms with his disability.
I have recently watched a k-drama called It's Okay to Not Be Okay, and I would really like to see what you think about their portrayal of mental illness and disability. It's a bit long, but I liked that they didn't shy away from showing the messy parts of both having a mental illness and taking care of others.
*"Absolutely not today, nor ever, get the hell out of here"*
That album *~ Cripples at Christmas~* omg lol
This energy is ✨immaculate✨ loving it!! 🙌🏻😘
there's a famous quote that "Daredevil's superpower is that he's not *quite* blind"
Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great version of the "blind badass" trope because the way she compensates for it makes sense in the magic system of the setting instead of her senses just being enhanced, and her blindness still affects her in many instances
I know this was probably a brain flub, but Barbara Gordan was Batgirl before becoming Oracle.
My favourite thing is when a character's disability helps them solve a problem, but but in a realistic way. Like they see things differently or notice something the others don't because of their experience. Even something as simple as it being useful that they know sign language or braille.
I've had that happen in real life a couple of times. I can't see super well, even with bifocals (which I've had since my early 20s) so my computer settings are really big. I also work in tech support.
A few times people have called in with weird issues with programmes that I support, and I can just tell them it's because they have their screens in the size they do, and there's nothing actually malfunctioning. (As my co-workers with normal eyesight want to know how I figured it out so fast 🙄)
i absolutely love the scene in strange new worlds in the second episode when uhura offers to help hemmer because if he were human he would be impaired but then spock steps up and explains that SO WELL like the only ONLY reason he ISNT is because he’s an alien. which like bless.
I love Makkari played by Lauren Ridloff in "Eternals"! They don't bring up her deafness at all, her teammates just all understand sign language and her love interest in particular signs with her frequently.
How about general Amaya in the dragon prince? I dont know much but I think is quite good :D
Oh yeah I loved her!
@@ryn2844 definitely my fav character
Flash Thompson is one you missed, he was Peter Parker's bully in the movies, but in the comics he also has storylines that involve him reforming, joining the military, going to war, losing his legs, developing PTSD, and getting the Venom symbiote to become Agent Venom and later becomes Agent Anti-Venom. He gets cybernetic legs because he can't be in the Venom form 24/7. He also takes drugs to suppress the symbiote and maintain control. There's a lot more to the character than what I just typed, but this comment is probably long enough!
The chemicals that gave Daredevil his powers were the same that created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the comics there was no doubt that his abilities were a result of the chemicals, but even then he had to train hard with Stick in order to learn how to fight. I don't know how Stick got those skills, however.
YES!!!! In one of her recent polls about what she wanted to know about what we wanted to see from her, I mentioned more analysis of disability tropes in media (including LGBTQI depictions). I don't know if she read my comment or not but I feel like I've been heard!
Hermann Gottlieb in Pacific Rim comes to mind! He's not a superhero, but he IS a heroic character (even more so in the sequel) and a cane-user, and as far as I remember they treat his disability pretty damn well, characterization-wise. It's entirely separate from his role in the plot and his capabilities as a scientist and mathematician. They never even address why he uses the cane, rather than making it an issue, or using it as a ~tragic backstory~
Love this. Appreciate the use of your platform to educate and advocate. Done very well imho. 🌻
The other day I had this idea for a magical girl OC who uses a wheelchair that transforms into a mini tank in her magical girl form, which would also be her weapon. She'd be quite a powerful attacker what with using a tank and all but she'd still have some issues with stairs or narrow passageways and the like.
Jessicaaa, I love this series so much; analyzing tropes is always a great time! 😄
I was pleasantly surprised by the Moon Knight TV series - all the way through I thought that Marc's DID would be because of his superpowers + connection to Khonshu, or that he was only able to have the superpowers because he had DID in the first place, but the narrative showed that he just happened to be a person who had both powers and the mental illness to deal with which felt pretty refreshing compared to the blind-person-with-magically-enhanced-hearing flavour of tropes
I would love to hear your thoughts on Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist, especially regarding his portrayal in the manga where his chronic pain and disabilities are more wholy shown
As someone with BPD, I really enjoyed watching how Wanda's struggle to control the intensity of her emotions affects her powers. I haven't watched Multiverse of Madness yet, but I think they portrayed this really well in Wandavision. Also, the fact that she wants to do good, but often feels like she inadvertently becomes a villain is very accurate to how it feels to have BPD.
I also really like Raven's portrayal in the original Teen Titan's cartoon for that reason. Both of my parents also have personality disorders, so I really relate to Raven's struggle with whether or not she can ever use her powers for good since they came from an evil place. She's constantly afraid of becoming her father, and that's super accurate for me, too.
I also relate to Harley Quinn's lack of impulse control, not realizing that she's self-sabotaging until she's already messed herself up and struggling to stay out of a codependent relationship with someone who she loves being with but who is extremely toxic.
Finally, I think Mariko Tamaki's run on the She-Hulk comic was a good representation of how isolating mental illness can be and how sometimes it's easier to lose yourself in media and connect with characters and online personalities who you can never truly have a relationship with then it is to reach out to the actual people in your life who care but can never truly understand what you're going through.
It's not a superhero movie, but Silver Linings Playbook is garbage, and I hate that movie with an undying passion.
I love your videos it's amazing to see another disabled lesbian ❤️❤️, tho my disability is invisible I always feel seen when watching your videos ☺️.
You are correct that Matt Murdock got his powers by the same chemical that blinded him. As bad as the Daredevil movie was, they got the 'waking up to too much everything' scene right
As a disabled woman myself, I have all kinds of complicated feelings about Barbara Gordon and the treatment of the circumstances surrounding her disability. On the one hand, you can make a very solid argument that because she doesn't have superpowers, her disability makes her a great example of superhero status having nothing to do with how able-bodied she is. And to address the point about her being a disabled genius, as someone who has been disabled for most of my life, I spent a lot of time overcompensating for the fact that I couldn't be physically active by learning as much as I could and being an overachiever academically, so I definitely find her post-Batgirl career relatable. On the other hand, she famously became disabled in an incredibly sexist manner and, as certain critics have pointed out many times over the years, Batman's spine was broken once, but unlike Barbara, he was restored to being completely able-bodied much faster than she was. And I would definitely agree that it was massively stupid and thoughtless on DC's part to restore the use of her legs without some kind of explanation, especially when her being shot by The Joker is still considered a certain part of her character history.
Your point on "you're too young to need..." really struck a chord with me. I have had to go to certain specialist doctors for, albeit minor, health issues, and I can't stand it when some well-meaning nurse tells me that I'm too young to need to be at this specialist. I'm not happy to be there either and it makes the situation so much worse for me mentally. I really appreciate the content that you share on this channel.
You mentioning Professor X makes me think of all the times Marvel has made him walk in the comics. And I don't just mean in the mental realm or in flashbacks. Marvel is constantly trying to get him out of the chair, and it's really a question of why the heck they'd want to do that. He's their most prominent character with a disability whose power doesn't make said disability irrelevant. Heck, I could just say he's their most prominent character with a disability, full stop (or was, until the MCU and Iron Man technically having one--and I know Captain America has had a range of disabilities in different versions of canon before the serum, but since the serum gets rid of them completely, that absolutely doesn't count). The most prominent time of him being able to walk again is recently, with him taking on the new code name X, and I hate that idea because why do you need Charles to walk so badly, Marvel?