Tommy and Disability Narratives - My Fave is more than Problematic

As I blogged about yesterday, I can't listen to Tommy (the Rock Opera by The Who) any more. Introducing kids to music I loved as a teenager is a key nostalgic benefit of parenting, and unusually, they liked it a lot, my kids jamming out to Pinball Wizard. And then ... the lyrics filtered into my consciousness and I realized that the album was done for me.

On the other hand, it's fascinating to have such a problematic take on disability occupy such a central position in the history of rock, film, and theater. Here's a good article by Mohamed Khamis on the content and the debate about the issue at the time:

Townshend makes clear his reasons for choosing an autistic boy as the hero of his rock opera, but his justification may actually perpetuate the disablist tenor that underlies Tommy. In the CD liner notes to the 1996 digitally remastered version, Townshend explains, "…the hero had to be deaf, dumb and blind so that seen from our already limited point of view, his limitations would be symbolic of our own." Townshend uses Tommy's disability as a metaphor for our own spiritual impotence. Tommy's subsequent recuperation, then, provides proof that we can transcend our limited corporeal mentality and experience an infinite metaphysical reality. But by doing this, Townshend essentially pigeonholes those with disabilities as incompetent, as having limitations that are universally recognized. If so-called "able" people are supposed to relate with Tommy to recognize their own spiritual faults, with whom should the disabled listener relate? Townshend's argument is flawed because it classifies the disabled as those with whom "ordinary" people should relate their faults.

The author continues:

While I have already posited that Townshend is guilty of employing an array of disability stereotypes to support his narrative, I think that some of these warrant special attention. In his book Everybody Belongs, Arthur Shapiro (1999) contends that some people prejudicially believe that blind people can develop a sixth sense; Tommy clearly works to perpetuate this stereotype. In "Pinball Wizard," undoubtedly the most popular and best-known song on the album, Townshend writes that Tommy "plays by intuition" because he lacks the ability to see or hear. Such lyrics lead the listeners to believe that Tommy has a special ability, perhaps a supernatural ability, that other human's lack; these lyrics also help form misconceptions about blind people. Similarly, Rose and Kiger (1995) state some common stereotypes about deaf people, among which are immaturity and inability to reason. The description of Tommy in the song "Christmas" leads me to believe that Townshend also subscribes to these stereotypes. Townshend sings, "Playing proxy pinball/[Tommy] picks his nose and smiles and/pokes his tongue at everything." These lyrics portray Tommy as infantile, not as someone who is deaf and blind. In the rock opera, Townshend also relies on the assumption that disabled people are miserable, that they want nothing more than to be cured and become "normal." This attitude is evident in "There's a Doctor," in which Tommy's father cries, "There's a man I've found/Could bring us all joy!/There's a doctor I've found/Could cure the boy!…There's a man I've found/Could remove his sorrow." Some do not realize that not everyone with disability strives to become "normal," and not everyone with a disability is in the constant state of depression these lyrics suggest. 

The whole article is, I think, thoughtful and well written.

Disability and Pop Culture: Alice Wong on Finding Dory

Last week I wrote about Finding Dory and hoping it was good. Although complex and not without its issues (more on that in a second), Alice Wong (founder of the Disability Visibility Project) has mostly very positive things to say.

People with disabilities do not see themselves very often reflected in popular culture with authenticity steeped in the lived experience. Not only are many disabled characters played bynon-disabled people; the storytellers are usually non-disabled who craft narratives about disability by using stereotypes and cliched tropes, robbing disabled characters and stories of agency and diversity.

Finding Dory has multiple characters with disabilities that live in the community (the ocean) and in institutions (the aquarium, the quarantine section of the aquarium). The characters are part of ecosystems (the coral reef) integrated with non-disabled aquatic creatures. Best yet, Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, is a disabled character that is front-and-center. She is the hero on a journey.

 Also read - Elizabeth Picciuto on Finding Dory.

I've been thinking about pop culture and disability a lot this weekend. I tried to play "Tommy," by The Who, for the kids while they were having breakfast, only to discover that I just can't listen to it anymore. I suspect there's room for sophisticated analysis of the use of disability by Townshend and lots of discussion (I'll blog about this soon), what I mostly found was that I just couldn't listen to it. I can't watch Veep because of the constant use of ableist slurs in casual banter among the staff. I stopped watching South Park at some point. I made the mistake of looking up how often Buffy uses the r-word. Here's one.

Jack: (not amused) What are you, r----ded?

 Xander: No! No, I had to take that test when I was seven. A little slow in some stuff, mostly math and spatial relations, but certainly not challenged or anything. (points down) Can I get you another soda?

I rarely make relatively few claims about whether you should or should not see something (though showing content to kids that perpetuates stereotypes of any sort is dangerous. Your kids should not watch South Park and I once lost a friend over that argument). Just that these words strike me, almost physically, and make it impossible for me to process the broader cultural product (see this on This American Life for an example of how such language triggers). This is especially true when I hear the words, rather than reading it in text. All of this is to stay that I can no longer listen to Pinball Wizard (or anything else really in that album).

Culture matters. Language and image matter. Having a kid's movie portray a sophisticated approach to disability culture has a kind of power that transcends almost any other kind of outreach.

Still haven't seen it!