Frida Kahlo

I was flipping through a copy of a recent TIME Magazine when I came across a brief article about the art of Frida Kahlo being used as inspiration for a fashion line. The pictures they showed of the fashion line itself were rather uninspiring, but the short write-up on the painter caused me to do a little more research on the Mexican painter herself.

I was struck first with her giftedness as a child but second with the tragedy and pain that befell her in her childhood. That pain seems to have dominated her life--or at least her art. Having survived polio as a child, she was in a terrible bus accident at age 18 which permanently damaged her right leg, spinal column, and uterus, among other injuries. These injuries brought her recurring pain throughout her life and led to three failed pregnancies.

She started painting while she was in a full body cast recuperating from the accident, and she painted the subject with which she was the most familiar: herself. In looking at her accumulated works I see a great deal of majesty and pain, often intermingled. Looking at her art creates conflicted emotion for me about her disabilities: I simultaneously feel a measure of pity at the pain represented in the images and an understanding that the images likely would not have the gravity they do without the pain her disabilities caused. So much of art stems from the artist's physical or emotional pain, and it is a continual wonder that such beauty and inspiration--sometimes even in tragic images--can be the lasting expression of the pain of disability.

Downton Abbey: Sir Anthony Strallan

I've only recently been watching the BBC produced show Downton Abbey, which takes place in Britain immediately after the first World War. I was struck by the show's treatment of one character in particular, Sir Anthony Strallan. A middle-aged widower, Strallan sustained an injury during the war that left him without the use of his right arm. Before the war, he was seen as an eligible bachelor and one of the matronly characters was actively trying to set him up with her granddaughters. After the war, when he returned with a (presumably) paralyzed arm, the family's attitude toward Sir Strallan has changed dramatically. Not realizing that he is now disabled, the grandmother is embarrassed that she invited him to tea with the granddaughter that had previously been in a relationship with Strallan. Throughout the course of the next few episodes, Strallan becomes engaged to marry one of the granddaughters and the rest of her family adjusts to the relationship with various degrees of acceptance. The story culminates in Strallan abandoning his bride-to-be at the altar, overwhelmed with feelings of guilt that he is causing her to waste her life caring for an old man.

It seems outlandish that the family's attitude toward the man would have changed so dramatically as a direct result of his injury. It is made clear that Strallan is a qualified Lord and therefore socially would make an acceptable husband in the dual-class imperialist system. In the story, Strallan was even involved in high-level diplomatic negotiations before the war, though this prestige has no bearing to the family when compared to his disability. Socially, his disability has instantly made him an unacceptable life partner.

I would like to think that this sort of thing did not happen in modern society, but I am reminded of the injured military veterans who return home only to be eventually rejected by their partners or families. In truth, with the advent of high explosives and the nature of modern warfare, disabilities caused by war are likely far more severe than they were during the first World War. Times are improved inasmuch as there is no official social prohibition against marrying a person with a disability, but the unmentioned stigma certainly still exists.

Prominent Paralympian Charged with Murder

I was reading this news article today about a South African athlete who had both of his legs amputated below the knee as a child. He was charged with murder today in the shooting death of his girlfriend. Though I'm not familiar with him (I don't keep up with sports much in general), Oscar Pistorius was apparently something of a famous name in the Paralympics and the Olympics as the first person with prostheses to be allowed to compete in the Olympics. In reading this article, it strikes me that he is treated the same as any other athlete who gets caught in a crime-related news segment. There is very little discussion of his disability but a much stronger focus on his alleged personality quirks.

I clicked through a few more stories about Pistorius and found this one, in which he reports some of the pranks and bullying he experienced while at boarding school. I'm sure that his lack of legs caused him to stand out from his peers, thus making him a target. Catching his bed on fire seems a particularly cruel prank, and so does hiding his "day legs" on a regular basis. I get the sense that pranks and bullying were a regular part of boarding school, but I also get the sense that he received more than his fair share of abuse. I wonder more than a little if that adolescent abuse contributed to his reported personality difficulties. Different people respond different ways to such cruelty, but we are all affected.

"Uncle" Jack Dorso; Arrested Development

The other night my wife was watching one of her favorite television shows--Arrested Development--for the millionth time. I was in the room, but working on other things and not directly watching the show. It was an episode called "Ready, Aim, Marry Me!", and guest-stars Martin Short as a character named "Uncle" Jack Dorso. I've seen this episode a number of times, and I would say that I like both the show and the few episodes with Short as Uncle Jack. In general, the show is full of exaggerated and self-centered characters, and there are very few characters that the audience is meant to connect with or relate to. Uncle Jack falls in line with this, with the addition that he is also disabled. According to the story, he lost the use of his legs on his 70th birthday while performing a feat of strength by lifting weights. He now has hired a large, dimwitted, muscular, and half-deaf man called Dragon to carry him around because he declares he "won't go wheelchair!"

Even having seen all this before, I still found myself responding differently to the show on this occasion. I suppose I can only attribute it to class. This time, I was quite conscious of how the show treated Uncle Jack and Dragon. Sure, they were lampooned the same way every character on the show is, but there was a significant difference: for these two characters, their disabilities played into the humor and built slapstick into the show. At one point Uncle Jack yells at the near-deaf Dragon to take him "To the nuts!" Dragon swoops Uncle Jack into the crotch of another character on the show before Uncle Jack corrects him loudly, "To the bridge mix! You fool!" At which point Dragon swoops Uncle Jack's head into the bowl of nuts sitting on the coffee table, where he eats a mouthful like a dog might even though he has use of his arms and hands. 

As irreverent as the rest of the show is, it seemed like there was an additional focus on making the disabilities seem absurd. Uncle Jack's choice to not use a wheelchair makes him feel less handicapped but arguably exaggerates his disability. It also dismisses the upper body strength he is otherwise so proud of. Dragon's near-deafness is treated as dimwittedness. 

I am left not quite knowing what to think of these outlandish characters because they are floating in such a sea of other outlandish characters and the nonsensical situations they get into as a result of their selfish choices. I can't tell if it's respectful that there is no respect given to their disabilities (meaning: there is no special treatment), or whether the show treats the disabilities of the characters with less respect than usual. That said, I know I won't be able to watch the Uncle Jack/Dragon episodes the same way again.