Disabling imagery

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Disabling imagery

• Images as disciplinary power

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'Disciplinary power' and the 'disciplinary gaze'
(Foucault, 1977).

• Disciplinary power emerged in the eighteenth
  century, when disciplinary techniques 'crossed
  the technological threshold' and became
  instruments of a new kind of power (Foucault,
  1977 224).
• As a technique of power, it is quite distinct
  from 'the majestic rituals of sovereignty or the
  great apparatus of the state' (Foucault, 1977
  170).

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The three silent mechanisms of the gaze

• Three 'simple instruments' of disciplinary power
  'hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement
  and their combination in a procedure that is
  specific to it, the examination' (Foucault, 1977
  170).

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Images of disability as hierarchical observation

• Bethans Panopticon a structure that would make
  it possible for a single gaze to see everything
  constantly a perfect eye that nothing would
  escape the centre towards which all gazes would
  be turned (Foucault, 1977 173).
• The unified disciplinary gaze traverses all
  points and supervises every instant' (Foucault,
  1977 183).

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Images as normalising judgements the
disciplinary image

• Disciplinary power acts upon individuals to
  ensure they are trained or corrected,
  classified, normalised, excluded etc. (Foucault,
  1977 191).
• It is a force that acts by measuring in
  quantitative terms and hierarchies in terms of
  value the abilities, the level, the 'nature' of
  individuals and, using this information,
  introduces the constraint of a conformity that
  must be achieved (Foucault, 1977 183).

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Normalisation and attention

• All the time that the ends of our practice are
  (mis)informed by unexamined notions of
  normality, we can but find ourselves
  sauntering through our professional lives, only
  half-awake to their richness and complexity
  (Barton Corbett, 1993 15).

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Images as a mechanism of examination

• The examination is a mechanism of
  objectification, the examination is, as it
  were, the ceremony of this objectification
  (Foucault 1977 187).

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Disciplinary images of disability

• Prejudice is not just interpersonal between the
  abled and the dis-abled but is also implicit in
  cultural representations of persons with
  impairments (Shakespeare, 1994).
• Prejudice is a form of disciplinary power
• Prejudice can be as powerfully disabling as any
  social structure.

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Barnes (1992) on categories of disciplinary images

• Category One The Tragic conception of Disability
• Category Two The Disabled Person as Sinister and
  Evil
• Category Three The Disabled Person with super
  human abilities
• Category Four The Disabled Person as an Object
  of Ridicule
• Category five The Disabled Person as Incapable
  of Participating Fully in Community Life
• Category six Positive Images of disability

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Category 1 The Tragic conception of Disability

• The pitiful disabled characters initially evoke
  hostile feelings because they have come to
  represent experiences such as vulnerability and
  dependency which have been repressed in the
  spectator. These hostile feelings are then
  quickly transformed into guilt and attempts to
  secure forgiveness.
• (Marks, 1999166-67)

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Posters for a drugs company
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Category Two The Disabled Person as Sinister and
Evil

• This distortion of the experience of disability
  is present in a great deal of literature and art,
  both classical and popular, and continues to be
  produced today.
• (Barnes, 1992)

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15
Schizoid (1972) The Warning Not Recommended
Viewing for Persons with Schizophrenic
Tendencies!
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Category Three The Disabled Person as a person
with super human abilities

• ... by flaunting normal accomplishments as
  extraordinary, by hailing people with
  disabilities as human wonders, aggrandized
  presentations probably taught the lesson that
  achievement for people with differences was
  unusual rather than common.
• (Bogdan, 1988 279).
• They make overcoming disability the
  responsibility of the disabled person.
• Barnes (1992) these images can result in them
  the disabled being denied essential services.

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Category Four The Disabled Person as an Object
of Ridicule

• Toni Morrison (1993/1997 270) 'lethal
  discourses of exclusion blocking access to
  cognition for both the excluder and the
  excluded'.
• Lethal because they are so few positive images to
  contradict them (Shakespeare, 1999).

The Trentonian (New Jersey), July 10th, 2002
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Category five The Disabled Person as incapable
of inclusion in community life

• The disabled amount to just 1.5 of all
  characters portrayed in TV films and dramas
  (Cumberbatch Negrine,1992)
• In contrast, Government evidence reveals that at
  least 12 of the British population are disabled
  people (Barnes, 1992).

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Warned New Yorkers to beware of a terrifying new
crime wave In our newfound complacency, we have
forgotten a particular kind of violence to which
we are still prey. The violence of the
mentally-ill.
22
Poster for a drug company
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Category six Positive Images of disability

• Ideas?
• Excellent websites
• http//www.disability-archive.leeds.ac.uk/
• http//www.cinemaniastigma.com/pages/1/index.htm
• http//www.bfi.org.uk/education/resources/teaching
  /disability/guide.html

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References

• Barnes, C. (1992) Disabling Imagery and the
  Media An Exploration of the Principles for Media
  Representations of Disabled People
• Barton, L. Corbett, J. (1993) Special needs in
  further education the challenge of inclusive
  provision, European Journal of Special Needs
  Education, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.14-22
• Bogdan, R. (1988) Freak show presenting human
  oddities for amusement and profit (Chicago The
  University of Chicago Press)
• Cumberbatch, G. Negrine, R. (1992) Images of
  Disability on Television (London, Routledge)
• Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish The
  Birth of the Prison (Trans. by A. Sheridan,
  Harmondsworth Penguin Books)

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• Oliver, M. and Barnes, C. (1998) Disabled People
  and Social Policy From Exclusion to Inclusion,
  Harlow, Addison Wesley Longman.
• Marks , D. (1999) Disability Controversial
  debates and psychological perspectives (London
  Rutledge)
• Shakespeare. T. (1994) Cultural Representation of
  Disabled People Dustbins for Disavowal? Online
  http//www.leeds.ac.uk/disabilitystudies/archiveuk
  /archframe.htm 22/09/04
• Shakespeare, T. (1999) Art and lies?
  Representations of disability on film, In M.
  Corker S. French (Eds) Disability Discourse
  (Philadelphia Open University Press)