GAS Works Web Paper 3

                                                                                  Asia Gobourne
                                         GNST 290: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender & Sexuality

Putting an end to limiting physical world-views.

 Day 15 “On Seeing (and not seeing) Disability." I was so excited to be given the opportunity look fully at disability, to stare. Not in a degrading way, but almost in wonder. Crip Art can possess a certain raw and vulnerable beauty that I haven’t been effected by as fully in other forms. As nice and politically correct as it would be to say Crip Art is just like other forms of art with “just people” as the subjects, it would be false. The disability adds to the art for me. I get a sense of strength, defiance and agency that is really striking to me.

http://butchkittie.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/katarme1.jpg

Why did I decide to write a paper about menstruation?

The answer to that question is fairly easy, the rest is not.

Figure 1          

 A Case Study on Disabled Superheroes

For every disabled person living an unremarkable, everyday life you see in the media, you’ll see at least three disabled people with superpowers. The popularity of the supercrip archetype, whether created through careful media positioning of disabled athletes and personalities, is also visible in the world of popular culture - specifically, mainstream comics. While graphic novels have dealt into emotionally complicated territory with their depiction of various disabilities and life circumstances, superhero comics have really taken up the “supercrip” - the disabled superhero or heroine, as a money-maker and cultural tool.