From
CNN:
(CNN) -- "I am like, I am so (BLEEP) high. This is
terrible. And I did it in that voice. And I have never done that voice
before in my life. I don't know where that voice came from. But I heard
myself use that voice. And in my mind, I went, oh (BLEEP). I just gave
myself Down syndrome." --Wyatt Cenac, This American Life, 5/4/2014
It's hard to build a more
inclusive society when people keep making fun of you. Even as people
with disabilities and their allies make progress in so many ways,
disability remains a target for mockery.
Over the last few days, a baby boy with Down syndrome named Gammy
has been all over the news (pictured).
He and his twin sister were born to a surrogate mother in Thailand, but
allegedly when their Australian parents discovered the boy's genetic
condition, they left him behind.
To the biological parents, it seems, the words "Down syndrome" meant that he was not worth being their son.
These are the stakes
involved in how we talk and think about disability, how we portray
disability in the media, not to mention in our schools and homes.
I'm the father of a boy with Down syndrome. I remember weeping when I
heard the diagnosis.
My mother said she couldn't stop thinking about how he'd be taunted and
bullied as he got older. Her experience of people with intellectual
disabilities was that they were targets for cruel humor.
The good news is that in recent years, sustained awareness campaigns against
dehumanizing speech,
coupled with some 20 years of inclusive education since the passage of
the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, have made things a lot
better in America. No one is likely to call my son the r-word to his
face.
The bad news is that
perhaps we have focused too much on explicit language without addressing
the deeper questions of portrayal and representation. Too often, people
with disabilities are marginalized and excluded. Instead of focusing on
a single word, we've got to work to unravel the prejudices beneath the
surface.
Last May, Wyatt Cenac, former "Daily Show" correspondent and comedian, appeared on "This American Life,"
a popular show on National Public Radio. He told a story about a bad
experience eating a pot brownie. The joke was that it made him talk,
uncontrollably, in a funny voice, as if he had Down syndrome.
Next, Cenac, broke the flow of the piece in order to issue a kind of disclaimer. He said:
"Now let me just say, I
know what Down syndrome is. I know that Down syndrome is something that
you're born with when you are born with an extra chromosome. I know all
that information. I knew that information then. But something about
eating this brownie made me think that somehow I had grown an extra
chromosome and I now had adult-onset Down syndrome. And for people who
have Down syndrome, it's something they grow up with. And they grow up
and they have healthy and happy lives. I just got it."
Then he went right back to his fake voice, slurring words, and sounding confused.
Cenac did not respond to
emails asking for a comment. And the host of the show, Ira Glass,
declined to comment for this piece. Glass did write, however, to Julie
Ross, the mother of a child with Down syndrome.
She shared that e-mail with me. Glass wrote: "I agree with you
completely that nobody should have to listen to stories that mock and
denigrate (people with Down syndrome) This was a concern for me and my
producers when we were working with Wyatt Cenac. We talked about it as
we shaped the story."
He then notes that Cenac
went out of his way to make the disclaimer, claims that Cenac is making
himself the butt of the joke, and that, "The only thing that possibly
could be offensive is his imitation of what a person with Down syndrome
sounds like, and again -- we may disagree about that -- I think that's
fair game for a comedian."
Glass and Cenac used the
disclaimer, used the statement that they know what Down syndrome is,
medically, as a way to protect themselves from criticism. However, as
Glass admits, the humor of this piece depends on making fun of the way
that some people with Down syndrome speak.
Since my son was very
young, we've worked for so many hours on his speech. Together, we've
worked with many therapists to carve out individual phonemes, tones,
sounds and finally words. Each tiny advance takes months. I wept when I
heard him say, "I love you" for the first time, even though it was in a
slurred, indistinct voice of the exact type that Cenac was mocking.
Moreover, speech is so fraught, because intelligibility -- how clearly
my son can communicate with strangers -- determines what kind of
independence will be possible for him as an adult.
There is no disclaimer
that can take the sting out of Cenac's joke. He and Glass can decide
that the humor of the piece is worth being offensive, but they don't get
to determine whether the hurt is real or just. Neither do the many
comics that rely on punching down, using mockery of people marginalized
by ability, race, religion, gender or sexuality to get a laugh.
Cenac isn't alone. Ricky
Gervais, in the British TV show "Derek," plays a man who appears to be
disabled. Derek is supposed to be a positive example, but much of the
comedy extends from his disabled physicality -- a hunched back, a
slacked toothsome mouth, and a shuffling walk. Other laughs come from
his cluelessness as he cheerily staggers through uncomfortable scenes.
Gervais has said he doesn't mean to make fun of people with intellectual disabilities, saying in an interview,
"I've never considered him disabled; he is a 'out of the mouth of
babies' innocent person who always says the right thing that you didn't
see coming. And if I say he's not disabled, that's the end of it."
That's not the end of it. Not for Gervais. Not for Cenac.
In the end, it doesn't
matter whether a comedian uses a diagnostic term, issues a disclaimer,
or claims to be the butt of the joke. Humor can reinforce stereotypes or
destroy them. When you make fun of attributes associated with
disability, you might as well just be standing on stage, shouting the
r-word.
