Hollywood’s Disability ‘Inspiration Porn’ Is Terrible, but Here’s How We Can Fix It, Holly Eagleson, TakePart, November 21, 2014
The general consensus is that American Horror Story: Freak Show is a gift. Sure, the story lines have been teetering on the rails for the last two episodes. But it’s one of a pathetically few places you’ll see a talent like Mat Fraser on television.
Fraser has phocomelia, a congenital disorder that causes malformed appendages. On AHS, he beautifully embodies Paul the Illustrated Seal, a tattooed member of a 1950s freak show under threat of nefarious forces. Unlike so many infantilizing roles for disabled actors, Paul isn’t stripped of his eroticism; he has affairs with two different female characters on the show. Play on, player!
It’s a breakout role for Fraser, a performer who’s well known on the cabaret and burlesque circuits and is also a drummer and playwright. Fraser is fierce by any measure, even more so for his perspective on his new-found fame. In an excellent interview with The Onion’s AV Club, he puts media eager to exploit his story directly in his crosshairs: “I’ve already turned down two offers from really mainstream people, too f—ing mainstream, to do a life-story interview, because I am not interested in ‘inspiration porn.’”
That term may not be familiar, but you know the concept. It’s that soft-focus prime-time sitdown about a “heroic” soldier who lost limbs in battle. The relentless memes of developmentally disabled people as Successories posters. The documentary about a person triumphing over a disfiguring disease to run a marathon and climb a mountain. It’s all to celebrate ability in many its forms, if you’re being generous. In reality, it’s a clarion call to the able-bodied: If these less-thans can do so much with so little, by God, you can do anything! (Cue “reach for the stars” graphic.)
Consent, Emma Holten, Hysteria #5 ‘Nonsense’
The danger is not in arousal or finding another person arousing, but in the idea that a sexually arousing situation in which two people take part, can exist without one of the party’s consent. Feminists are often singled out and ridiculed for our critique of catcalling, the suggestion is that we cannot handle it. Of course we can. Rather, our critique is directed at how it positions the female body in public spaces. It is an object, to be sexualised, even if the woman to whom the body belongs is working/shopping/picking up her kids/waiting for the bus. It is a notification that, whatever she is up to, a person is passing and sexualising her. Catcalling forcefully moves the female body from a non-sexual to a sexual situation.
If the men who contacted me thought about my humiliation, about my humanity, would they still write me? If you viewed women as beings with their own autonomy and sexuality, would you feel you had the right to photograph them without their knowledge? If catcallers saw women as complex individual people would they forcefully enter their private sphere? No. No, because such actions can only be justified if the female body is fetischized as an object. Not an object like a dice or a winter coat, but an object for your utilization. Forcing a person to play a part that you need them to play.
Because such actions only take place when you forget, or do not know that a situation in which one participant has not consented is not a sexual situation. It’s just a situation with you and someone you find sexy. Nothing more.
Read what happens when a bunch of over-30s find out how Millennials handle their money, Quartz Staff, Quartz, October 7, 2014
This morning, one of us posted a link about the announcement of a new bluetooth-based payments app into one of Quartz’s editorial chat rooms. We often use these chats to discuss how to cover news. This time, however, the result was a rather revealing clash of generational cultures about money, privacy, and over-sharing. We decided to publish a lightly-edited transcript (we removed the less-relevant comments and re-ordered a handful of them for the sake of clarity). Those people whose names are underlined are over 30, and those without an underline are under 30. We’ve dubbed this underline the “Venmo line,” for reasons that will become apparent.
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heatherlandy 11:40 AM
seriously, do enough people pay enough other people with enough frequency to support all these person-to-person payment apps? haven’t people ever heard of splitting a bill?zach.wf 11:46 AM
I actually think these apps are the greatest things ever
I use venmo several times a week, for typical things like splitting checks but also splitting bills with my roommates etc.***
zach.wf 11:49 AM
venmo is great also because it is sort of a social network too, like you have to put in a sort of “memo” field and so you see a news feed of what your friends paid each other forleo 11:50 AM
why on earth would anyone care what thweir friends are paying each other?zach.wf 11:50 AM
because people write funny thingsmax 11:50 AM
With emoji
Usually***
gideon 11:52 AM
that moment when everyone over 35 in the office suddenly realizes everyone under 30 lives in a different universe
