this is my brain shorting out because of UTTER FURY

[kaz]

...does anyone have any kind of transcript/summary/wtfever of the last Glee episode? I've never watched it on account of the whole not being able to watch video thing, the not living in the US thing, the not having a TV thing and, yes, the not being able to watch video thing. I have, however, seen a lot of people post about it (mainly to point out disability and inclusion fail) and since the last ep was the Special Disability Ep I've seen a lot of people blogging about that.

The thing is this. I figured the Special Disability Ep was about Artie and his wheelchair etc., and indeed all the coverage I've seen about it from disability bloggers has been about how they completely failed at portraying his issues accurately or sensitively and basically made it a Very Special Learning Experience for the abled peeps and, yeah, complete hash. I get that.

But.

When I was Icerocketing around in vague thoughts of doing linkspam (it's addictive, guys, help!) I ran into this quote:

Tina faked a disability to make her life more convenient for herself at the time. Artie could not do that even if he wanted to -- not that he would, because like he said, his chair does a good enough job of keeping people at a distance. It's not a convenience for him.

People without disabilities enjoy a privilege over those who do have them. Tina, it turns out, doesn't have to live with her stutter for the rest of her life the way Artie has to live with his paralysis. He can't ever get out of his chair the way she dropped her stutter. Artie felt a kinship with Tina because she seemed to know something about what he's going through, when in reality, she was only pretending to. But more hurtful than that was how she presented it to him, like it was a good thing. She tried having a disability for a while, but now it's more trouble than it's worth; now she no longer wants to push people away.

from here.

Wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.

Tina faked her stutter?

If this is accurate. If this is accurate. I. I. I want to talk about what this feels like for me as a stutterer but honestly, I do not have the words to express this degree of utter outrage. I'm just. I'm just sputtering over here. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK, PEOPLE.

And, you know, if this is accurate - I would have liked it if one of the disability-centric reaction posts to this episode that I've read had mentioned it. Not even necessarily analysed it, just *mentioned* it as an aspect of disability fail. I mean, I often second-guess myself about whether I really have the right to call my stutter a disability, but that doesn't mean you have to essentially slap me in the face with it.

ETA: okay, changeover from outrage to tears complete.

Comments

[From: willow]

First things first, I'm really glad you didn't think I was making light of your stutter by mentioning what happened to me as a child. I only realized quite after the fact that it could sound minimizing, but by then I was totally away from a computer and too sleepy to figure out how else I might have phrased things.

That said, the 'X my parent did', it involved insisting I precise everything in two sentences or less and also involved lots of hitting and other punishments. And after I commented to you, I ended up writing in my journal about the feelings remembering the whole thing brought up, and realizing why it is when I'm extremely upset (depressed, angry, mostly the negative sections of the emotional spectrum) I go completely Mute. Or rather I switch to an aspect of myself that cannot speak at all. The stronger the emotion, the longer I'm speechless.

(I'm multiple btw, and do understand a bit about accepting myself as neuro-a-typical being seen as odd among medical gatekeepers, not to mention an uninformed ablist society).

But yes, my experience with someone believing my speech was an attention getting ploy or me unconsciously mimicking something I'd heard; just remembering those emotions was extremely unpleasant. Living with them constantly because bare basic social interactions brought them up all the time? And then having a show claim to be empowering while in actuality being....

I'm not even sure, some combination of mocking, callous, ablist and - is there even a word for the ablist equivalent of the KKK? Because the wheelchair character is an actor in crip drag. But now Glee's canon has a character who was in crip drag.

And seriously outside of Tales Of The City by Armistead Maupin, which I haven't even re-read or rewatched as I've become more aware of various social injustices, I have never seen a storyline with societal and familial consequences to black/brown-face. Black-brown face, yellow face as well, (Avatar:Live Action ignorants aside, and Shirley Liquor & a few other clueless people) is usually acknowledged as a BAD THING.

So the word offensive doesn't seem strong enough for what they've done with that female character (Tina, yes?). It is easily the equivalent to me of someone casting aside their crutches and claiming they'd been faking for years to avoid dance recitals and going to parties. Or claiming they'd been faking cerebral palsy or lupus or MS or Lyme disease or blindness or bi-polarism for YEARS because crip drag is the best way to handle their social anxieties - with the implication that comfort and/or pity was some kind of fricking bonus.

And the further shit-eating of assigning stuttering as the easiest disability to fake, even a child could do it.

Yes, claiming that singing is natural speech therapy for those with certain speech difficulties has always pissed me off (my tripping over words happened there too, it was only easier to fake it -wasn't- happening if I was in the chorus and could just try to keep the note but essentially be ahhh-ing along or just move my mouth).

Crip drag in the very 'A Special Brady Disability Episode' simply reinforces the ablism.

And ok, I think the childhood emotional echoes have not quite faded cause I'm angrier now than I was in the first comment.

[From: kaz]

It's okay! And I hope it didn't come across that I was minimising your experience, because I really didn't want to! I do want people to understand that there is a difference between stuttering, the medical diagnosis and speech disorder, and other speech disorders which may look somewhat like stuttering but aren't the same thing... without making it seem as if the latter is unimportant, not real or somehow doesn't count.

Also, oh my god I am so sorry - I didn't realise that was what you meant by punishments. That is *awful*, and I can only imagine what it must have done to you and your feelings about your speech as a child. :( I think a large part of how accepting I am of my stutter is because I was very lucky in that my surroundings, and my parents especially, were supportive when I was a child. So. Yeah.

(I'm multiple btw, and do understand a bit about accepting myself as neuro-a-typical being seen as odd among medical gatekeepers, not to mention an uninformed ablist society).

*nods* I get some of that when it comes to Asperger's, but a lot of people - neurotypical people, even! - are starting to be more understanding of AS as a neurological difference and not something that needs to be fixed... although I then can get stuck in the false dichotomy of "well, if you like it, it must not cause any problems for you!" Which... no. Luckily, the autistic community is pretty up on it. With stuttering, I have spoken to only one other person who considers her stutter part of herself and doesn't really want to lose it, I don't even want to know what most medical professionals would say.

I'm not even sure, some combination of mocking, callous, ablist and - is there even a word for the ablist equivalent of the KKK? Because the wheelchair character is an actor in crip drag. But now Glee's canon has a character who was in crip drag.

I hadn't seen it phrased this way before, but that was like a punch in the gut because yes, that is it. And this is how they want to show us having the actor in crip drag is not a problem? Really?!

I wish there'd be societal consequences for the crip drag in this case. Unfortunately, it looks as if the production of Glee will need to be mysteriously taken over by the righteously enraged disabled army for that to happen.

...hmmmm. :)

So the word offensive doesn't seem strong enough for what they've done with that female character (Tina, yes?). It is easily the equivalent to me of someone casting aside their crutches and claiming they'd been faking for years to avoid dance recitals and going to parties. Or claiming they'd been faking cerebral palsy or lupus or MS or Lyme disease or blindness or bi-polarism for YEARS because crip drag is the best way to handle their social anxieties - with the implication that comfort and/or pity was some kind of fricking bonus.

This. THIS, so much. And... like... people are saying that she must have some kind of anxiety disorder, poor dear, to do such a thing. And are focussing on that. Instead of the fact that she faked an effing disability, and that this disability is one that routinely gets tarred with the "oh they just do it because they're shy" or "they can get over it if they just try" brush, and the portrayal here is probably going to have some real-life damaging consequences for me and mine!

(I am kind of fed up with how a large portion of the disability community seems to be handling this, i.e. by apparently not seeing that stuttering qualifies as a disability. I even ran into one post in which a hard of hearing person said that she totally empathised with what Tina did, she used to fake being less intelligent than she was so people wouldn't be so disappointed when she had trouble with something because of her hearing - and oh my god, is this really the "stutterers are less intelligent!" stereotype I am seeing here? Really?!)

And the further shit-eating of assigning stuttering as the easiest disability to fake, even a child could do it.

This is highly amusing in a very horrible way as although I haven't seen any of the show (\o/ video issues!) I have heard from several people that Tina's stutter was the fakest thing in the history of fakedom. I find the way stutters present fascinating; they are *incredibly* individual but very recognisably so and usually follow a distinct pattern. There's a list as long as my arm of things that I would expect to see in a stutterer (albeit the exact way it looks can vary wildly) simply because I know what it feels like and have met enough other stutterers to get an idea of the range. I sometimes wonder whether a fluent person would be *able* to fake a stutter well enough to fool real stutterers. Certainly not without a shitload of time, effort and practice. (E.g. apparently the issue with Tina was that she was simply repeating the syllable with no sense of pressure about it, whereas a stutterer is physically trying to force the word out.)

Yes, claiming that singing is natural speech therapy for those with certain speech difficulties has always pissed me off

This one always seems to come up in fiction for some reason. Fluent Character A has hit on this amazing new idea, that because Stuttering Character B does not stutter while singing this is somehow magically the cure to his stutter! Or, you know, people thinking that not stuttering while singing shows that we can be fluent if we just try!!! The whole not-stuttering-while-singing thing *is* actually the case for my brand of stuttering (I sometimes get weird rhythmical issues, but the stutter is totally gone), so I find it interesting that you do!

Anyway, I just roll my eyes, because honestly? This is not a surprise or some great deep insight into the mysteries of stuttering. It looks as if stuttering is due to a neurological difference in a specific region of the brain that gets used for speaking. Singing? Uses different parts of the brain than speaking. Ergo, we do not stutter while singing. QE flipping D, people. Also, no stutterer will stutter while speaking in chorus with people, and a lot of people have dramatically increased fluency when they hear their own voice repeated back at them a split second later or when they can't hear their voice. Strangely enough, this never gets the same hype the singing thing does (although I find the last two most interesting, given that it seems to hint there's some connection between stuttering and auditory feedback.)

I also want all of the people who go "you don't stutter while singing! This is the solution to your stuttering problem!" to go out and attempt to communicate solely through song for an entire day. I expect a lot of them will be beaten up for taking the piss. Singing is not a practical way to communicate!

[From: willow]

"The whole not-stuttering-while-singing thing *is* actually the case for my brand of stuttering (I sometimes get weird rhythmical issues, but the stutter is totally gone), so I find it interesting that you do! ... I find the last two most interesting, given that it seems to hint there's some connection between stuttering and auditory feedback."

I combined your replies there because singing wise it very much was an auditory thing. A combination of notes and syllables that I could not hear the way everyone else heard them.

Whenever I wanted to do a solo, I always went for the songs I could hear clearly all the way through. Some songs seemed good for my voice, but there were parts in there that were all jumbled up. And having the words on a sheet in my hand added pressure, because I knew what the words were in a non-singing tone (as when reading in one's head) but since I couldn't hear them clearly when sung, in order to mimic, it was like someone flooding a car engine with gas, with one foot on the gas pedal and the other foot on the brake at the same time. A whole lot of grinding noises and choking.

And of course, when -singing- a set song, there's no opportunity to merely rephrase something with words easier to say.

Needless to say singing as the cure for speech problems made me want to punch people in the face.

Re: ACTING IT

Stuttering in visual entertainment media mostly caught my attention when it was combined with 'the impatient friend'. Where one person stutters and the other person is forever saying the word the stutterer is trying to get out. And then acting all smug as if they'd just been helpful.

And perhaps to set up 'the joke' there was more emphasis placed on rhythm than the difference between trying to get a word out, and an invisible thread pulling it back in and speaking in song lyrics with repetition on the first syllable of the first word of a sentence in the verse.

But yeah, the concept in popular culture of a stutter seems to be about what you say, rather than how you manage to say it in the first place.