Celia Gurney

Challenging Normalcy Anjali Truitt

6/9/13
Final Research Portfolio - Paper

The Intersection of Comedy and Disability

Introduction: My Personal and Cultural Experience

A couple of months ago, a family friend named Alice told me she was appalled by
what had happened when she and her husband went to the hospital for his broken
nose. Multiple doctors jokingly suggested that Alice had broken his nose. Alice said she
didnt think the joke was funny, because domestic violence is a real problem. She got
her masters degree in womens studies, and as such is acutely aware of issues related
to the oppression of women.
I know and fully agree that domestic violence is a real, serious problem in our
society. I would never want to offend anyone who has been affected by it in any way.
However, I could imagine myself laughing at the doctors joke. In my mind, since their
interactions make it clear that Alice and her husband have a loving relationship, and
since the doctors already knew how he had broken his nose, it would be funny for an in
the know doctor to joke that Alice punched her husband.
The first critique of my feelings will probably be that I have never been affected
by domestic violence, so I am unable to gauge how offensive this joke would be to
people who have been affected by it. That may be true. However, I reject the idea that
anyone who has experienced something will not see the humor in a joke about that
thing. For example, I battled anorexia in middle school, but I am not offended every
time someone makes a joke that references eating disorders.
Alices experience left me wondering what exactly is acceptable when it comes
to humor, privilege, and oppression. While taking Challenging Normalcy, my first
disability studies class, I started thinking more specifically about how disability is used in
comedy. Are there unspoken rules governing appropriate and inappropriate use of
disability in comedy, and if so, what are they? Different people and formats seem to
play by different sets of rules.
Sometimes disability comes up in a funny situation in real life. For example,
while my mom was a grad student at UW, she worked in the gift-wrap department at
the University Bookstore. She tells a very funny story about the time her boss hired a
blind woman named Kelly to wrap gifts. Kelly wasnt good at the job, and sometimes
customers would ask my mom to re-wrap the gifts Kelly had wrapped (M. Warren,
personal communication, May 21, 2013).
At first, I found this story funny because I thought being blind would obviously
prevent someone from wrapping gifts well. I understood disability in terms of the
medical model, so I thought that disability was an individuals problem that could and
should be medically fixed (Oliver, 31). However, after talking about the social model in
our Disability Studies class, I see that disability is a societal problem (Oliver, 37) that
comes about when we build things with only non-impaired people in mind, causing
passive and active discrimination toward those with impairments. A blind person can
easily wrap gifts as long as she has the right tools (for example, Braille labels on the
different rolls of paper, stationary rolls of tape on the counters, etc.). After all, its
mostly a tactile task. With a light dusting of universal design, the gift-wrap counter could
be accessible to a blind worker.
So, now I think the story is funny for a different reason. Kelly wasnt good at
wrapping gifts; many seeing people arent either. Clearly, being able to wrap gifts well
has little to do with a persons sense of sight. So, if Kelly was just plain bad at wrapping,
why was she hired? Was my moms boss misguided, perhaps attempting to take pity on
Kelly for having a disability? Was he so overly passionate about equal opportunity
employment that his judgment was clouded in the quest for a more diverse workplace?
Did Kelly blackmail him? Was she the only applicant for the job? Were they secret
lovers? Ill never know, but Ill always enjoy speculating.
Other times, high profile comedians like Sarah Silverman use disability in their
shows. In her TED Talk at the 2010 conference, Silverman did a bit about adopting a
mentally challenged child with a terminal illness.
The joke progressed like this:

1) The population of the world is growing at a fast rate (fact).
2) Making your own baby is an act of vanity in an overpopulated world, so Im
going to adopt (contentious opinion; statement of her plan to do something
admirable).
3) I plan to adopt a mentally challenged child, because I enjoy the company of
the mentally challenged (elaboration on her plan; potentially offensive
statement).
4) Mentally challenged children dont ever leave the nest
(overgeneralization/statement of likely outcome/statement of problem).
5) Therefore, I plan to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness (punch
line/solution) (Silverman, 2010).

The potentially offensive statement in bullet point 4, I enjoy the company of the
mentally challenged, is difficult to judge because we dont know if Silverman is being
sincere. If she is being sincere maybe she has friends or family with developmental
disabilities, and really does enjoy spending time with them then there is nothing
offensive about this statement. However, if she is being sarcastic, then the statement is
offensive, because she is implying that it is not normal to enjoy the company of people
with developmental disabilities. Also, the use of the word retarded throughout the bit
could offend many people, since the word is often used colloquially to describe
individuals who do stupid things.
Setting aside Silvermans offensive language for now, we can move on to bullet
point 5, which lays out her hilarious punch line. In real life, if someone said outright,
My dream is to adopt a mentally challenged child with a terminal illness, we would all
gain immense respect for that person. The person and his or her child would face many
challenges just living in a world that isnt designed for people with disabilities or severe
illnesses. Plus, the parent would become extremely attached to the child, and would
then have to cope with the death of the child a relatively short time later. It would take
an enormous amount of love, strength, and passion to make such a commitment
right? Wrong. Silverman turns the whole scenario on its head and introduces the idea
that people who adopt mentally challenged children with terminal illnesses are no
better than the rest of us. In fact, theyre probably crass, whimsical people like her who
dont want to commit for more than 18 years, tops (Silverman, 2010). Of course, its a
ridiculous suggestion, and that makes it funny.
Alices doctors, Kelly, and Sarah Silverman along with many others have
inspired me to explore the relationship between disability, political correctness, and
humor. For my research portfolio, I chose to look at that relationship through the lens of
the television comedy Arrested Development.

Invisible Disability in Arrested Development

The topic of disability comes up throughout the series, but Season 3 is especially
full of disability-related subject matter, thanks to one particular character. Season 3,
Episode 2: For British Eyes Only introduces Rita, a beautiful British woman who never
mentally developed beyond age six (Day, 2005). Ritas opening lines are fairly clever, and
to viewers who are watching the episodes in order, Ritas disability is not immediately
apparent.
Throughout her relationship with Michael, Ritas behavior is consistently a little
bit strange. She jumps into bed like a young child and sleeps with the lights on (Hurwitz,
2005), she doesnt pick up on Michaels advances, and she wears unusual hats (2005).
However, she behaves most abnormally when she isnt around Michael. She sings along
completely seriously to childrens music when George Michael is driving her home, and
she uses a strange, made-up slang word when referring to sex in a discussion with her
Uncle Trevor in The Ocean Walker (Hurwitz, 2005). Still, any and all of these behaviors
are not necessarily indicative of a developmental disability. People do strange things all
the time. For instance, one of my roommates always leaves her dirty socks on the living
room coffee table.
Indeed, before Michael learns that Rita is developmentally disabled, he accepts
her quirks as part of her enigmatic, foreign personality. This shows that Rita could have
passed for what is considered normal. This is largely because Ritas disability is
invisible that is, not immediately apparent from looking at her/not manifested in a
visual way. People with invisible disabilities often face problems because other people
may not believe that they deserve the compensation that they receive for their
impairments.
Charlize Theron, a very attractive actress, plays Rita on the show. At first, this
seemed like a step in the right direction for disability on television, because it seemed to
be equating disability with beauty. However, in The Ocean Walker, Ritas uncle reveals
that she underwent plastic surgery. An unflattering before picture is shown, and we
are back to square one with the stereotype that people with disabilities are not
beautiful.

The Binary and the Other

When Michael learns about Ritas condition at the end of The Ocean Walker,
he changes his mind about her even though her behavior has been the same all along
(Hurwitz, 2005). Ritas categorization as a person with a developmental disability is the
deciding factor not her behavior.
This is a perfect example of how harmful binaries can be. Michael is able and
Rita is disabled, therefore other. Michael was open to dating someone able and
strange, but disabled is out of bounds. The situation reflects societys view of
disability. In reality, each persons range of abilities is different. There is a scale, ranging
from 18 year old athletes to nursing home residents who have very little energy and
strength, and including everyone in between. The range of human experience is vast,
and disability falls within it (Garland-Thompson, 2005).
But, seeing as Rita is mentally and emotionally a child, would it have been right
for Michael to continue dating her after he found out about her condition? Michael
serves as the shows moral straight man that is, nearly every other character exhibits
consistent lapses in moral judgment, and Michael is a whistle-blower of sorts who tries
to engage his sense of morality at all times (Phillips, 2012). Therefore, if it is wrong to
date someone who has not developed to a point where she can legally give consent,
then Michael must not do so according to the rules of the show. From the perspective of
Rita and her caregiver, this situation is a tricky conflict between the duty to protect Rita
and the desire to advocate for her as an individual. Reid et al discuss a similar real-life
scenario in which a developmentally disabled man volunteered himself to be the butt of
pranks and jokes on a regular radio program (2006).

Disability Versus Culture

In The Ocean Walker, Ritas uncle asserts that he thinks Americans have
trouble identifying Ritas disability because she is British (Hurwitz, 2005). Its a
completely ridiculous that a British accent could disguise a persons mental condition,
but it actually is a pretty funny commentary on British culture. Rita uses funny
nicknames for everything, which people assume are British. And British people do use
funny nicknames for things. Ritas obliviousness and innocent sincerity are mistaken for
dry British humor and that association conjures up the hilarious possibility that
maybe British comedians are not being funny at all, but rather just misunderstood.
Ritas cultural difference serves as a confounding variable in Michaels experiments in
getting to know her. Arrested Development compares differences of culture to
differences of ability. How strange that differences attributed to culture are perceived
as things that can easily be overcome with a little bit of training on both sides, whereas
differences attributed to ability are not perceived in this manner.



Concluding Remarks

Rita is not the only Arrested Development character directly affected by
disability. Busters mental capacities are not the norm. Things go over his head all the
time and he seems to never have developed a sense of independence from his mother.
Tobias goes through a period of feeling depressed when his relationship with Lindsay is
on the rocks (emotional disability). An old employee of George Sr. only has one arm. The
show unabashedly incorporates disability into its episodes. Then again, it unabashedly
incorporates everything into its episodes.
Seattle is a city that is very aware of inequality and injustice. Residents here are
fairly concerned about being politically correct in their daily lives, compared with
residents of other cities. However, judging by the range of comedy shows Seattleites
watch, entertainment is allowed to be an escape from political correctness. Sarah
Silverman argues that if you make fun of everything and everyone, nobody can feel
targeted, so nobody can be offended (Couric, 2008). I think many people feel this way
about comedy.
I wonder how politically correct humor would change if we removed the cutoff
between the able and the disabled, and just viewed ability on a more realistic sliding
scale. Right now, its okay to make fun of a person whos considered able and dumb,
because while they may lack some critical thinking skills, they do not have what we
consider to be a valid reason (mental disability). In contrast, it wouldnt be okay to make
fun of someone who has a mental disability, regardless of whether their critical thinking
skills are more or less developed than the first person. Once the line between the two is
dissolved, would it become okay to make fun of someone with a mental disability? Its
okay to make jokes about someone who is funny looking, but not if they have a
developmental disability that causes them to look different from other people. Once the
line is dissolved, will it become okay to make fun of everyone who is considered funny
looking? Or will it become completely unacceptable to make fun of such people?
In the end, it seems that many jokes about disability are not really about
disability at all, but the way that people interact with it and the way we perceive others
interacting with it. Disability is often not the punch line, but rather a bullet point in the
building of a joke. However, in the process of building a joke like that, its easy to make a
misstep. A comedian might play into stereotypes or make assumptions that hinder the
progress of the Disability Rights movement. It is essential that we examine uses of
disability in comedy, and analyze the deeper meanings of jokes. Disability can be used in
comedy respectfully, and comedy can even help the Disability Rights movement by
illuminating prejudices in society.





Works Cited

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Silverman, S. (2010). Sarah Silverman: a new perspective on the number 3000. Retrieved
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