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Adaptations of Mental and Cognitive Disability in Popular Media

Edited by Whitney Hardin and Julia E. Kiernan - Contributions by Whitney Hardin; Julia E. Kiernan; Lindsay Adams Kennedy; Rea Amit; Carol Donelan; John W. Gulledge; Martín Ponti; Anamika Purohit; Robert Rozema; Joy C. Schaefer; Guy Spriggs and Andrea Urrutia Gómez

Examining representations of mental difference, this collection focuses on the ways that adaptations (including remakes, reboots, and other examples of remixed narratives) can shape and shift the social contexts and narratives we use to define mental disability. The movement of narratives across media via adaptation, or within media but across time and space in the case of remakes and reboots, is a common tactic for revitalization, allowing storytellers to breathe new life into tired narratives, remedying past inaccuracies and making them accessible and relevant for contemporary audiences. Thus, this collection argues that adaptation provides a useful tool for examining the constraints or opportunities different media impose on or afford narratives, or for measuring shifts in ideology as narratives move across cultures or through time. Further, narrative functions within this collection as a framework for examining the ways that popular media exerts rhetorical power, allowing for deeper understandings of the ways that mental disability is experienced by differently situated individuals, and revealing relationships with broader social narratives that attempt to push definitions of disability onto them.

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Lexington Books
Pages: 234 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-1-7936-4831-0 • Hardback • March 2022 • $116.00 • (£89.00)
978-1-7936-4833-4 • Paperback • February 2024 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
978-1-7936-4832-7 • eBook • March 2022 • $37.50 • (£30.00)
Series: Remakes, Reboots, and Adaptations
Subjects: Social Science / People with Disabilities

Whitney Hardin is a scholar of game studies, comic studies, new media, and civic literacies.

Julia E. Kiernan is assistant professor of communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Introduction

Whitney Hardin & Julia E. Kiernan

Part I: Imagining and Broadening Narratives of Disability

Chapter One: The Prosthetic Self: Drag and Disability in the Figure of RuPaul

John W. Gulledge

Chapter Two: Adapting Medical Reports into Narrative Film: Autism, Eugenics, and Savagery in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970)

Joy C. Schaefer

Chapter Three: Remaking the Image of Autism: Why and How Comics Should Reboot Autistic Representation

Robert Rozema

Chapter Four: An Atypical Interaction with a Typical World: Viewing Coming-of-Age through the Lens of Disability Studies in Robia Rashid’s Atypical

Anamika Purohit

Chapter Five: “But can we agree that he’s unwell?”: Narrative Resistance in Legion’s Approach to Mental Disability

Julia E. Kiernan

Chapter Six: Diagnosing Mental and Moral Disability in Post 9/11 Popular American Film Narrative

Carol Donelan

Part II: Renegotiating and Resisting Narratives of Disability

Chapter Seven: “A document in madness”? Disability Erasure in Contemporary Rewrites of Ophelia

Lindsay Adams

Chapter Eight: “You’re all about ‘crazy’”: Rendering the Visibility of Trauma in Alias and Jessica Jones

Whitney Hardin

Chapter Nine: Subspaces Run Through Your Head: Scott Pilgrim, Intertextuality, and Visualizing the Traumatized Mind

William Guy Spriggs

Chapter Ten: Minding the Gap: Adaptation of and Mental Disability in Quiet Life (1990, 1995)

Rea Amit

Chapter Eleven: Adapting Autism in Telenovelas: Venevisión’s La Mujer Perfecta and the Trace of Esmeralda

Martín Ponti

Chapter Twelve: Female Representations of Autism and Disability in Telenovelas: La Mujer Perfecta

Andrea Urrutia Gómez

Index

About the Contributors

Depictions of mental deficiency have been ubiquitous fuel for pop culture narratives. Of course, the limited and negative characterization of mental difference has never quite worked. Stereotypical stories are consumed by neurodiverse humans. These stories also operate within metaphorical frames and genres that are shaped through their reception and repetition. This excellent collection reveals how such stories gain new meaning -- because we refuse to believe or invest in a monolithic version of mental and cognitive difference – because we refuse to easily associate this difference with evil, sadness, violence, and loss. As the collected chapters show, when we remake, reboot, and adapt texts, despite their outdated representations of mental disability, they often come out both more accessible and broader in meaning, both more representative and more open to the audience. This collection captures the energy of this critical remaking, centering the agency of disabled people.


— Jay Dolmage, University of Waterloo


Adaptations of Mental and Cognitive Disability in Popular Media

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Examining representations of mental difference, this collection focuses on the ways that adaptations (including remakes, reboots, and other examples of remixed narratives) can shape and shift the social contexts and narratives we use to define mental disability. The movement of narratives across media via adaptation, or within media but across time and space in the case of remakes and reboots, is a common tactic for revitalization, allowing storytellers to breathe new life into tired narratives, remedying past inaccuracies and making them accessible and relevant for contemporary audiences. Thus, this collection argues that adaptation provides a useful tool for examining the constraints or opportunities different media impose on or afford narratives, or for measuring shifts in ideology as narratives move across cultures or through time. Further, narrative functions within this collection as a framework for examining the ways that popular media exerts rhetorical power, allowing for deeper understandings of the ways that mental disability is experienced by differently situated individuals, and revealing relationships with broader social narratives that attempt to push definitions of disability onto them.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 234 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9
    978-1-7936-4831-0 • Hardback • March 2022 • $116.00 • (£89.00)
    978-1-7936-4833-4 • Paperback • February 2024 • $39.99 • (£30.00)
    978-1-7936-4832-7 • eBook • March 2022 • $37.50 • (£30.00)
    Series: Remakes, Reboots, and Adaptations
    Subjects: Social Science / People with Disabilities
Author
Author
  • Whitney Hardin is a scholar of game studies, comic studies, new media, and civic literacies.

    Julia E. Kiernan is assistant professor of communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Introduction

    Whitney Hardin & Julia E. Kiernan

    Part I: Imagining and Broadening Narratives of Disability

    Chapter One: The Prosthetic Self: Drag and Disability in the Figure of RuPaul

    John W. Gulledge

    Chapter Two: Adapting Medical Reports into Narrative Film: Autism, Eugenics, and Savagery in Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild Child, 1970)

    Joy C. Schaefer

    Chapter Three: Remaking the Image of Autism: Why and How Comics Should Reboot Autistic Representation

    Robert Rozema

    Chapter Four: An Atypical Interaction with a Typical World: Viewing Coming-of-Age through the Lens of Disability Studies in Robia Rashid’s Atypical

    Anamika Purohit

    Chapter Five: “But can we agree that he’s unwell?”: Narrative Resistance in Legion’s Approach to Mental Disability

    Julia E. Kiernan

    Chapter Six: Diagnosing Mental and Moral Disability in Post 9/11 Popular American Film Narrative

    Carol Donelan

    Part II: Renegotiating and Resisting Narratives of Disability

    Chapter Seven: “A document in madness”? Disability Erasure in Contemporary Rewrites of Ophelia

    Lindsay Adams

    Chapter Eight: “You’re all about ‘crazy’”: Rendering the Visibility of Trauma in Alias and Jessica Jones

    Whitney Hardin

    Chapter Nine: Subspaces Run Through Your Head: Scott Pilgrim, Intertextuality, and Visualizing the Traumatized Mind

    William Guy Spriggs

    Chapter Ten: Minding the Gap: Adaptation of and Mental Disability in Quiet Life (1990, 1995)

    Rea Amit

    Chapter Eleven: Adapting Autism in Telenovelas: Venevisión’s La Mujer Perfecta and the Trace of Esmeralda

    Martín Ponti

    Chapter Twelve: Female Representations of Autism and Disability in Telenovelas: La Mujer Perfecta

    Andrea Urrutia Gómez

    Index

    About the Contributors

Reviews
Reviews
  • Depictions of mental deficiency have been ubiquitous fuel for pop culture narratives. Of course, the limited and negative characterization of mental difference has never quite worked. Stereotypical stories are consumed by neurodiverse humans. These stories also operate within metaphorical frames and genres that are shaped through their reception and repetition. This excellent collection reveals how such stories gain new meaning -- because we refuse to believe or invest in a monolithic version of mental and cognitive difference – because we refuse to easily associate this difference with evil, sadness, violence, and loss. As the collected chapters show, when we remake, reboot, and adapt texts, despite their outdated representations of mental disability, they often come out both more accessible and broader in meaning, both more representative and more open to the audience. This collection captures the energy of this critical remaking, centering the agency of disabled people.


    — Jay Dolmage, University of Waterloo


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