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writethisfanficHow is today treating you?
Discussion: disabled characters. Does your fandom have characters that are disabled? Are disabled characters under represented in your fandom(s)?
This came up in a very random conversation I was having with Spike while we were watching an L&O: SVU boxset the other night. There are a couple of my fandoms, ST: TNG and Daredevil, that have disabled characters and use them effectively but the rest vary with some using a disabled person as a plot point, often negatively (L&O: SVU does that a lot). I have disabilities and I do often feel that disabled characters are massively under represented in my fandoms and I would love to see more of them.
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Today I
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Discussion: disabled characters. Does your fandom have characters that are disabled? Are disabled characters under represented in your fandom(s)?
This came up in a very random conversation I was having with Spike while we were watching an L&O: SVU boxset the other night. There are a couple of my fandoms, ST: TNG and Daredevil, that have disabled characters and use them effectively but the rest vary with some using a disabled person as a plot point, often negatively (L&O: SVU does that a lot). I have disabilities and I do often feel that disabled characters are massively under represented in my fandoms and I would love to see more of them.
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Date: Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 21:48 (UTC)I'm legally blind (can't drive, can't read print, use a guide dog and Braille) and the lack of disabled characters in fiction does bother me. Also, the unrealistic or two-dimensional depictions of the disabled in fiction is just as bad. My blindness is due to albinism (being albino) and there are so many stereotypes about that condition so I actively try to stay away from books/films that have albino characters. They seem to always get it wrong and treat albinism like this witch doctor thing when it's really just a medical condition.
And as for the blind, there are very few examples of that in literature at all. An exception would be The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, where one of the main characters is blind. She's written as having a job, getting to work on her own, living on her own, and being just as independent as most blind adults I know. Her character was just as three-dimensional and fully formed as any other character in the novel. It was a very pleasant surprise!
Another author that does a good job of depicting disability is George R. R. Martin. His A Song of Ice and Fire series has characters with dwarfism, mobility impairments, visual impairments, etc, and he does an excellent job of making them much more than their disability.