When I first moved to Iowa I had a hard time adjusting. I was working a job I hated, fighting a cockroach infestation and the long standing relationship that brought me here was already going south. I started volunteering for purely selfish reasons. I needed an escape.

Not long after I was at a party when a vegan asked me, "Why horses? Isn't it cruel to turn these smart, capable animals into beasts of burden? Why not use something dumber? Like cows or machines?"

The horses stride at the walk is similar in length and cadence to that of a human's walk. Riding builds strength and muscle memory necessary for what will become some students' first steps. I remember one student who after over a year in therapy still hadn't walked. After one five week session on Jasper's back, his father set him down, stepped back and we all watched as he took six steps forward.


I told the vegan this.

"Oh." He said. "Well, would you EAT a horse?"









...probably not one of these horses.

I've been frustrated a lot lately.

The end of last year I got in a big fight with one of my classmates (and subsequently the rest of the class) about the depiction of a character with a disability in his film.

My classmate was making a video interpretation of the book Heart of Darkness. He acted all four parts, including a filmmaker, an elusive rock throwing forest dweller, a helpful dimwit, and finally a character he described as kind of off, kind of weird. The character was depicted by lying naked on a cement floor wrapped in a dirty blanket. He drooled while gasping and yelling instead of talking. His hands were uncontrolled and contorted as was most of the rest of his body and he lived deeply secluded in a rundown cabin in the woods. The character was undeniably disabled.

After the screening and many praise for the beauty and clarity of HD, I raised my hand.

"Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with the character in the cabin?"

While I cannot claim to be an expert on disability, having worked with people of all ranges of abilities since high school, I have a pretty good vocabulary when it comes to actual symptoms of real diseases/syndromes/injuries/etc.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just imagined he's been living in this cabin for so long... maybe he starved at some point and this is what happened to him."

Knowing nothing about the effects of starvation on the human brain and body I asked, "Oh, is that what happens to someone when they almost starve to death?"

"I don't know. I didn't look it up or anything. I mean, that's just an idea. I don't think it really matters what's specifically wrong with him."

At this point, because of years of academic training (I'm in 19th grade!) and an inability to argue in a way that might actually engage people, I pull out my big vocabulary:

"Oh, in that case, I find the portrayal of this specific disabled body problematic in that it seems to be a collection of disability stereotypes Frankensteined together to create an idea of disability which you then use to stand in for 'weirdness' or 'otherness.'"

At which point the class rallies to this character's defense.

They don't think the specific disability matters and the viewer will know the character is being played by an able-bodied actor anyway. One person even said he liked the performance because it was kind of funny to see his classmate act that way. Others said they liked the character as he is because the way he acts weirds them out and makes them feel uncomfortable.

The discussion ends when my professor (who makes over $100,000 a year teaching and is quite established as an influential white male filmmaker) informs me:

"It's not the specificities of the individual character that are important, but the filmmaker's idea of what that character represents that truly matters."

Which, of course, was the exact opposite of the point I was trying to make (read: white, upper middle-class, male, college-educated, able-bodied filmmaker's ideas are NOT more important than actual people with disabilities and just because he has the ability to use disability stereotypes to create the idea of difference and otherness in his Art does not give him the right to perpetuate said stereotypes using such an influential medium.)

Years of academic training have also taught me to recognize arguments I cannot win. Besides I suddenly had to focus all my energy on not crying in front of fifteen men. I let it go.

***

The next week brings a new cut of the same film. I don't expect much change in the character in question and subsequently am not surprised when there is little difference. He had cut out some of the sound, I assume because of the funny comment, but left the visual of the dirty, uncontrollable, helpless body (now gasping in silence) untouched. I wasn't going to open my mouth.

The lights come on and my most trusted Iowa friend, the one who came the MFA program when I did (the only other person in my year) raises his hand. He was present last week for the discussion, but had missed the screening. He knew my argument and how upset I was last week.

"Dude, this film is INCREDIBLE and I don't think it makes fun of retarded people at all."






I haven't taken a class in the film department since.