I kinda started TRYING to narrow down what I wanted to do, but that backfired. I looked at so many lists of characters with disabilities, and there is a ton to do there. Everyone has their own idea of what a disability is. I am using Marvel, which I thought would limit things, but then I realized just how crazy things could get. For I WAS going to try and keep things simple. Focus on blind, deaf, amputees, and deformities. I realized I didn’t really have enough characters on my own for those categories. For blind, I could only really think of Daredevil. Deaf, I got Hawkeye and Echo. Amputees included Bucky, Echo again, Dr. Connors, and Nebula. Deformaties I was thinking Thing and Dr. Doom.
But looking at lists I realized that everyone has their own ideas, not to mention how complicated things get depending on which version of the character you use.
For variety in lists, some lists presented a great idea I didn’t think of, science experiments going wrong. I knew Dr. Connors becomes the lizard with a “failed” science experiment (technically the guy did get his arm back, but he becomes a lizard to do so… so… failed??). But there were other people who did science experiments that got crazy, so do I make that a list?
It would be an interesting topic, that people with disabilities go intense with trying to fix themselves to the point they change. That could be an interesting argument, showing the connection with disabilities and lab “accidents”.
There was also mentions of cancer. Like Jane Foster, who I knew gets cancer, but to me that isn’t a disability. I mean it does kill her, she is sick from it, but she also kinda in a way kills herself by using Thor’s powers and speeding up the cancer. So, is that a disability or just a misuse of power? Getting into tricky waters with that one.
And then people had Black Widow on their lists for having a hysterectomy. This was forced though? Like I would maybe consider it if she couldn’t have children based on her body not being able to, but to consider it based on the fact that she had a forced hysterectomy due to her awful spy program… That is a bit of a stretch to me. But does that count? Having a surgery, making you unable to do things others can? Now this is why I am including what the disabled community says on these characters. Cause not being able to have children is not what I think of when I think of disabled, which could be a whole other conversation on what people even think is disabled. My own bias of not wanting children could be impacting me to not include this on the list, but this is proving how complicated things can get.
For, to counter my own point of how Black Widow had a forced hysterectomy, we can’t just make disabilities things you are born with. That gets rid of like every one on my list. Daredevil wasn’t born blind, Bucky and Dr. Connors lost limbs in a war, Hawkeye lost hearing due to fighting in so many wars, Thing got his rock skin from being in space, heck even Professor X wasn’t wheelchair bound at birth. None of the people I have put on my own list had their disabilities at birth. Some mutants do, like Nightcrawler, which is a whooole other thing. If we do talk about mutants, they are all basically disabled, having so many changes to what we consider a “normal” human body. Some have wings, others have blue skin, some have less fingers, some have more limbs, it gets really crazy. I could just count that all as deformities, but truly we get into such crazy stuff with all of that.
Also the stories chosen depend on the disability the character sees. Like how Hawkeye is deaf in some stories but hard of hearing in others. To help out with this I might just change the categories to be “vision impairment” and “hearing impairment” which would also help to add more to the lists. Like with the vision impairment I can add Nick Furry or other characters with eyepatches. Maybe even include Cyclops because of being forced to see in red. Could also add “movement changes” as a big category. Includes amputees, those who are wheelchair bound in various ways, people with limps or needing to use crutches, or even characters like Doctor Octopus who uses a bunch of metal arms to move around.
Most of the lists I have found have been heroes or side characters, a small fraction of the lists others have made have been villains. Now, I also can’t think of too many disabled villains, but also who is counted as a villain? The Winter Solider is a villain, but Bucky is a hero, so do I include him on both the villain and hero side of things? Nebula is also both a hero and a villain. Are villains those that kill, but then what counts as killing because the Avengers have destroyed New York countless times in trying to fight bad guys. But maybe also there aren’t many villains with disabilities.
If I find that out, I might have to do diabilies seen in Marvel (to the best I can show that) and THEN disabilities seen in horror films. Those are kinda villains, just in a different genre than the superhero one. But, using the horror films would help show the disability tropes at large, and how disabilities “can be” scary.
The problem with my thesis is there is way too much going on with disabilities. Doing the horror films might be a whole other paper, but honestly any of this could be a separate paper. Like I think I am going to avoid deep diving into mental disabilities for that opens up way too much. I can’t even decide if cancer counts as a disability, I doubt I would be able to figure out what mental illnesses count as a disability. If they all do, that is soooo much to cover in one paper.
So the focus is still Marvel’s disability representation. Vision impairment, hearing impairment, and movement changes (might change the titles later, who knows). I will be seeing how these characters react to their disabilities and the conversation around that. I know the Hawkeye show demonstrated how hesitant he was to getting help with his hearing loss and how others judged him for not trying to get that help. Not learning sign language or getting hearing aids. But also studying the conversation around all that is going to be interesting. Did the hearing loss community feel like the show and the characters did them justice? This is what I want to focus on. Showing what Marvel does with disabilities and how the communities feel about it. Then use all of that to make my own story of superheroes with disabilities.
Not sure what to do with the villain aspect, if people just don’t pay attention to villains or if there is a lack of villains with disabilities. The horror stuff is very interesting, might have to be a separate thing. Not sure because I do want to show the dark side of disability representation in media, how “monsterous” or “scary” people make disabilities. But also just focusing on the villains we do get to see is interesting in itself, as the ones I have found are amputees, deformed, or science gone wrong. Haven’t really found “calm” disabilities with the villains yet, but I got more searching to do. Gotta lot of thinking to do. Might have to make my own list of disabilities which would be hard to do because I don’t want to be bias and discount disabilities, or count things in the wrong way. I would have to explain my choices in disabilities and characters, but some of the fan made lists do a terrible job at explaining why they put characters on the lists. It is all a little complicated right now, but at least I have a direction to go in. Things will find its place, I trust that.
