Episode 70: Why Isn't This Dun Dun?

TRANSCRIPT OF “WHY ISN’T THIS DUN DUN?”

[rock guitar music]

MALE VO [00:03]
This is Bad Attitudes.

[rock guitar music]

LAURA [00:20]
Hello friends and strangers! Welcome to another episode of Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast about Disability. I’m your host, Laura.

Popular media has GOT to do better.

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As always, I want to remind you that disability is not a monolith. My experience as a disabled person is going to be different from the experiences of other disabled people. I am one voice for the disabled community but I am not the only voice.

[01:43]
[the Law & Order “dun dun” effect]

Let’s have a hand for Law & Order: Organized Crime for joining the illustrious ranks of popular media perpetuating the myth that disability is worse than death.

[slow clap]

If you haven’t yet watched the third season finale of Organized Crime and intend to, I recommend stopping the episode right now. Here, there be spoilers.

In the climax of the episode, during a standoff with a suspect, one of the detectives in Stabler’s squad was shot in the neck, the bullet going through his spinal cord. It was likely the detective would be paralyzed from the neck down, but it was not a given. He came through surgery well, and it was repeatedly said that it was too soon to tell what the full extent of the damage was. Still, when he had a moment alone with one of his brother officers, he (predictably) said, “I can’t live like this. I won’t live like this.” He then asked his fellow officer to, quote, “let me go.”

I think we all know what he was really asking of his friend. He wanted his fellow officer to “end his suffering.” His friend reiterated that they didn’t know the extent of the damage. The injured officer’s girlfriend (via phone call) reiterated the same. Neither got much time with the injured officer, as his father arrived, and we cut from the hospital room scene.

When the show returns to the hospital room, the injured officer is coding and the father is nowhere to be seen. We can only assume that the father took some sort of action to end his son’s life, at his request, although we’re not given any solid evidence of that fact.

I don’t consider myself a medical expert, but I’ve been in enough hospitals and watched enough medical dramas to find it very suspicious that a patient who was hooked up to minimal equipment would code just a short period of time after asking someone to end his life. He appeared to be in such a condition that not only would he survive, but he would probably continue to improve and even thrive.

As I was watching, I kept thinking, “Dude, you’ve been paralyzed for like five minutes. Probably not enough time to decide whether or not you can live like this.”

When someone experiences trauma of this kind, the feelings they experience are valid. Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness. Wondering how they’re going to continue on. Wondering how they can possibly live like this, or what a life would even look like. Totally valid, especially in the immediate aftermath of such trauma.

What’s not valid is popular media’s continued assertion that death is preferable to disability.

These types of episodes even have their own moniker: disability snuff films.

Another popular example is the book “Me Before You,” and its movie adaptation. When I initially read the book, I loved it and even defended the author’s choice to have a paralyzed character commit assisted suicide. Over time, and after watching the movie, I reevaluated my stance. From a story-telling standpoint, I get it, because “Me Before You” was setting up more books featuring the female protagonist, and the death of the male character was the impetus for her moving forward. Also, he left her a bunch of money. But, at least in “Me Before You,” he gave it six months before he made the final decision.

Regardless of how you feel about it as a book or movie, it is still another example of popular media perpetuating the stereotype that it is better to be dead than disabled.

Although it has improved in recent years, it’s nearly impossible to find representation of disabled characters living happy, fulfilled lives. If it’s not a disability snuff film, it’s a story about a disabled person being saved by someone non-disabled. Consider the movie “The Upside” with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston. Cranston portrays a quadriplegic who is drawn out of his self-imposed isolation and reintroduced to life by Hart’s character. Despite the fact that this is based on a true story, the central theme remains a non-disabled individual acting as a savior to a disabled individual.

This isn’t the first time the Law & Order franchise has dealt with the topic of assisted suicide in the face of acquired disability, but it IS the first time it has done so in regards to cops. The episode I’m thinking of aired probably in the late ‘90s or early 2000s, and featured a judge whose husband hired a hit man to kill her. Unfortunately, the hit man was not great at his job, and left the judge paralyzed rather than killing her outright. What ensued was pretty complicated, but basically the judge would rather die than testify against the husband who tried to kill her. (Where are your priorities, lady?) They went through the process of determining if she was competent to make the decision to end her life, but she was ultimately able to do so. And her husband still went to jail, if I remember correctly. But, again, this woman made statements along the lines of “This is not a life,” when anyone tried to convince her to continue living.

Ultimately, this is the message sent by a majority of popular media. It is reiterated and reinforced that being or becoming disabled is WORSE than death. I will capitulate that there are a FEW situations where peacefully passing away might be more desirable than to continue living in extreme pain, especially in cases of terminal illness. But disability is not the same as terminal illness. Disability does not automatically equate to excruciating pain. And even if a disabled person experiences pain, that doesn’t mean being DEAD is a better option.

It’s just further proof that there are not enough — if any — disabled people in writer’s rooms. If there were, not nearly as many stories would end with a disabled character opting out of life altogether. When someone becomes disabled, ending their life is not necessarily the first thought that enters their mind. If it is, that’s indicative of the trauma experience, it is NOT indicative of what it is like to live with a disability. Many people who become disabled deal with suicidal thoughts as a result of experiencing this trauma. If someone non-disabled is experiencing suicidal ideation, people around them try to help them move past those thoughts. If suicidal ideation is something to be fought against when a person isn’t disabled, why is it something to be given into when the person IS disabled?

The messages being delivered by these kinds of stories are dangerous. They tell disabled people they’d be better off dead. That a life with disability can’t be a life of quality. That disabled people are a burden. But it’s not just disabled people who are consuming these stories and internalizing these ideas. Non-disabled people are just as susceptible, if not more so. More often than not, they’re also the ones making legislation or telling other stories, so these ideas continue getting passed on and then implemented into the laws affecting our lives, as well as being integrated into our everyday lived experiences.

We know this is true because think about how well these types of stories do. “Million Dollar Baby” was a HUGE hit, and it’s another story where someone becomes disabled and after a skant amount of time in that situation, decides that they can’t live like this. This implies that a character’s only value is in her physical abilities, and if she doesn’t have those, she’s no longer a worthwhile human being. It completely ignores the intrinsic value all human beings have in simply existing.

Sometimes, actors want to leave a show, and the writers want to write them off in the most dramatic way possible. Certainly, getting shot in the throat is dramatic. But, it would have been just as feasible for his character to leave the show because he became paralyzed as it was for him to become paralyzed and die. After an injury like that, he would be in for years of recovery and rehabilitation. But he could have lived. He could have recognized the inherent value in his life beyond his work as a police officer. These stories are so one-sided, they almost never acknowledge the value of a life that looks different from what has so far been established. Well, if he can’t be a cop anymore, he might as well be dead.

Our physical capabilities are not the be all end all of our existence. What we can or can’t do with our bodies does not define us.

When we tell these types of stories, I don’t want to shy away from the difficult aspects of them. I don’t want to sugarcoat what it means to become disabled. There’s no need to pretend that people who experience this kind of trauma don’t have suicidal thoughts or that they don’t reach points where they want to give up. What I DO want these stories to do is acknowledge that most people move beyond those feelings. They learn a new way of living. They find value and joy in their new lives. They experience happiness. They live full lives. Disability is not the end of the story.

Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you in the next one.

[12:17]
[rock guitar music]