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Disabling imagery

Disabling imagery. Images as ‘disciplinary power’. 'Disciplinary power' and the 'disciplinary gaze' (Foucault, 1977).

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Disabling imagery

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  1. Disabling imagery Images as ‘disciplinary power’

  2. 'Disciplinary power' and the 'disciplinary gaze' (Foucault, 1977). • Disciplinary power emerged in the eighteenth century, when disciplinary techniques 'crossed the ‘technological threshold' and became instruments of a new kind of power (Foucault, 1977: 224). • As a technique of power, it is quite distinct from 'the majestic rituals of sovereignty or the great apparatus of the state' (Foucault, 1977: 170).

  3. The three silent mechanisms of the ‘gaze’ • Three 'simple instruments' of disciplinary power: 'hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement and their combination in a procedure that is specific to it, the examination' (Foucault, 1977: 170).

  4. Images of disability as hierarchical observation • Bethan’s Panopticon: a structure that ‘would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly… a perfect eye that nothing would escape the centre towards which all gazes would be turned’ (Foucault, 1977: 173). • The unified disciplinary gaze ‘traverses all points and supervises every instant' (Foucault, 1977: 183).

  5. Images as normalising judgements: the disciplinary image • Disciplinary power acts upon individuals to ensure they are ‘trained or corrected, classified, normalised, excluded etc.’ (Foucault, 1977: 191). • It is a force that acts by measuring ‘in quantitative terms and hierarchies in terms of value the abilities, the level, the 'nature' of individuals’ and, using this information, ‘introduces… the constraint of a conformity that must be achieved’ (Foucault, 1977: 183).

  6. Normalisation and attention • All the time that the ends of our practice are (mis)informed by “unexamined notions of ‘normality’,” we can but find ourselves sauntering through our professional lives, only half-awake to their richness and complexity (Barton & Corbett, 1993: 15).

  7. Images as a mechanism of examination • The examination is ‘a mechanism of objectification’, the ‘examination is, as it were, the ceremony of this objectification’ (Foucault: 1977: 187).

  8. Disciplinary images of disability • Prejudice is not just interpersonal – between the abled and the dis-abled – but is also implicit in cultural representations of persons with impairments (Shakespeare, 1994). • Prejudice is a form of ‘disciplinary power’ • Prejudice can be as powerfully disabling as any social structure.

  9. Barnes (1992) on categories of disciplinary images • Category One: The Tragic conception of Disability • Category Two: The Disabled Person as Sinister and Evil • Category Three: The Disabled Person with super human abilities • Category Four: The Disabled Person as an Object of Ridicule • Category five: The Disabled Person as Incapable of Participating Fully in Community Life • Category six: Positive Images of disability

  10. Category 1: The Tragic conception of Disability • ‘The pitiful disabled characters initially evoke hostile feelings because they have come to represent experiences – such as vulnerability and dependency – which have been repressed in the spectator. These hostile feelings are then quickly transformed … into guilt and attempts to secure forgiveness’. • (Marks, 1999:166-67)

  11. Posters for a drugs company

  12. Category Two: The Disabled Person as Sinister and Evil • ‘This distortion of the experience of disability is present in a great deal of literature and art, both classical and popular, and continues to be produced today.’ • (Barnes, 1992)

  13. Schizoid (1972) The Warning: ‘Not Recommended Viewing for Persons with Schizophrenic Tendencies!’

  14. Category Three: The Disabled Person as a person with super human abilities • ‘... by flaunting normal accomplishments as extraordinary, by hailing people with disabilities as human wonders, aggrandized presentations probably taught the lesson that achievement for people with differences was unusual rather than common.’ • (Bogdan, 1988: 279). • They make overcoming disability the responsibility of the disabled person. • Barnes (1992): these images ‘can result in them [the disabled] being denied essential services’.

  15. Category Four: The Disabled Person as an Object of Ridicule • Toni Morrison (1993/1997: 270): 'lethal discourses of exclusion blocking access to cognition for both the excluder and the excluded'. • Lethal because they are so few positive images to contradict them (Shakespeare, 1999). The Trentonian (New Jersey), July 10th, 2002

  16. Category five: The Disabled Person as incapable of inclusion in community life • The disabled amount to just 1.5% of all characters portrayed in TV films and dramas (Cumberbatch & Negrine,1992) • In contrast, Government evidence reveals that at least 12% of the British population are disabled people (Barnes, 1992).

  17. Warned New Yorkers to beware of a terrifying new crime wave: “In our newfound complacency, we have forgotten a particular kind of violence to which we are still prey. The violence of the mentally-ill.”

  18. Poster for a drug company

  19. Category six: Positive Images of disability • Ideas? • Excellent websites: • http://www.disability-archive.leeds.ac.uk/ • http://www.cinemaniastigma.com/pages/1/index.htm • http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/resources/teaching/disability/guide.html

  20. References • Barnes, C. (1992) Disabling Imagery and the Media: An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People • Barton, L. & Corbett, J. (1993) Special needs in further education: the challenge of inclusive provision, European Journal of Special Needs Education, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.14-22 • Bogdan, R. (1988) Freak show: presenting human oddities for amusement and profit (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press) • Cumberbatch, G. & Negrine, R. (1992) Images of Disability onTelevision (London, Routledge) • Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Trans. by A. Sheridan, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books)

  21. Oliver, M. and Barnes, C. (1998) Disabled People and Social Policy: From Exclusion to Inclusion, Harlow, Addison Wesley Longman. • Marks , D. (1999) Disability: Controversial debates and psychological perspectives (London: Rutledge) • Shakespeare. T. (1994) Cultural Representation of Disabled People: Dustbins for Disavowal? [Online] http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disabilitystudies/archiveuk/archframe.htm [22/09/04] • Shakespeare, T. (1999) Art and lies? Representations of disability on film, In M. Corker & S. French (Eds) Disability Discourse (Philadelphia: Open University Press)

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