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Book Club: Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you production of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: another edition of book Club. We're making it the seat
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of our pants. The last day of July, we have
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: our book for disability Pride month. Before we get into that,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I did want to say I'm giving you a heads
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: up that in August the movie pic is Mine and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it's a spoiled Saturday on the movie Obsession. So if
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: you want to watch it, you've got time. You've got
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: like a month. It's streaming now. I have so many
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: thoughts that Oline is like pretty much already done. I'm
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: so hited.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Do you know which part I should be fast forwarding through?
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe the listeners need to know as well.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Well. I actually like I have talked to several people
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: about this who have seen it, about what I should
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: do about it, just because the way that part is
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: situated to tell you when it is is kind of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a spoiler in itself. I think I have a plan though. Okay,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: if listeners, if you are worried about the there's no
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: death of animal, but an animal does die and it
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: is a part of the plot.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I'll say, and I have to know
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: these things. I think the listeners, if you have been
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: around for a while, you know this. I am a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: sensitive baby when it comes to the fur babies.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I feel like you're gonna be very angry
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: with me, but you'll see why I like it. I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: think you're going to be like, this is an anti movie,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: which is a birthday pick for me and I that's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: gonna say for the listeners, you'll be like, oh Annie.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, and absolutely I can understand already with just the
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: premise and like all the like a little bit of
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: the things I've read about it why it is an
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: anti movie.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: But yes, I still probably will be upset with you. Yeah,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I'm bracing myself for it. But I don't think you're
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: gonna be happy about any of it. But you'll have
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: a lot to say, Okay, I'm sure. I'm sure I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: will have a lot to say. Good to note. Yes,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So listeners, there's your heads up about that. It's Samanth's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: turn to pick the book for August, because we are
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: trying to get better about giving you kind of a
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: warning so you can actually read or watch the thing
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: before we get to the episode. We haven't chosen it
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: yet though, we were talking about doing a childhood classic
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: m h, something like that. But if you have any suggestions,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: just let us know.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my right now current lead is the Babysitters Club.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: The super addition, would they go to California?
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that'd be fun.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I think it might be if I can remember everything,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: but it sticks with me pretty heavily.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I think that would be a good one.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But if y'all have something similar, like you're like, maybe
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: we should try this, let us.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Know, yes, yes, let us know. All right. So with
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: that housekeeping aside. For today's book club, we are talking
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: about Amanda La Duke's book Disfigured on fairy Tales, Disability,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and Making Space from twenty twenty. In it, she tackles
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: depictions of disability in Western fairy tales and their archetypes,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the history of how they came to be, and their
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: lasting impact. The Duke, who describes herself as a physically
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: disabled woman who also deals with a major depressive disorder,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: opens the book with a description of how the idea
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: came to her and how prolific the trope of disability
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: as an indicator that something is wrong and needs to
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: be changed or corrected or something that only a few
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: can accept, or it's an indie cater of a villain,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: or how it's used largely symbolically in these fairy tales,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and how much that has been prevalent in her life,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: whether she was when she was younger, I'm not quite
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: as much aware of it. The book is interspersed with
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: doctor's notes from when the Duke underwent in operation at
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the age of four to underline the story. Her parents
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: are being told about her disability, so she kind of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: has every chapter is tackling a different aspect of fairy
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: tales and disability, but then it as a piece of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: her own history and how at the end she ties
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: that up into kind of a fairy tale story, which
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I thought was pretty cool. I will say, we're not
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: really going to talk about it, but if you do
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: read this book, and I think you should spoilers her
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Game Thrones the finale, right, I mean in depth spoilers.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: So Samantha knows. I recently was burned on this because
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that feels like forever go to me. But I spoiled
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: it to somebody and they were not happy about it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So just put that out there, because there's no spoiler
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: warning in the book. We're giving it to you right now. Yes.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So this is one of those books that there's not
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: necessarily a plot to summarize because it's much more informational, educational, historical,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm fascinated with so much of it, so it
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was hard for me to just not go all in.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But for a basic background, fairy tales are really really
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: old and they are powerful. As the Duke emphasizes, written
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: fairy tales go back centuries, a genre that really solidified
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: during the Renaissance in Europe, but oral fairy tales go
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: back far, far longer. They are stories that captivate, stories
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that usually have some type of moralistic message or warning.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: They're very questy, where the characters are meant to learn
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: something at the end of the quest, then you get
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: your happy ending, you learn the lesson, then you're going
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to be set. Generally, we'll talk about that a little
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: bit more. A lot of them, in their original form
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: are much darker than their disneyfied counterparts, and many of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: them religious. I think a lot of us know that.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Now once you get older, you sort of you come
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: across the original Cinderella and you're like, oh my gosh,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: but yes, they're much darker than the Disney versions. Fairy
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Tales are fictional and magical, featuring some type of wonder,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: separate from misreligends. People do debate about what exactly constitutes
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a fairy tale when it comes to historical examples, and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: also about whether some fairy tales are a subclass of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: folk tales, which is a much broader global category of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: fairy tales usually denote something of European origin. Some stories
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: contain elements of fairy tales but would not be strictly
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: defined as one, like you can find kind of a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: little bit of a fairy tale element, but that's not
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: what the whole thing is, And fairy tale is can
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: be a lot of things, but one of the threads
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: throughout most of them is a protagonist who is in
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: some way different. The Duke argues that these stories are
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: used as a way to make sense of the world,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: especially before humanity had started making strides in the field
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of science, so they do feel very like when I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: think of a fairy tale, I think of European in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a home, like by a fire and telling your kids
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: like this is why you don't go in the woods,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: because there's a witch out there or something like that. Yes,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And the book has got a great history of fairy
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: tales outside of the exploration of the themes and disability representation,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and as I said, I really wanted to just repeat
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: all of it. I was particularly fascinated in the role
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of aristocratic women that they played in repeating fairy tales
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and making sure that they were preserved. But you'll have
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to read the book. It's filled with lots of fascinating
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: tidbits like the historical perception often negative, often misogynistic, of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: being left handed. Lots of definitions too, which y'all know
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: we love. Yes, so for a taste of what I'm
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: talking about. Quote, Indeed, the literary fairy tale became a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: powerful tool for the women of the court, who replaced
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: traditional patriarchal figures of power, not only with magical fairies,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but with all knowing, wise women who acted as guiding
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: forces for the protagonist. I think a future episode for sure.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: All right, So we do have some very general themes
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: our concepts that this book explored. One I don't want
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to start with is that, as we mentioned, she does
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: have her personal medical story, especially with cerebral palsy that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: she has throughout the book, and as she tells this
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: story alongside the examination of the fairy tale tropes to yeah,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: draw parallels around fear and lack of understanding when it
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: comes to disability, using medical notes to showcase the story
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: being told. Honestly, those medical notes from the doctor. I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: was like, is this a thing doctors do? This thing's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: very like a journal jury. But those are included, and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you know, even some of the medical staff. She remembers
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: or has spoken to her parents, and they remember not
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: knowing what to do or exactly what was going on.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: She highlights the desperation her parents felt, how they would
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: have done anything if it meant she was healthy, including
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: many fairy tale like things. So there's a sort of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a a parallel between medical interventions and magical interventions and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what those can look like in fairy tales. But also
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: why at one time, before we had the science, it
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: might have seemed magical or something something not understood. She
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: also breaks down different models of understanding disability, including the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: social model. So here's a quote social model of disability,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: which holds that disability of individuals is in fact maintained
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: by systemic barriers exclusion and negative attitude. It's toward these
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: disabilities more than the physical limitations of the conditions themselves.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: The social model of disability stands in contrast to the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: medical model, which which links a body directly to a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: diagnosis and places emphasis on the intervention of medicine as
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a way of solving or eradicating the particular disability or condition.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So the argument there would be the disabled body is wrong,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: not society, Like the disabled body needs to be fixed.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It is bad, and this is something that we see
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in fairy tales and throughout the book, she reiterates the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: point that society is really what should be changing. We're
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that's not the problem. Isn't people who with a disabled body.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It is society not accommodating them or caring for them
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: at all. So here's another quote. It is never society
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that changes. No matter how many half animals or skullar
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: maids are out there arguing for their place at the table,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: is almost always the protagonists themselves who transform in some way,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: becoming more palatable, more beautiful, more easily able to fit
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: into the mold of society already in place. So's yeah,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it's basically that society can't or won't improve, So the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: protagonists must prove their worthiness and usually there's a price
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to be paid for this transformation. In fairy tales, it's
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: very individualistic. I was thinking about this because a lot
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of it does have a you know, people coming together,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: friends love, all that stuff, But at the same time,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it is very individualistic in terms of your journey and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you being the one who has to solve whatever problem.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the examples she gave, some of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: which were fascinating, I've never heard of some of the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: same she the stories she brought in, but one of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the ones is snow White, which was the first animated
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Disney film, and she was talking about, you know, that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: came out during the Great Depression, and it was everybody's strapped,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: everybody's hurting, and here comes this movie that's very optimistic
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and very like whistle while you work and it will
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: be okay and all of that, and so it makes
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: sense that people were attracted to that story, but it
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't in line with what was going on. There's also
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the charity model, which she does touch on a few
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: times and basically is like, you know, charity is not
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: necessarily a bad thing, but it's still not addressing the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: societal issue, like we can't just depend on that. Yeah,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And speaking of governments is also a discussion of the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: whipization of fairy tale ideas with someone like Trump, So
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you kind of like using that some of these archetypes
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and stereotypes that we're going to get into that she
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: gets into a lot, and just using it that as
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: a way of like, if you are suffering, if you
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: are struggling, that is on you. You're not working hard enough, right, Yes,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But she also highlights and that fairy tales and storytelling
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in journal often is used to speak truth to power
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and the power of that, but how often in fairy
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: tales it's usually still within constraints of the status quo
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to kind of keep these harmful social structures in place.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Like it's speaking truth to power, but only to a point.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Another thing she talks about in the book is realizing
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: what makes her her different at a young age and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: not seeing herself in fairy tales and knowing that the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: fairy tale happy ending wasn't real, but still having trouble
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: separating that from our reality. So she talks a lot
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: about the Little Mermaid, which also is one of my
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: favorites when I was a kid.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Right her, like the the actual one. I was like,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: oh damn, I didn't know all that.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the original fairy tale is real rough, real rough.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, well okay, yeah, I mean it's it makes
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: total sense because I know, like the big conversation with
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the little Mermaid that I remember was, oh, she gave
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: up her voice for man. But also the Duke was
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: talking about having someone who wanted to walk, who wanted
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: legs so desperately, and seeing that on screen. Also, of course,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of these, especially Disneyfiede fairy tales, their traditional white,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: able bodied, beautiful women, and these are the visual cues
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that are used to be like, oh, her inner beauty
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: matches her outer beauty, She's so beautiful. Here's the quote.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: The message is that heroism isn't possible without the physical perfection,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: especially for girls. Yes, And if you go into the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: history of what was going on, and a lot of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: these were written, which was Renaissance chirrup, women's agency was
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: largely and their sexuality and their boy like, there was
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: not a lot of choice there. So the history I
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: maintain fascinating. Here's another quote, and how to wrestle with
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: this difference between the able bodied art and the disabled
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: one when disability is so entirely absent from these happy endings.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And we do have a whole section on happy endings
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: at the end, But yeah, I mean, if most of
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the quest is that you are getting rid of a disability,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and that's just something as because these are usually aimed
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: towards young children, there's something you internalize really really early.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And if you never see a disability and the happy
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: endings at all, then that easily can I can tell you, oh,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I won't have a happy ending then? Right? Yeah. Now
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that being said, she has gotten older, the Duke, she
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: has reframed how she narrates her own story to herself,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and she does make the point that she really wishes
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: that she had known this when she was younger, that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: she had had some of the newer representation when she
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was younger, but that she has reached a place where
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: she's kind of reframed it, and I really like how
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: she tells it in sort of a fairy tale style
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: at the end her own story. Okay, so a representation
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: in fairy tales, as you might have gathered already, it's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: not great, not great, here's the quote, why in all
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of these stories about someone who wants to be something
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: or someone else, was it always the individual who needed
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to change and never a world? So yes, that goes
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: back to that point of you're the one that needs
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to change. You're the one that needs to fit into
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: this mold. It the world isn't wrong, you need to adjust.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of gender and intersections that she
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: points out in this conversation too. There's a really interesting
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: one about mental health and how that's treated in fairy tales,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: but also how we can kind of see how that
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: has leaked out into the world. That's how people view
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: if women act a certain way, then she's a mad
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: woman and something is wrong with her, which is not
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: necessarily the case. But also it's quite a way to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: just dismiss somebody who might you know, have depression or something. Also,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: as I said, the whole sexual agency and beauty thing.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you watch any fairy tale movie, it's clear,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: like I don't think you'd have to watch a single
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: listen to a single word. If you I showed you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: a frame of it of like all the women characters,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, there's your that's the protagonist. That's the antagonist.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: You can tell. Something else that she brought up in
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: this conversation was this whole kind of these really unwarranted,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: unnecessary things. People will say like, oh, look at you.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: You can do it to somebody in it who's using
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: a wheelchair, but also to someone who is marrying somebody
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: with a disability, they'd be like, oh wow, basically some
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: kind of way of saying, you're marrying out of pity.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Like the implication is you're marrying that person out of pity,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: which that's a terrible thing too. Don't don't do that.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So also, as we said, these are these are aim
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: towards you younger audiences, and they are very moralistic and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes pretty religious. They're early ones like the Brother's Grim
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: they were very religious. So that is being absorbed by
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: young minds seeing this and kind of seeing the same
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: story reiterated in all these different ways, and that can
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: have and has had real world implications. So one of
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the examples the Duke gifts is of changings. Changings is
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: widely understood to be like a creature that comes to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: take the place of your child, but it can be
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: an adult. And the history around That is fascinating too,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: because she was talking about how there would be like
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: this separation period in parts of Ireland, I believe, between
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: a mother and her baby after it was born. So
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that kind of gave rise to the changeling thing, but
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: also a misunderstanding of postpardon depression. But she cites a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: case from the eighteen hundreds in Ireland of a woman
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: who is murdered because she was suspected of being a changeling.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: But when you look into the details, it kind of
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: seems like her husband just was angry with her as
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: she was successful and might have been having an affair,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but she was successful and he just kept being like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that's not her, and everybody listened to him, didn't listen
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to her. Yep. And another thing, another point she makes
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it isn't a stretch to draw a line from the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Grim's treatment of stories and storytelling as a nationalistic device
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: through to Nazi Germany and the depiction of the disabled
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: other body as something that needs to be extinguished. So yeah,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I mean that's another I would say. One of her
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: key points, like her thesis of this whole thing, is
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that these stories matter, They're more than just stories. They
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: have had impacts, and there is one because you grow
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: up everybody's reading this story, these stories where the goal
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is to get rid of a disability and that's how
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you get your happy ending. And yeah, so there's that
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: element too of the victim blaming aspects of you just
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: need to be happier or try harder. As we've discussed before,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: inspiration porn can play into this. You know, you know
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: what it is. It's able bodied people using disabled bodied
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: people to make themselves feel better, essentially, but it's very demeaning,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it's very belittling. It's very like, oh, look what they're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: able to overcome. But it doesn't address the fact that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: society isn't doing the bare minimum. It's a nice way
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of packaging the fact that nothing is changing because this
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: person could do it. So at the end of the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: quest in a fairy tale, yes, the disability is typically
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: removed unless it's the villain, and then the disability is
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: permanent and somehow their fault. So the impetus is squarely
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: on the individual to work hard enough to complete their
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: quest and rid themselves of their disability. And that also
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: comes back to the moralistic part of it, because then
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: you're saying essentially, well, the villain didn't have the morality,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: which this is just a horrible like the board ward
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I think about it, it's like somssed around. But another
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: point she makes is about loss of mobility in in
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: fairy tales and ways that able bodied people might not
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: necessarily pick up on. And so one of the examples
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: she gives is of the movie Maleficent, in which Maleficent
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: has her wings forcibly removed. And it's a really traumatic scene.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: But le Duke or you said, that's you know, can
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: to like taking away somebody's mobility AIDS or something like that,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And so why four people in the disability community that
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: kind of resonated or was really shocking. She also has
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a section on superheroes Marvel superheroes, which she kind of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: compares to more modern day fairy tales, I would agree.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: A friend of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum, once said to me,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: she said it very sarcastically, but she said, she said,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: she's happy that men have to go through the Disney
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: princification now. But yeah, and a lot of those it's
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: still disability is still portrayed as a weakness. So the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: exam she gives is Captain America. At the beginning of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Captain America is a small for his age, has asthma,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and you could argue how it's a disability, and he
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: wants to go fight in the in the war and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is not allowed until he gets the seerum and it
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: makes him like a super soldier. So she was saying,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: like kind of erasing the people that he would represent
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: who wanted to get into the army and never did.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Didn't have that serrum. So that brings us to happy endings,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the fairy tale happy ending, and so many questions about them.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Who deserves them, why do they deserve them? Does the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: happy ending change something fundamental about themselves, like a disability?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And you know, also the happy ending is usually the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: end of the quest, but then you're kind of ignoring
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you get married, that you got to put all the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: work into the marriage. It's not like it just ends there.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And she made a great point about her a depressive
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: episode she had where she kept thinking, you know, I've
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: done these things, I should feel like I've reached the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: happy ending, but the happy ending we can never really
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: reach her. No, Nope. So there are a couple of
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: things to bring up with this one. She does discuss
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: symbolism as a form of erasure, So like using disability
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: to make sure something is memorable, but it's not. It's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: more metaphorical, are symbolic than an actual disability, Like it's
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: meant to indicate a past trauma or something, but it's
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: not actually treated as a disability. Uh, that's no surprise
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to anyone. But a happily ever after for women usually
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: equals finding a prince. It's a very romantic happily ever after.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And again going back to one of these were written
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that usually meant, well, that's that's what I don't know,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: that's my I'm a wife, that's my identity. Yes, I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: do think there is a lot of a lore and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: power of a happy ending. And one of the reasons
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I think so is that I it's like a need
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to make sense of things in our lives, like to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: make things story, makes something a story, and make it
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a story that makes sense, and make it a story
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that is leading up to a happy ending. If I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: do all of the right things, if I do all
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of the work, I will get this happy ending. But
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: when we're talking about in this case specifically disability and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's not represented in these happy endings.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: That is really damaging. It's really damaging. We've said it
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in recent episodes, but the disability community is the largest
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: marginalized community in the world, and to not have an
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: example of a happy ending with a disabled character is egregious,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Like that's that's wild, And once you start thinking about it,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: there are so many examples of fairy tales where disability
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: or disfigurement are meant to be cured, or they're used
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: to punish people or teach them lessons for judging a
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: false disability. So I can't remember the name of it,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: but it's something about hedgehog. Yes, I never heard of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: this one, but essentially the story is that a boy
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: is born is half hedgehog, and Hans Hans Hans a hedgehog. Okay,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and he like a successful he like makes it, but
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: he is turned down by one princess who's not not
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: into him. And then he finds another princess and she's like, okay, yes,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: and he reveals that the hedgehog it was just like
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: a suit and he takes it off and it's like
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: that's her reward for not judging him for the ability.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Right by the way, Yeah, the impelling of the other
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: princess was like, this is interesting.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I cannot stress enough listeners, these are dark. These old
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: fairy tales did not play around.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: That was her punishment because she didn't want to be
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: with him, which, by the way, can we just talk
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: about the fact that she was forced to marry him
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: no matter what? It was such a weird moment, an
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: odd moment to be like, is that does she deserves that? Okay,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I understand that she's being mean and still an interesting thing.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah that.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, yeah, the morality is questionable
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: in these stories, right And.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: By the way, do you remember that's kind of a
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: thing that happens in the Witcher? Do you remember that
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: character he is? I think he's a hedgehog or a badger,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: like his face is, but like the very blonde is
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: in love with him and like he turns back to
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: himself at midnight or something. But I wondered if that
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: had something to do with that fairy tale had because
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I've never heard that either, And I.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Was like, what is what is this?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: What is I've never heard of this fairy tale that
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the very rich farmer was the one that they longed
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: for Our son and literally said, I don't care if
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: it's a hedgehog, and that's what he was given.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: And then he was like, oh no, I do care.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I guess yeah, it turns out.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Turns out, which, by the way, they don't get pun.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well that's another aspect that she didn't go
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: too much into, and we won't either. But I find
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: interesting about early fairy tales is like, I'm like Hansel
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and Gretel, for instance, is very much punishing the children
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and not these adults who weren't taking care of them,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: or it would just like go into the woods and
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: it's the kid's fault.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: So on, this entire situation was like these women's faults.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Like the one tale that I was like, whoa cut
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: off the hands and I was like, wait, why so
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: the father could be rich?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I'm very confused. Yeah, a lot of the ones that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I think of that I'm familiar with, but also the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: example she gave, I would say, are much more moralistic
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: towards women. Yeah.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Well, and she does talk about that transformation from when
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: it became like a tale of women being able to
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: overcome to being like moralized to know, women, you better
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: stay in your place.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: This will happen to you.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: This is where your real places in life. And this
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: has something to do with religion as well, because also
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: the conversation about fairies was really interesting.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: There's a lot in this all that I was like,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I apparently I.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Thought I knew a lot more because I knew about
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the Grimm's fairy tale level. I knew most of these
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: were really dark. But I was like, damn, I didn't
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: know it was that dark. Yeah, And some of these
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know at all. I was like, well, okay,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I've never heard about the Little marmade one. I didn't
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: know the true part of that. I thought I knew
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: about most of them. This one I didn't know. Didn't
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: know about the hedgehog, didn't know about the like hands
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: cut off of the woman that was. I was like,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: what what are these?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, and she, I mean, she doesn't go to
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: in depth to it, but she gives two pretty powerful
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: examples of rape being perfectly acceptable, yes, and romanticize what
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: we've talked about that previously.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: And I do like, I I know these tales in itself,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: these cautionary tales do perceive disability as being a punishment,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: which is part of the conversation of like this is
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: why ableism is so bad, like these tales being told
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: instead of understanding the science and biology behind it, as
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: well as the fact that she continues to say a
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: person like she says, like she prefers disabled person over
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: a person with disabilities and the reasonings for that, like
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: this is that very conversation we've had with other activists
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: who talk about them being the disabled person, whether it's
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: through an invisible disability or not, like embracing that as
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: a part of who they are and not necessarily as
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: something to overcome, which is like something that we've all
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: been taught and that goes hand in hand with the
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: inspiration form and trying to undo those thought process and
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: it's really hard, like I will say, as a person
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: who have been taught like in my generation again to pity,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: which is an unfortunate idea deal because it has been
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: such a taboo to even have a conversation about it
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: and now understanding, oh, this is what this is and
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: this is how we should be at looking at it.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: But what we have learned from fairy tales in this
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: self is kind of how we have understood it. And
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: that's really unfortunate because it's a very big miscommunication and
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: very ablest in conversation.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and like we've been saying from a very
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: young age, we are taught this. I really love how
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: she towards the end and she's she's by no means sugarcoating.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I like that recently we've been very clear some days
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you have good days and some days you have bad
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: days at whatever we're talking about. But so she's not
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: sugarcoating that. But I like how she was like reframing
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: what she personally had been told what I think a
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: lot of us have been told of. This is an
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: automatic weakness. You were automatically lesser. It's not good to
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like finding joy our knowledge and knowing the things that
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: you can do that able bodied people can't do or
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: don't realize are all all of those things, and seeing
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: it in that way instead of an automatic like it's
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: painted in fairy tales. Oh this is really negative.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Right, And just her daily interactions with people or different
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: people talking about, oh, you've overcome this, I could never
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I could like that statement in itself is really harming,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: and that is a very very taling of telling about
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the people's ableism, because you know, I think that that's
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that level that we all have. We're told we should
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: be grateful, Like I hate this that I grew up
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: with my mother pointing people out with disabilities, like that's.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: That that could be you.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: You know, you're like, wow, you would think about back
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: on it and being like, wait, that can be me,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Like and it couldn't be mean. The these are things
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: that you don't understand. Why back then you understood it
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: because that's what you're being told again being shaped this way.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: But you can looking back and you're like, oh god,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: what an ablest point of view? What like, no wonder
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the discrimination against a disabled people is so high because
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: we continue to have this attitude which is really alarming
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: and we should be called out.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I thought it was pretty shocking at
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the end when she's saying it's stage actress from Oklahoma.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, that was so disappointing.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Very recently was the first woman of the disability to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: win a Tony and they like multiple times couldn't get
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: to the stage because they didn't have a ramp, they
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: didn't have accessibility.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Which is so absurd for such a place a venue
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: because it's a very popular venue that would not have
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: it And You're like, well, that should be one of
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: the requirements if they're hosting such an event, that you
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: must have this before you are even considered, which is
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: oftentimes a thing. You have to have all these following
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: things in order to be even considered to be able
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: to host something that should be a thing. I don't
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: understand how an organization liked the Tonys would not even
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: look at that.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and that was kind of her point is
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: that if you never see disability represented then and it's
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: never in life accommodated, then it's very easy to not
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: take it into account for people.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: And it's so baffling because there's actual things that you
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: can use, even temporary. It shouldn't be, but like really
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: easy to access now a lot easier.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I'm baffled. I'm disappointed. I was disappointed by that she
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: should get to be.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Up there, and yet she was part of the reason
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: that it won awards.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Come on. Well, another thing she points out a lot
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: in the book is the importance of community, and so
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: going back to that idea of like, you know, society
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: is really what needs to change, But also she gives
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a couple of examples of if we have community in
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: these stories then what would it have looked like, What
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: would have looked like if I had community when I
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: was younger, And so the importance of that, the importance
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: of language, which is something we constantly grapple with, but
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: when it comes to disability, there are a lot of
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: words that people use that have a really dark history,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and so just keeping that in mind, but also realizing
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: how baked in to our language ableism is because none
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: of those they're not used with a good connotation. And yeah,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: she says, these are never only stories, but frameworks to
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: understand and navigate the world. That's why we use fairy tales,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: That's why they lasted so long. And so if the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: framework that's being presented in these fairy tales is very ablest,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: then that is going to impact how people navigate the world.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And it has had these real world impacts and a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: lot of cases. And so she ends the book with
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a call for more disability representation, and it's really great
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: because she gives just a bunch of different examples of
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: like what if we did this, or what if we
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: did this, or what if we did this? These are
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: characters you don't need to fix, right, but they would
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: be great heroes I agree, agreed, Yes, yes, well I
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: think it's a great book. I personally am fascinated with
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the history of it, of fairy tales, and there are
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: so many great little side quests and tangents, so really
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: recommend it in the meantime, listeners, if you would like
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: to contact us, you can. You can email us at
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Hello at Stuffnever Told You dot com. You can find
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok as stuff I Never Told You for
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: us on YouTube. We have some rchandise coom here, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: we have a book you can get where you get
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: your books. Thanks as always to our super Arima andering
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: secret producer Maya, thank you, and thanks to you for
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: listening Steffan Never Told his production of iHeartRadio. For more
• 42:38
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• 42:41
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