[nabs-l] Resources on portrayal of blind characters in film and media

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi all,

I am taking an English class on super heros this semester, and am
currently working on a paper with a prompt which is something like
this.  "Using one of the four writing disciplines we've discussed
(humanities, social science, natural or applied science, or business)
analyze a super hero's character.  Be sure to follow the writing
conventions associated with your chosen discipline, including
guidelines for citation and formatting."

I was never really into comic books before taking this course, so the
only super hero I know well is Daredevil.  I have chosen to write my
paper on how Daredevil perpetuates false stereotypes about blind
people, but also defies them.  For example, Daredevil is incredibly
independent when he's fighting crime, however one must question if
this super independence helps the general public who might not
necessarily be familiar with blindness to see Daredevil as someone who
defies stereotypes, or someone who projects what we would call the
"superblind" image.  The character of Matt Merdock is also
complicated; even though Daredevil was created in the 60s, Matt
Merdock is braille-literate, able to take care of himself, and is
gainfully employed as a lawyer.  Granted, the general public probably
still doesn't know much about sheltered workshops, but Stan Lee could
have had Matt selling pencils on a street corner if he wanted to.  On
the other hand, since I'm using the movie as a point of reference
since I can't read the comics, I've noticed a few things which make
Matt a stereotypical blind person.  I do know that some blind people,
particularly those who are sensitive to light, sometimes wear
sunglasses.  I'm using the descriptive version of the movie along with
descriptions of verbal content I've gathered from sighted friends, and
though there is no mention of this Matt wears sunglasses almost all
the time.  I think this is probably something the director chose to do
because of the stereotype that blind people would want to hide their
eyes because they might look weird to the sighted, rather than
something that is more sensical.  There is also a scene in the movie,
when Matt and Nelson are at the coffee shop, where Nelson puts mustard
in Matt's coffee.  Matt doesn't seem to notice.  I don't know, but I
think most capable blind people would be smart enough to figure out
when someone was tampering with their drink, especially Matt if he's
got radar sense.  If it is as acute as the comic and movie make it out
to be, he probably would be able to tell how close Nelson's hand was
to him and would be able to guess that the mustard was going into his
coffee and not Nelson's.  He would also probably be able to hear the
size of the mustard bottle, and would know that it wasn't cream or
something one would typically put in coffee, plus the smell which he
is also supposed to be very sensitive to.  This just makes Matt look
pretty gullible and bumbling.  The radar sense is complicated in
itself, because of several reasons.  Since the movie is a reboot, and
crams 40 years of the comic story line into 2003 and shortly before as
Matt was growing up, there are conflicting issues at work.  On one
hand, it is completely ridiculous to suggest that blind people have
better hearing due to compensation for loss of sight, but on the other
there is research which has shown that blind people can be trained to
use teir hearing to enhance their spatial awareness.  Daniel Kish has
been studying flash sonar for years, and has conducted neurological
research which shows that a blind person's visual cortex can be
stimulated by auditory cues which provide information about space.
So, in that point of my paper, Daredevil does a little bit of defying
stereotypes and perpetuating ridiculous ones.

Anyhow, I'm looking for resources, and was wondering if anyone else
has written papers on stereotypes of blindness.  So far I've got a few
sources from my university library coming in on the movie itself, and
something about how Blind characters are portrayed in film.  The
latter article is specifically about blind women, but I can probably
find a few points that can be generalized to all blind characters.
I'm also using the 2009 report on the Braille Literacy Chrisis from
the NFB to show statistics of illiteracy, unemployment, and high
school drop-out among the blind, and how Matt Merdock actually is
independent because he does not fall into any of these categories.
Any other resources or suggestions would be appreciated.

-- 
Kaiti