Planet of the Blind

Channel Surfing

Geraldo Rivera; Donald Trump;

Charles Colson; Forest Gump;

Ibuprofen; foaming goo;

Sunday sermon; tar shampoo;

Dagwood Bumstead; W. Bush;

Mystery meats; baby’s tush;

Higher Ed; window shade;

Rainbow trout; Dennis Quaid;

Dental Hygiene; Je m’appelle "Joe";

Alka Seltzer; Edgar Poe;

Ersatz Shakespeare; "fungal toe!"

S.K.

Why We Need TV and Movies That Include People with Disabilities: Part 104

So there I was today on NPR’s “On Point” program with two terrific blind professionals and I was feeling like the school kid who has to use the bathroom and can’t wait any longer to announce the matter. I needed to say that the reason blind people are so woefully unemployed and the reason that the public marvels at the accomplishments of exemplary blind professionals like Gordon Gund or David A. Paterson is that the film and TV industries continue to make blindness look horrible.  Who wouldn’t imagine, after seeing that dreadful movie “At First Sight” (with Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino) that being blind isn’t  a minimal life? That movie came out at the same time as my memoir “Planet of the Blind” and it reinforced every cliché about blindness that I was trying to conquer. If the human resources professionals saw a prime time television show in which a blind person confidently uses state of the art assistive technology—heck, even showing the non-disabled characters a thing or two about the gizmos, well that would be as big a step toward changing the climate of unemployment for the blind as our well intentioned celebration of Governor Paterson’s oath of office. Let’s face it: the public thinks that blind people are scarcely able to navigate their living rooms. How could they possibly serve as good employees? That Ph.D. or Master’s degree must be some kind of a trick. That’s it! The “brainiac” blind woman or man is probably “faking it” just like those guys you see  begging for money with the phony sunglasses. Yep! That’s gotta be it! How do I know this at (insert company name here)? Because I just saw Disney’s film version of Mr. Magoo. Now there’s a blind guy for you! Ha! I laughed til  I dropped my popcorn on my plaid shorts. Boy Oh Boy  was that ever a good movie!

In case anybody’s wondering, I was once interviewed by a producer of ABC’s television program “20/20”about the possibility of an interview associated with the publication of “Planet of the Blind”. What did I do to ruin the deal? I mentioned that ABC is owned by Disney and that the new film of Mr. Magoo was a disgrace. They were very nice as they showed me to the door.

S.K.   

Professor Stephen Kuusisto
Department of English
The University of Iowa
308 EPB
Iowa City, IA 52242

Links:

Remembering Mr. Magoo

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv

Dog Food for Everyone!

When I was around ten years old I used to play a game with my cousin Jim (who was just a couple of years younger)—a game we called "Guess the Taste" which required a blindfold and a can opener. Occasionally my sister would also join us. The person wearing the blindfold would have to eat whatever combination of "goodies" the director provided, and as you can imagine this meant that one or the other of us would wind up eating canned dog food with spicy mustard or peanut butter with garden slugs. It was a dreadful game but what made it endurable was that it was democratic. If I gave Jim a pickle dipped in kitty litter he would get revenge by handing me an Oreo cookie with a housefly inside. You couldn’t refuse to eat "the thing" as we called it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I was reminded of "Guess the Taste" last evening while channel surfing. Suddenly, there appeared on my screen two overgrown ten year olds and wouldn’t you know it—they were playing with a can opener and a blindfold though of course they didn’t know .

The gassy, superannuated, and undifferentiated ten year olds were none other than right wing commentator Glen Beck and Harvard professor of law, Alan Dershowitz.

Glen Beck was saying that he counts as one of his friends a university president who reports that college professors are terrible people. Dershowitz jumped right in by saying that there is no more cowardly class of people than tenured college faculty and then he went on to say that most of them are aging liberals who harangue today’s students with political demagoguery left over from the sixties and these people will defend the rights of the very people who want to destroy our nation, etc. etc.. I think he also said something about how scandalous it is that the salaries of these professors are paid for by the taxpayers. (You’ve always got to make a bad taste even worse so the one with the blindfold won’t know what the original thing might be. But I digress.)

Heck. I’m not prey to the pretense that my views about the world are legion. My sense of humor alone assures that I’m mostly a lonely man. (For instance I think it’s funny that "Episcopal" and "Pepsi-cola" are composed from the same letters.)

I’ve been teaching in higher education for close to thirty years. My father was a highly successful college president. I think I can say with assurance that I’ve lived most of my life in the vicinity of American colleges and universities.

I have absolutely no idea what Glen Beck and Dershowitz are carrying on about. Professors are in my experience as uncategorizable as New York City cab drivers. Some are right wingers. Some are lefties. Some are drunks. Some are not. Some (like myself) love John Wayne movies. Some think "the Duke" was a fascist.

Beating up on "the professoriate" is as stupid and pointless as playing "Guess the Taste" except it’s even stupider since real ten year olds don’t pretend to moral or political superiority.

Colleges remain this nation’s leading forum for the free expression of ideas. Some ideas are better than others. Today, for instance, they don’t burn women at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts. Alright, I’m spray painting the lily.

Glen Beck is a smart fella. But really, c’mon. There are right wing professors who helped George W. Bush prattle on and on about the idea that global warming is a fiction.

As for Dershowitz: we know he will put anything on a fork if he thinks you can’t see.

S.K.

TV Land Strikes Again

TV Land Redux Redux

So last night Connie and I were channel surfing while eating dinner and between the game show where the husband and wife are asked to disclose the kind of sound their bed springs make and the prison show where we’re asked to become complicit "gazers" as underprivileged and undereducated people are incarcerated—between these shows we found ABC’s program 20/20 (their version of Dateline) and lo and behold they were doing a segment on people who have serious genetically transmitted birth deformities and neurological illnesses. What caught my attention was the "framing language" that the producers were using: one woman’s illness was introduced with a sinister analogy: "Like a poisoned apple from a tree, (insert patient’s name) this illness befell her, etc." The implication is of course layered with cultural meanings. Like Eve this woman ate the taboo apple? Like Snow White she ate the poisoned fruit? I couldn’t believe my ears! Genetically inherited diseases do not manifest themselves like the fruits of superstitions or biblical narratives. The uncomprehending television viewer, hearing this without analysis would be inclined to think that genetic misfortune may be a kind of divine punishment. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Tobit, in the Old Testament is blinded by the Lord. Tiresias is blinded by Hera in Greek mythology. Certainly if you have a disability you’ve done something wrong where the gods are concerned. I was absolutely dismayed to see ABC using this kind of nonsense as a framing device for their story about real people. Thank God the phone rang! Perhaps the phone rang like a poisoned apple falling from the tree of life?

S.K.

Oprah, If Only You Had Read the Book!

In 1998 I published a memoir entitled “Planet of the Blind” and much to my delight some good reviewers praised the book.  The memoir received strong reviews in The New York Times and USA Today and suddenly I was invited to be a guest on National Public Radio’s superb program “Talk of the Nation”.

This was heady stuff for a guy who had been writing poetry for 18 years.  In the poetry world you are very lucky if you have a hundred readers and let me tell you, 100 readers is pretty much beyond the wildest dreams of most of the talented and deserving poets I’ve met along the road.

Each time something good happened where the book was concerned my wife would say, jokingly, “Yeah, that’s great; just let me know when Oprah calls”  We would chuckle about that.

The reason we’d laugh about Oprah is that “Planet of the Blind” is not the kind of book that haunts the bestseller lists.  The book isn’t lurid; it’s not angry; it doesn’t even have much of a plot.  In fact it’s such an odd book that it’s difficult to describe.  It’s in part a history of blindness in America and part a “coming of age” story by a writer who largely grew up feeling ashamed of his blindness.  The story isn’t particularly unusual and even worse from a sales standpoint; I have an addiction for big words. 

Monica Moshenko Interviews Howard Renensland, Founder & CEO, [with]tv

Monica Moshenko, host of Disability News & Views Radio Show has interviewed [with]tv Founder and CEO, Howard Renensland.  On her website she introduced Howard by writing this:

Howard Renensland, Father, Advocate, Actor and CEO & Founder, [with]tv

[with]tv is a start-up corporation devoted to providing television and Internet programming of, by, and for people with disabilities. Driven by his own experiences the past 22 years advocating for his own daughter Victoria, Howard found the single most debilitating factor limiting people with disabilities is not their disability, but their image in mainstream media. There is no mainstream television channel in the world addressing the needs of and targeting people with disabilities as viewers, consumers and participants. Howard resolved to change that by creating , an inclusive media outlet that defines all people by their talents and the quality of their stories, rather than by disability; a place where his daughter Victoria and everyone else can work in a universally designed workplace with a welcoming, inclusive workforce - with-tv is born. Listen to this compelling interview with Mr. Renensland to learn more about with-tv and how you can get involved now! www.with-tv.com Television of, by and for people with disabilities…..and everyone else.

Mr. Renensland, President and Founder of [with]tv, has been a professional actor, writer, director, and teacher for thirty years. He is a member of Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and Actors Equity Association. Mr. Renensland has appeared in over 400 television commercials, numerous radio ads, and hundreds of print ads as well.

LISTEN TO THIS!

Thank you, Monica!

Cross-posted on [with]tv 

Pink Men on Every Channel

So I was depressed. I ate a sub sandwich, you know: "Man World Prozac" and I sat down in front of the TV and did some serious channel surfing. It was the weekend. Outside the birds were bragging about their libidos and miscreant neighbors were playing with a radio controlled "all terrain vehicle" which sounded like a fiercely amplified zipper, and all I could think was "why in god's name would someone play with a radio controlled ATV?" and then of course I knew the answer: "they didn't have a sub sandwich; they didn't have a TV". Or worse: they DID have those things; had "done them"; had concluded that radio controlled toys were a step up.

On TV I had some choices to make if I was planning to watch something. That's the mind set of someone who grew up in the age of three channels: when a guy with a war limp showed up with the big box of spare tubes to fix the jiggling screen; when they had "test patterns" before seven in the morning...

I took a bite of my sub. It was a middle aged guy's sub: turkey.

A quick survey of the TV revealed:

"The Hitler Channel" Hitler all day, all night, and forever. I wondered why the other dictators don't have their own channels. Where's the Augusto Pinochet channel with cameo appearances by Henry Kissinger? Note to self: must write to Cable Company.

"The Endless Cooking Show": People you wouldn't invite to your home doing things to food. Where is the show that demonstrates how a good Welsh rarebit can be produced in seconds think even my "All Terrain Vehicle" neighbors could get excited about that.

"The Boob and Butt Makeover Info-mercial Channel": Suzanne Sommers is featured during prime time. Off hours you get more people you wouldn't invite to your home. They are mostly women--but some men are featured too. All of them did unspeakable things at the Frat house just last year. Someone's daddy knew someone's daddy and now they're parading around in lycra. Blow dried hair. And those "I never get diarrhea" smiles.

"The Terrifying Shouting Men Channel": Turns out there are lots of these channels. They are the same men in different costumes depending on the show. They are mostly white men. Big heads. Very pink. They shout about President Bush and how decent he really is; they shout about how there’s never been a basketball player like insert name here; they shout about automobiles; they shout and shout about how everything in the world that’s bad has to do with some kind of liberal conspiracy, but try as I might, I can’t find any of these liberals on my tv. Just lots of sneering and shouting pink guys. They look like overgrown infants: they shake rattles and wobble from place to place. Note to self: must suggest to one of the junior Kennedys that we need a bigger version of the Peace Corps…

"The Country Music Alimentary Canal Jamboree Channel": People singing through their noses about terrible things that seem to be happening to their "insides". Opera without plot. Sad really. Several of these people could move over to the Butt channel without strain.

"The Corporation T Shirt News Channel": Lots of graphics to package the war, complete with theme music. When CNN first did this during the first Bush’s Gulf War people were appalled by the crass commercialism of music and televised video game montages. Remember those days? It "is" funny in a dark way to see how they’re struggling with the reality principle: the war is going very badly. It’s the Pogo Principle for CNN: "We have met the enemy and they are us…" Or something like that. Now they’re bringing out Donald Trump to say that he thinks W. is the worst prez in history. No wonder the neighbors are outside with their radio toy.

I settle on the "Ancient Movie Channel" largely because people don’t talk as much. There’s silence and you can hear the hiss of the old film sound track. I like that sound of falling rain while the characters stare meaningfully at the carpet. Note to self: remember to live near water…

One last thing: In Ohio there are at least 8 religious fanatic channels available all the time. Again, no surprise:

Big pink men shouting…

Note to self: call Time Warner or WOW and tell them to rename basic cable plan "The Big Pink Men Who Remain Vaguely Infantile" Option. And in fairness to the public, they should point out that this is the only option…

Note to self: eat apple. Play with dogs. Visit website of Copper Canyon Press to read about amazing Arabic language poetry…

S.K.

Comedy of Errors

Our friend Deborah Kendrick recently wrote a column decrying the advent of a new animated TV series on Comedy Central called "Freak Show." You can view her column online at the Columbus Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/editorials-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/09/18/20060918-A9-03.html

These days there seem to be three kinds of TV programs that concern themselves with disability in one way or another. The first is the charitable makeover show, a descendent of the Jerry Lewis Telethon, exemplified best by ABC's home makeover program in which a crack team of master carpenters rebuilds the home of a family that's down on its luck and often has disabled family members.

The second kind of program involves disability as a narrative prosthesis: a disabled person is often a criminal type as with the various Law and Order spinoffs. In this variant someone is deformed and becomes a serial killer.

But "Freak Show" descends to a new level of derisiveness since the animated characters are essentially the old Todd Browning cast decked out in the garb of Sponge Bob.

Back when America was still a middle brow culture TV executives knew better than to go this low. A middle brow nation isn't necessarily a scholastic nation but it tends to believe in civic abstractions like dignity and justice for all.

A low brow culture is in essence an adolescent civilization: it's motto is "be like me or else". William Golding's famous novel "Lord of the Flies" is essentially a morality play about what can happen when a culture abandons high school civics.

And so here we are. Comedy Central has taken the lowest road yet and they've managed to get there just ahead of Fox.  Bring on the Siamese Twins! Let us rollick in chummy tastelessness!

In the meantime: if you're interested in the subject of showbiz and disability I urge you to read Armistead Maupin's remarkable novel "Maybe the Moon" in which the central character must struggle as an undersized actress in Hollywood. Maupin based this novel on the true story of a woman actress who  wore the costume in Spielberg's film "E.T." She struggled to have a career in the open as a diminutive woman.

I would urge TV executives at Comedy Central to remember there are real lives in the balance.

SK

Blind Monk

Well it was inevitable: television's favorite compulsive detective will be rendered blind in an upcoming episode. It was also inevitable that Monk will recover after experiencing this secondary disability. But for one episode viewers will get to see this comedic character undergoing depression, compensatory bliss, and navigational disorientation.

I wish that I felt better about this.

Years ago when I worked at Guiding Eyes for the Blind they used to blindfold apprentice guide dog trainers for a week of uninterupted temporary blindness. The trouble with this exercise is that the apprentice got to take the blindfold off. Temporary blindness is not easy or fun both in real life and anywhere else. But real blindness is far more challenging.

Comic interludes featuring temporary blindness do a good deal to reinforce public misperceptions about visual disabilities and are essentially a re-packaging of "Mr. McGoo".

Let's have Monk go permanently blind. Then wwe can watch him waiting in the rain for a bus that seldom comes on time. Or better yet, he could be treated rudely by the airlines in every episode. See TV Guide listings below.

SK

TV Guide

So late at night I imagine that in addition to the weather channel and the "Hitler channel" and the old movies channel and the sit-com channel, there would be a t.v. channel for the blind. I think of what it's large print and braille t.v. guide listings would look like:

9:00 am
"The Brady Bunch" An army nerve gas experiment renders the Brady family instantly blind while on vacation in a national park. They say unexpected things to each other, like, "Did you ever think of the sky as a nourishing blue milk?" Happy ending: the army gives them the antidote but cautions them not to reveal it, since, as the Colonel says, "We can't have everyone seeing, now can we?"

9:30 am
"The Flintstones" Fred has an industrial accident at the quarry and has to teach "Dino" to be his "seeing-eye" dinosaur. Fred grows philosophical and talks of "shadows structured on dreams."

10:00 am
Movie: "Blind Man's Bluff" (Suspense)  Any movie in which fully sighted travellers must put their trust in the methods of a blind guide as evening falls high in the Andes.

11:30 am
"Consumer Hour"  Useful new products for the blind, including the "beeping zipper" which lets a blind man know when his fly is down. Other products include:, braille and large print tags for pillows which tell you that it's illegal to remove them.

12:00 noon

"Public Affairs" Blind astronauts reveal their impressions of the moon. Buzz Johnson recites from Andre Breton: "These no-man's-lands and the moon where I wander out--run by the shadow tied down by the house of my heart. A closing discussion on how you find the moon by intuition.

1:00 pm
"Super Market Bluff"  Sighted shoppers are blindfolded and sent through a super market on a wild shopping spree. They must race against the clock. They must eat whatever they find.

2:00 pm
"Cross Purposes" Sighted people and the blind run relay races in pitch darkness.

(Prose from the first draft of my memoir "Planet of the Blind")