About Pop Culture

Slightly off topic, but related to why we might bother thinking about how disability is depicted in popular culture … this series of Tweets by Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress:

It's always very strange to me when people suggest that deep emotional investment in culture is dumb.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

Cultural production employs tons of people.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

Culture shapes what we perceive as normal at home, from comedy heckling to police brutality.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

And cultural exports have a huge impact on how audiences abroad see the United States.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

Fiction can be a tremendously powerful refuge. Music can be as mood-altering as a drug.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

There's a reason Rose Schneiderman called for bread *and* roses: beauty gives people's lives an awful lot of meaning.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

And just because people find beauty, or meaning, or refuge, or uplift in a place where you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

Okay, fine, a couple more thoughts. Taking seriously people's investment in a cultural form doesn't mean blindly endorsing it.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

Being dismissive of, say, superhero movies is a way to avoid engaging with their content and the reasons people find it compelling.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

It's absolutely uncomfortable when a dominant cultural form isn't one you resonate with. But the gap is a place to explore, not ignore.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013

As a woman, I don't have the luxury of pretending that the gap between my body and presentation and the ones I see on screen doesn't exist.
— Alyssa Rosenberg (@AlyssaRosenberg) December 4, 2013