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Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space
In fairy tales, happy endings are the norm—as long as you're beautiful and walk on two legs. After all, the ogre never gets the princess. And since fairy tales are the foundational myths of our culture, how can a girl with a disability ever think she'll have a happy ending?
By examining the ways that fairy tales have shaped our expectations of disability, Disfigured will point the way toward a new world where disability is no longer a punishment or impediment but operates, instead, as a way of centering a protagonist and helping them to cement their own place in a story, and from there, the world. Through the book, Leduc ruminates on the connections we make between fairy tale archetypes—the beautiful princess, the glass slipper, the maiden with long hair lost in the tower—and tries to make sense of them through a twenty-first-century disablist lens. From examinations of disability in tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen through to modern interpretations ranging from Disney to Angela Carter, and the fight for disabled representation in today's media, Leduc connects the fight for disability justice to the growth of modern, magical stories, and argues for increased awareness and acceptance of that which is other—helping us to see and celebrate the magic inherent in different bodies.
By examining the ways that fairy tales have shaped our expectations of disability, Disfigured will point the way toward a new world where disability is no longer a punishment or impediment but operates, instead, as a way of centering a protagonist and helping them to cement their own place in a story, and from there, the world. Through the book, Leduc ruminates on the connections we make between fairy tale archetypes—the beautiful princess, the glass slipper, the maiden with long hair lost in the tower—and tries to make sense of them through a twenty-first-century disablist lens. From examinations of disability in tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen through to modern interpretations ranging from Disney to Angela Carter, and the fight for disabled representation in today's media, Leduc connects the fight for disability justice to the growth of modern, magical stories, and argues for increased awareness and acceptance of that which is other—helping us to see and celebrate the magic inherent in different bodies.
253 pages, Paperback
First published February 11, 2020
340 people are currently reading
21299 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Leduc
13 books217 followersAmanda Leduc is the author of the novels WILD LIFE (Random House Canada, 2025), THE CENTAUR'S WIFE (Random House Canada, 2021) and the non-fiction book DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE (Coach House Books, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction and longlisted for the 2020 Barbellion Prize. She is also the author of an earlier novel, THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN (ECW Press, 2013). She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with a very lovable dog named Sitka, who once literally tore apart and then peed on a manuscript. Because everyone's a critic, it seems.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,186 reviews
July 6, 2022
Really interesting and informative. Helped me take a closer look at how disabilities are portrayed in fairytales and how these concepts transfer to real life. I was already familiar with how villains often have disabilities, but thought the author made great points about how heroes often "overcome" disabilities as if that is the reward for being a good person. Another great point the author makes is how positive change in fairytales is individualistic, rather than systematic. I would recommend this to writers to challenge the way we depict “good” and “evil” characters in stories and how happy endings are earned.
May 13, 2022
i read approx 2 nonfiction books per year, but i always really wish i could read more when i do.
this is an excellent read and i really recommend it!
bottom line: maybe it's for the best if i don't read more nonfiction. this reviewing process is unsustainable.
this is an excellent read and i really recommend it!
bottom line: maybe it's for the best if i don't read more nonfiction. this reviewing process is unsustainable.
August 18, 2020
4/5stars
I really wish I loved this more - this is about Disability and Disney, aka an entire chapter of my thesis. While I loved Leduc's conversation on Disability (SO much amazing information in this book such as definitions, discussions of what is currently happening in the Disability Rights movement and the Disability community as a whole, and personal stories from many different disabled people) I found her conversation about Disney and fairy tales very roundabout and lacking. She talked about The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast absolutely to DEATH but, during those conversations didn't even mention other characters who aren't as popular (say, Hook when discussing characters who are identified only by their disability??). I found her conversations to also be quite repetitive and never really come to a THESIS - it was more just a discussion and exploration, which is fine, but I wish it had that "this is important BECAUSE" moment.
Still very enjoyable and VERY accessible for able-bodied and neurotypical people who want to read about disability!
I really wish I loved this more - this is about Disability and Disney, aka an entire chapter of my thesis. While I loved Leduc's conversation on Disability (SO much amazing information in this book such as definitions, discussions of what is currently happening in the Disability Rights movement and the Disability community as a whole, and personal stories from many different disabled people) I found her conversation about Disney and fairy tales very roundabout and lacking. She talked about The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast absolutely to DEATH but, during those conversations didn't even mention other characters who aren't as popular (say, Hook when discussing characters who are identified only by their disability??). I found her conversations to also be quite repetitive and never really come to a THESIS - it was more just a discussion and exploration, which is fine, but I wish it had that "this is important BECAUSE" moment.
Still very enjoyable and VERY accessible for able-bodied and neurotypical people who want to read about disability!
May 20, 2023
The topic is quite interesting and original in the field, presenting an analysis of fairy tales from a standpoint rarely touched on, that of disability and how it's presented and dealt with in folklore and pop culture mythology. I appreciated the author bringing to the table the stories of people with a variety of disabilities and how they relate to and are impacted by particular tales, in their own words, and I also agreed with some of her points, such as the point about making physical ugliness and disfigurement a characteristic of the villain or villainous characters in a wide range of stories from films to folktales. That was pretty much spot on.
However, Amanda Leduc filters fairy tales through an extremely narrow viewpoint that's highly ideologised to the point her arguments read as if a square tale is hammered down forcefully into an interpretative circle. Her chapters on superheroes and on medicine and cures/treatments for disabilities are very weak and not well-argued, and also there's examples of stories where it's obvious she has a very superficial and incomplete understanding, when not taking them out of context. Cases in point: when touching on "Beauty and the Beast," she makes no differentiation between Villeneuve and Beaumont, and talks of the tale as it were one and the same, with the same purpose and message in both versions, which isn't the case, and, surprisingly, she fails to grasp why exactly Beast is cursed in Villeneuve's tale, nor does she see that the curse in Beaumont is different too, talking instead of why he's cursed in the DISNEY version! And taking the latter for the truth of the French original. Such oversight makes me question her integrity as an analyst, because this reads like her wanting at all costs to prove a point on disfigurement whilst ignoring the pesky details that don't fit.
And then there's her commentary on Game of Thrones, so extremely show-centric and based mostly on the horrible final season everyone hated. She lost a golden opportunity to write commentary on the several disabled people the books/show have, especially Tyrion Lannister, who by himself could fill a book on how disability portrayal goes the opposite direction and lands in "disabled can do no wrong" territory, and she also lost a golden opportunity to comment on Jaime Lannister, the man who crippled the one disabled person in all of GOT other than Daenerys whom Leduc bothered to write about: Bran. Her fleeting comment that Sandor Clegane is a disfigured "villain" is also eyebrow-raising and false. How could a disabled person writing about disability in media fail to recognise a character with blatant psychological trauma stemming from his scars? Any decently knowledgeable fan of GOT/ASOIAF knows Sandor has a problem and that he's not a villain at all. Way to miss the point, and precisely when Leduc had just decried bitches be crazy mental health portrayals in GOT, with Daenerys as her example.
In the end, the book wasn't the serious and convincingly argued and well-researched essay on disability as portrayed in fairy tales and popular culture that I had expected. It cites big name fairy tale scholars like Maria Tatar and Jack Zipes, but cherry-picked to support a point whilst ignoring parts where they go more in-depth about the same topic. Leduc insists strenuously that this is neither a work of fairy tale scholarship nor a work of disability scholarship. I agree with her on that, and that this has tenuous academic value if any.
However, Amanda Leduc filters fairy tales through an extremely narrow viewpoint that's highly ideologised to the point her arguments read as if a square tale is hammered down forcefully into an interpretative circle. Her chapters on superheroes and on medicine and cures/treatments for disabilities are very weak and not well-argued, and also there's examples of stories where it's obvious she has a very superficial and incomplete understanding, when not taking them out of context. Cases in point: when touching on "Beauty and the Beast," she makes no differentiation between Villeneuve and Beaumont, and talks of the tale as it were one and the same, with the same purpose and message in both versions, which isn't the case, and, surprisingly, she fails to grasp why exactly Beast is cursed in Villeneuve's tale, nor does she see that the curse in Beaumont is different too, talking instead of why he's cursed in the DISNEY version! And taking the latter for the truth of the French original. Such oversight makes me question her integrity as an analyst, because this reads like her wanting at all costs to prove a point on disfigurement whilst ignoring the pesky details that don't fit.
And then there's her commentary on Game of Thrones, so extremely show-centric and based mostly on the horrible final season everyone hated. She lost a golden opportunity to write commentary on the several disabled people the books/show have, especially Tyrion Lannister, who by himself could fill a book on how disability portrayal goes the opposite direction and lands in "disabled can do no wrong" territory, and she also lost a golden opportunity to comment on Jaime Lannister, the man who crippled the one disabled person in all of GOT other than Daenerys whom Leduc bothered to write about: Bran. Her fleeting comment that Sandor Clegane is a disfigured "villain" is also eyebrow-raising and false. How could a disabled person writing about disability in media fail to recognise a character with blatant psychological trauma stemming from his scars? Any decently knowledgeable fan of GOT/ASOIAF knows Sandor has a problem and that he's not a villain at all. Way to miss the point, and precisely when Leduc had just decried bitches be crazy mental health portrayals in GOT, with Daenerys as her example.
In the end, the book wasn't the serious and convincingly argued and well-researched essay on disability as portrayed in fairy tales and popular culture that I had expected. It cites big name fairy tale scholars like Maria Tatar and Jack Zipes, but cherry-picked to support a point whilst ignoring parts where they go more in-depth about the same topic. Leduc insists strenuously that this is neither a work of fairy tale scholarship nor a work of disability scholarship. I agree with her on that, and that this has tenuous academic value if any.
November 8, 2020
Amanda Leduc’s Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space is the type of pseudo-scholarship that is often popular but lacks any meaningful analysis or insight. Leduc’s work is the perfect combination of poorly researched, superficial, and badly organized. While Leduc admits that her work is not meant to be a piece of disability or fairy tale scholarship (13), it does raise the question about what it, exactly, is meant to be.
Leduc defines disability as an impairment that is both a social and physical phenomenon (35-6). She then conflates disfigurement, disability, and ugliness throughout the book. She should not conflate disability and disfigurement; they are not the same, even though they can often be conflated. Scar, after all, is not disabled but he is disfigured. She has an extensive section on ugliness (102, 133-158), particularly the relationship between ugliness and villainy (142), but does not provide statistical information on whether villains are more or less likely to be disabled (despite arguing that disfigurement is a shorthand for villainy (150)), a key piece of information when many of her examples focus on heroes with disability (Hans the Hedgehog, Ariel, the Beast, Quasimodo, Pinocchio, Oedipus).
Like disability, ugliness is often overcome by the heroes (The Ugly Duckling). Yet she also critiques movies that attempt to critique the idea that beauty equals goodness. She dismisses Shrek because while Fiona becomes an ogre and Shrek finds her beautiful, the world does not accept them, and so it is promoting the idea that ugly people are only okay when they are with one another; never mind that there is an entire sequel discussing the need to accept those that are different (150). Regardless of the quality of her argument on ugliness, she does not make it clear how this relates to her disability argument. While there is overlap between the two, they are not synonyms, but Leduc treats them as such.
Leduc’s basic argument is that fairy tales represent real historical and social contexts and should not be viewed as “just stories.” She advocates for a social model approach to disability (it is the structures that need change, not the disabled individual). These are not inherently bad arguments, but her evidence is lacking and her analysis non-existent. Leduc starts with a brief historical survey of the portrayal of disability (and returns to halfway through the book for some reason). In this section, she makes an argument that in the past, disability was portrayed negatively because disability was frowned upon in the real world. In the course of this analysis, she misattributes The Golden Ass to a Greek author, despite being written by a Roman North African. She says that the Grimm brothers purported to get their tales from the peasantry, when in reality they got them from aristocratic women. Yet she also mentioned that they cited an innkeeper’s widow as particularly helpful. Perhaps Leduc should review the meaning of ‘aristocracy’ in the early nineteenth century. She claims that totalitarian regimes are “peculiarly” inclined to use disease imagery. Disease imagery has a long history and has been utilized by a variety of institutions; disease was used as a metaphor for heresy over 800 years ago, well before totalitarian governments had developed.
Most baffling, however, is her discussion (or lack thereof) on the relationship between the Nazis and fairy tales. It is unclear what point she is actually trying to make. She mentions that fairy tales were not kind to disabled people and the Nazis actively persecuted the disabled (80). This connection is so superficial and tenuous as to be stupid. Did the Nazis actively use fairytales in their propaganda? Did they adapt fairytales to Nazi ideology? Was the extreme nationalism of Nazism simply an intensification of previous trends? She seems to be leaning toward this last one, as she discusses the Grimm brothers’ increasing nationalism and increasing use of disability in the preceding section. However, the Grimm brothers were writing over one hundred years before the advent of Fascism; there needs to be more historical connection and a clearer argument if she wishes to make it. She needs to look at how stories were used by the Nazis. She cannot get away with making vague claims that sound right but are insubstantial without real evidence.
These historical inaccuracies and vagaries would not be such a big deal if Leduc’s argument did not revolve around the importance of the context to understanding fairy tales and why they harmful. Again and again, she brings up the point that fairy tales are not just stories, yet she cannot even properly place them in their context.
Her analysis of social context does not improve when she deals with the modern world. She talks about how in modern adaptations of fairytales, they are often “disneyfied” to have a good ending where the heroes are all beautiful and able-bodied. She talks about the lack of disabled princesses, despite repeatedly bringing up Ariel as an example of a disabled body (87-8, 119-12). Strangely, it is not her inability to talk that Leduc uses as an example of disability, but her lack of legs (of course this “disability” is fixed). The logic behind this is inexplicable; Ariel’s body is made for her environment. Saying she is disabled because she wants to walk on land is like saying I’m disabled for wanting to fly. Leduc could have just as easily used Ariel’s real disability—mutism—and still supported her overall argument that disabilities are often “fixed” by the end of these stories. She also uses Quasimodo as an example as an individual that needs to change, rather than society (11-12). Her evidence? He doesn’t get a love interest (82). This is an odd argument, as Quasimodo does not become beautiful at the end. He stays ugly. He realizes that Frollo was lying when he said no one would ever like him. Leduc undermines the importance of platonic love. Quasimodo also gets a love interest in the sequel.
Leduc’s dismissal or ignorance of sequels seems to be a common theme in her book. Besides Shrek and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, she ignores the fact that in Cinderella III, one of the ugly stepsisters, Anastasia, becomes a kind person and finds love. An analysis of originals vs sequels would have provided an interesting insight, as sequels seem to have pushed narrative boundaries more than the originals. It would also have been interesting to look at modern literary adaptations of fairy tale themes--is this treatment of disability present across genres or more particular to the big screen?
Besides Disney versions of fairy tales, Leduc also examines superheroes as modern fairytales. She discusses how many disabled superheroes have some ability to compensate for their lack (198). I am not sure if this is intended to be a critique, as they wouldn’t be superheroes without a special ability and would thus fall outside the domain of her research. And then, instead of focusing on superheroes that remain disabled, such as Charles Xavier, she focuses on Carol Danvers and Steve Rogers. Why? Obviously they fit her argument of the “fixed” disabled person, but she doesn’t do any analysis on whether they represent the norm or are outliers in the Marvel universe.
These examples fit the general pattern of her book—she makes a claim and cherry picks evidence that supports that claim. There is no systematic analysis of the fairytale canon (either modern or historical) to show whether these represent a real trend or only notable examples. She has other, arguments, too, that are little more than a fairytale character and her opinion on them. When discussing the Beast, Leduc asks “who’s to say that the Beast in Beauty and the Beast isn’t made precisely as terrible as he is as a result of the world’s reaction to his disfigurement?” (88). This questioning does not address the reasons for the Beast’s curse in the first place—that he was an asshole, at least in the Disney version, which appears to be the one Leduc is discussing in this section. His servants fear him for his temper, not because he’s ugly. Belle is similarly repulsed by his actions, not his appearance. Leduc goes nowhere with this argument, either. The analysis stops there. At one point, Leduc indirectly quotes one woman who saw Thumbelina and Tinker Bell as representations of dwarfism (91). This could have led to an interesting conversation on how Disney presents small fairy women versus actual dwarves, and whether they are actually meant to reflect a real-world disability, but no such discussion emerged.
Overall, this is a book that lacks any in-depth analysis but instead contains the author's musings. I wish she would have focused on her own experiences rather than attempted a more scholarly approach.
Leduc defines disability as an impairment that is both a social and physical phenomenon (35-6). She then conflates disfigurement, disability, and ugliness throughout the book. She should not conflate disability and disfigurement; they are not the same, even though they can often be conflated. Scar, after all, is not disabled but he is disfigured. She has an extensive section on ugliness (102, 133-158), particularly the relationship between ugliness and villainy (142), but does not provide statistical information on whether villains are more or less likely to be disabled (despite arguing that disfigurement is a shorthand for villainy (150)), a key piece of information when many of her examples focus on heroes with disability (Hans the Hedgehog, Ariel, the Beast, Quasimodo, Pinocchio, Oedipus).
Like disability, ugliness is often overcome by the heroes (The Ugly Duckling). Yet she also critiques movies that attempt to critique the idea that beauty equals goodness. She dismisses Shrek because while Fiona becomes an ogre and Shrek finds her beautiful, the world does not accept them, and so it is promoting the idea that ugly people are only okay when they are with one another; never mind that there is an entire sequel discussing the need to accept those that are different (150). Regardless of the quality of her argument on ugliness, she does not make it clear how this relates to her disability argument. While there is overlap between the two, they are not synonyms, but Leduc treats them as such.
Leduc’s basic argument is that fairy tales represent real historical and social contexts and should not be viewed as “just stories.” She advocates for a social model approach to disability (it is the structures that need change, not the disabled individual). These are not inherently bad arguments, but her evidence is lacking and her analysis non-existent. Leduc starts with a brief historical survey of the portrayal of disability (and returns to halfway through the book for some reason). In this section, she makes an argument that in the past, disability was portrayed negatively because disability was frowned upon in the real world. In the course of this analysis, she misattributes The Golden Ass to a Greek author, despite being written by a Roman North African. She says that the Grimm brothers purported to get their tales from the peasantry, when in reality they got them from aristocratic women. Yet she also mentioned that they cited an innkeeper’s widow as particularly helpful. Perhaps Leduc should review the meaning of ‘aristocracy’ in the early nineteenth century. She claims that totalitarian regimes are “peculiarly” inclined to use disease imagery. Disease imagery has a long history and has been utilized by a variety of institutions; disease was used as a metaphor for heresy over 800 years ago, well before totalitarian governments had developed.
Most baffling, however, is her discussion (or lack thereof) on the relationship between the Nazis and fairy tales. It is unclear what point she is actually trying to make. She mentions that fairy tales were not kind to disabled people and the Nazis actively persecuted the disabled (80). This connection is so superficial and tenuous as to be stupid. Did the Nazis actively use fairytales in their propaganda? Did they adapt fairytales to Nazi ideology? Was the extreme nationalism of Nazism simply an intensification of previous trends? She seems to be leaning toward this last one, as she discusses the Grimm brothers’ increasing nationalism and increasing use of disability in the preceding section. However, the Grimm brothers were writing over one hundred years before the advent of Fascism; there needs to be more historical connection and a clearer argument if she wishes to make it. She needs to look at how stories were used by the Nazis. She cannot get away with making vague claims that sound right but are insubstantial without real evidence.
These historical inaccuracies and vagaries would not be such a big deal if Leduc’s argument did not revolve around the importance of the context to understanding fairy tales and why they harmful. Again and again, she brings up the point that fairy tales are not just stories, yet she cannot even properly place them in their context.
Her analysis of social context does not improve when she deals with the modern world. She talks about how in modern adaptations of fairytales, they are often “disneyfied” to have a good ending where the heroes are all beautiful and able-bodied. She talks about the lack of disabled princesses, despite repeatedly bringing up Ariel as an example of a disabled body (87-8, 119-12). Strangely, it is not her inability to talk that Leduc uses as an example of disability, but her lack of legs (of course this “disability” is fixed). The logic behind this is inexplicable; Ariel’s body is made for her environment. Saying she is disabled because she wants to walk on land is like saying I’m disabled for wanting to fly. Leduc could have just as easily used Ariel’s real disability—mutism—and still supported her overall argument that disabilities are often “fixed” by the end of these stories. She also uses Quasimodo as an example as an individual that needs to change, rather than society (11-12). Her evidence? He doesn’t get a love interest (82). This is an odd argument, as Quasimodo does not become beautiful at the end. He stays ugly. He realizes that Frollo was lying when he said no one would ever like him. Leduc undermines the importance of platonic love. Quasimodo also gets a love interest in the sequel.
Leduc’s dismissal or ignorance of sequels seems to be a common theme in her book. Besides Shrek and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, she ignores the fact that in Cinderella III, one of the ugly stepsisters, Anastasia, becomes a kind person and finds love. An analysis of originals vs sequels would have provided an interesting insight, as sequels seem to have pushed narrative boundaries more than the originals. It would also have been interesting to look at modern literary adaptations of fairy tale themes--is this treatment of disability present across genres or more particular to the big screen?
Besides Disney versions of fairy tales, Leduc also examines superheroes as modern fairytales. She discusses how many disabled superheroes have some ability to compensate for their lack (198). I am not sure if this is intended to be a critique, as they wouldn’t be superheroes without a special ability and would thus fall outside the domain of her research. And then, instead of focusing on superheroes that remain disabled, such as Charles Xavier, she focuses on Carol Danvers and Steve Rogers. Why? Obviously they fit her argument of the “fixed” disabled person, but she doesn’t do any analysis on whether they represent the norm or are outliers in the Marvel universe.
These examples fit the general pattern of her book—she makes a claim and cherry picks evidence that supports that claim. There is no systematic analysis of the fairytale canon (either modern or historical) to show whether these represent a real trend or only notable examples. She has other, arguments, too, that are little more than a fairytale character and her opinion on them. When discussing the Beast, Leduc asks “who’s to say that the Beast in Beauty and the Beast isn’t made precisely as terrible as he is as a result of the world’s reaction to his disfigurement?” (88). This questioning does not address the reasons for the Beast’s curse in the first place—that he was an asshole, at least in the Disney version, which appears to be the one Leduc is discussing in this section. His servants fear him for his temper, not because he’s ugly. Belle is similarly repulsed by his actions, not his appearance. Leduc goes nowhere with this argument, either. The analysis stops there. At one point, Leduc indirectly quotes one woman who saw Thumbelina and Tinker Bell as representations of dwarfism (91). This could have led to an interesting conversation on how Disney presents small fairy women versus actual dwarves, and whether they are actually meant to reflect a real-world disability, but no such discussion emerged.
Overall, this is a book that lacks any in-depth analysis but instead contains the author's musings. I wish she would have focused on her own experiences rather than attempted a more scholarly approach.
April 30, 2021
Everyone should read this. And think deeply about how the ideas we have about disability, how the stories we tell shape the realities of both disabled and able-bodied children, and about how we might make the world into a more inclusive, accessible place. Disfigured combines personal memoir, fairytale analysis, and disability theory into a brief but compelling book that will probably make you stop and think about things you have taken for granted.
Why does goodness lead to magical cures for disabled characters in fairytales? Why is happily ever after equated to beauty and able-bodiedness? Think the Beast or The Little Mermaid. Why are villains so often disfigured or disabled in some way? Why is Scar from The Lion King reduced to his facial disfigurement? And what does it do to disabled children to never see themselves represented in the stories and films they consume, or only see themselves in villains or noble yet pitiable characters? When do we get a princess in a wheelchair?
The author raises important questions and offers a great deal of insight into where these stories originated, how people used them to make sense of the world, but also how dangerous they could be. For instance, the idea of changelings led to many weak or disabled children being left to die because their parents were convinced they were actually fairies in disguise and their real child had been stolen away. There are real world consequences to the stories that we tell. So go read this! Let it make you a bit more thoughtful, let it challenge some of your misconceptions or wrong subconscious beliefs. It's definitely worth it.
And as an added note, I appreciate how the author recognizes her relative privilege as a white disabled woman, and discusses how the intersection of disability and race can bring an added layer of discrimination.
Why does goodness lead to magical cures for disabled characters in fairytales? Why is happily ever after equated to beauty and able-bodiedness? Think the Beast or The Little Mermaid. Why are villains so often disfigured or disabled in some way? Why is Scar from The Lion King reduced to his facial disfigurement? And what does it do to disabled children to never see themselves represented in the stories and films they consume, or only see themselves in villains or noble yet pitiable characters? When do we get a princess in a wheelchair?
The author raises important questions and offers a great deal of insight into where these stories originated, how people used them to make sense of the world, but also how dangerous they could be. For instance, the idea of changelings led to many weak or disabled children being left to die because their parents were convinced they were actually fairies in disguise and their real child had been stolen away. There are real world consequences to the stories that we tell. So go read this! Let it make you a bit more thoughtful, let it challenge some of your misconceptions or wrong subconscious beliefs. It's definitely worth it.
And as an added note, I appreciate how the author recognizes her relative privilege as a white disabled woman, and discusses how the intersection of disability and race can bring an added layer of discrimination.
February 12, 2022
It was enlightening!
December 31, 2021
I'm not totally sure that all the different elements of this book came together as a whole to my total satisfaction, but in terms of content and writing, A+! Very interesting and provided a very helpful grounding in theory of understanding disabilities
October 18, 2020
this book is basically about how disability (or lack thereof) is portrayed in disney/folklore/fairy tales or just stories in general as we grow up. It really made me reflect and understand how I viewed the types of fictional stories that we consume as an audience... especially as kids.
(1)how we should stop making characters that the world would accept but letting the world accept characters that portray real, breathing people
(2)how it affects the way we see ourselves or how we perceive disabled people
(3)how representation in fairy tales is important growing up because those are the stories that we dream about, and if all these princesses are perfect... what will we think of ourselves when we realize that we cannot always be these very able bodied females that are perfectly molded to society?
i feel like any review i write won't match up to the level of importance i think this book is so just read it for yourself.
i don't usually read memoirs but after this one i just might start scavenging for more because maybe i just haven't found a lot that focus on topics that i am highly interested in :>
my heart is just bursting... with sadness or joy or contentment, go figure.
the storytelling and ideas were so well presented and the examples were relatable on a highly personal level. i could not recommend this more to anyone.
everyone needs to consume this. an #ownvoices memoir on disability and disney.
This book just gave me more concrete examples to push me towards reading more diverse books. There are so many types of people with even more books/stories to represent them (us) if we just actively try to find them.
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens
(1)how we should stop making characters that the world would accept but letting the world accept characters that portray real, breathing people
(2)how it affects the way we see ourselves or how we perceive disabled people
(3)how representation in fairy tales is important growing up because those are the stories that we dream about, and if all these princesses are perfect... what will we think of ourselves when we realize that we cannot always be these very able bodied females that are perfectly molded to society?
i feel like any review i write won't match up to the level of importance i think this book is so just read it for yourself.
“A world where disabled bodies are as common as fairy godmothers”
i don't usually read memoirs but after this one i just might start scavenging for more because maybe i just haven't found a lot that focus on topics that i am highly interested in :>
my heart is just bursting... with sadness or joy or contentment, go figure.
the storytelling and ideas were so well presented and the examples were relatable on a highly personal level. i could not recommend this more to anyone.
everyone needs to consume this. an #ownvoices memoir on disability and disney.
This book just gave me more concrete examples to push me towards reading more diverse books. There are so many types of people with even more books/stories to represent them (us) if we just actively try to find them.
instagram | blog | ko-fi | booksirens
July 5, 2021
Part literary and cultural criticism and part memoir, this book is engaging, readable and will certainly make readers think. I have arguments with many of the author’s ideas, but to an extent, this type of work exists as a starting point for debate. It will probably be most valuable to those who either have a deep personal investment in these issues or who haven’t ever engaged with disability activism or thought about disability representation in media before, but despite not falling into those categories, I still appreciated the memoir portions and found the book to be worthwhile food for thought. That said, this review will largely consist of the arguments because those take up more words!
Leduc, who has cerebral palsy and has suffered from depression, has a lot to say about fairy tales and how they represent people with disabilities: often the disability is a punishment, or is magically cured as a reward for virtue, or is the source of special powers. From fairy tales the book wanders into Disney movies—Leduc is really into princesses—and also, toward the end, superhero movies and the Game of Thrones show (heads up: she spoils the end without warning). Moving away from fairy tales to make sweeping statements based on only a narrow range of media seems to me a weakness, though her fairy tale criticism generally strikes me as solid. There are indeed many unfortunate messages in those old stories.
But what Leduc really wants to see in media is the realistic portrayal of the dailiness of living with a disability, without the disability meaning anything, being related in any way to magical powers, or being cured at any point. And I couldn’t help thinking, as I read all this, “have you considered realistic fiction?” Which on the one hand is a bit dismissive—just because fantasy contains unrealistic elements doesn’t mean all elements of any given work should be unrealistic—but on the other, she actually writes, “As a disabled woman, I don’t know what it means to have your body represented onscreen in a way that isn’t somehow tied to magic.” Which suggests an extremely narrow range of media exposure. Since we’re going beyond fairy tales, I can think of a lot of fantasy fiction including disabled protagonists whose disabilities aren’t tied to magic—of books I’ve actually read (search for recommendation threads online and you’ll see many more), there’s A Game of Thrones, The Mirror Empire, and Flame of Sevenwaters, for instance. So I think a lot of the type of storytelling Leduc is seeking already exists, though she evidently hasn’t found it.
And just as the book seems to choose the media it engages with somewhat arbitrarily, its notion of “disability” is idiosyncratic, if broad. It includes physical, mental and cognitive disabilities; disfigurement, including scars; lack of physical attractiveness; and being turned into an animal, monster, etc. There’s logical connection among these, as all relate to having a body that diverges from the societal ideal, and it fits to engage here with the many ways imperfect bodies are used as shorthand for villainy in fiction. (This is so common with facial differences that a UK group actually started a campaign called “I Am Not Your Villain.”) That said, I question some of her examples—she takes major issue with Scar in the Lion King for instance, whereas to me, a scar that might have been gained in a fight seems like a fairly legitimate way to communicate a villain’s toughness visually, with other types of disfigurement being much more egregious. Meanwhile, in the mental health chapter she suggests that it’s too easy to map personality disorders onto villains. But personality disorders, to my understanding, aren’t actual illnesses so much as descriptions of patterns of behavior seen as disruptive or antisocial (medicalized for purposes of receiving therapy to change them)—and what is a villain if not disruptive and antisocial? There are stronger points to be made here, such as that Disney is apparently more likely to represent an evil old lady with a cane than a good old lady with one.
But the biggest issue that troubles me with this vein of criticism is the “disabilities shouldn’t be healed in fantasy” argument, which Leduc endorses. Certainly, I see the issues with stories implying that only people with perfect bodies can be happy, or that if you have a disability, you must deserve it (or you aren’t working hard enough to “overcome” it). That said, I think Leduc goes much too far in claiming to speak for people with disabilities generally and then arguing that they don’t want their disabilities cured, they just want greater accessibility.
This is a complicated issue, and I suspect a more accurate summation would be, “Many people with disabilities are realistic about the fact that they aren’t likely to be cured, and find that other people’s behavior and lack of accessibility can make living with a disability much harder than it needs to be and in some cases is worse than the disability itself. Therefore, people with disabilities may find it offensive when able-bodied people focus on potential cures while overlooking issues of inclusion. Also, some people—especially those who were born with their disabilities and consider them part of their identities [for instance, members of the Deaf community, some people with autism, etc.]—do not want to change this part of themselves.” The author doesn’t take this more nuanced approach however, seeming to lump everyone together in her insistence that disabilities are barely a medical issue at all and should be embraced as is. Given that the preponderance of disabilities are acquired with aging and an awful lot of disability involves issues nobody wants—pain, fatigue, depression—I suspect this is an area where activists don’t represent the majority. Even from the author’s story, while after decades of struggle she seems to have come to terms with her limp, I don’t get the sense she’d necessarily reject magical healing if it existed (she really wants to wear high heels).
But I’ve seen authors do contortions to avoid exactly that. Take Flame of Sevenwaters for instance (I’m about to partly spoil it but it isn’t a great book). The novel features a teenage girl, Maeve, whose hands were severely burned in a fire when she was about 10, such that she can no longer use her fingers. She goes on an unrelated quest, and the fae ultimately offer to repair her hands. Maeve refuses, because “it would be too easy.” Um. Too easy for our current world perhaps, but just another treatment option in hers, and people typically view “easy” as a major plus in treatment options. It comes across as an author forcing an inorganic and unbelievable choice on a character to forestall reader criticism. Storytellers should of course respect their audience, but they should respect the integrity of their story too, and if you’ve created a world and a plot where this is a possibility (which is by no means true of all fantasy) maybe you need to let it happen—just because the real world isn’t so easy doesn’t automatically make something offensive. Plenty of fantasy elements are out of reach in the real world (her disability isn’t actually why Leduc isn’t a princess, after all. Money and power, however, are easily come by in fantasy).
There’s also a bit of goalpost-shifting in pursuit of criticism. For instance, Leduc takes being an ogre as a metaphor for disability, but is nevertheless displeased with the happy ending of Shrek, in which Fiona embraces her ogre form, because she needs Shrek to tell her she’s beautiful. Look, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—which is another way of saying that beauty is socially defined. Everyone needs to be told that they’re beautiful. It’s just that the closer someone is to their society’s ideal, the more they’ve picked up that message already and so may not need to hear it from their current love interest. Fiona has never had anyone react positively to her ogre form, so of course she needs to hear it, and I don’t see how this takes away from the ending. Leduc also seems to take issue with the whole notion of a happy ending, because not everyone’s life trends toward happiness—which is fair, but muddled since she also wants disabled characters to get them.
All that said, I did appreciate the book; considering issues of representation is worthwhile even if you don’t agree with everything a particular activist says, and it’s important to listen to different voices. This book didn’t convince me on every point, but the writing is good, it doesn’t take long to read, and I enjoyed the memoir sections. Probably most eye-opening for those new to disability criticism, to whom it should prove accessible.
Leduc, who has cerebral palsy and has suffered from depression, has a lot to say about fairy tales and how they represent people with disabilities: often the disability is a punishment, or is magically cured as a reward for virtue, or is the source of special powers. From fairy tales the book wanders into Disney movies—Leduc is really into princesses—and also, toward the end, superhero movies and the Game of Thrones show (heads up: she spoils the end without warning). Moving away from fairy tales to make sweeping statements based on only a narrow range of media seems to me a weakness, though her fairy tale criticism generally strikes me as solid. There are indeed many unfortunate messages in those old stories.
But what Leduc really wants to see in media is the realistic portrayal of the dailiness of living with a disability, without the disability meaning anything, being related in any way to magical powers, or being cured at any point. And I couldn’t help thinking, as I read all this, “have you considered realistic fiction?” Which on the one hand is a bit dismissive—just because fantasy contains unrealistic elements doesn’t mean all elements of any given work should be unrealistic—but on the other, she actually writes, “As a disabled woman, I don’t know what it means to have your body represented onscreen in a way that isn’t somehow tied to magic.” Which suggests an extremely narrow range of media exposure. Since we’re going beyond fairy tales, I can think of a lot of fantasy fiction including disabled protagonists whose disabilities aren’t tied to magic—of books I’ve actually read (search for recommendation threads online and you’ll see many more), there’s A Game of Thrones, The Mirror Empire, and Flame of Sevenwaters, for instance. So I think a lot of the type of storytelling Leduc is seeking already exists, though she evidently hasn’t found it.
And just as the book seems to choose the media it engages with somewhat arbitrarily, its notion of “disability” is idiosyncratic, if broad. It includes physical, mental and cognitive disabilities; disfigurement, including scars; lack of physical attractiveness; and being turned into an animal, monster, etc. There’s logical connection among these, as all relate to having a body that diverges from the societal ideal, and it fits to engage here with the many ways imperfect bodies are used as shorthand for villainy in fiction. (This is so common with facial differences that a UK group actually started a campaign called “I Am Not Your Villain.”) That said, I question some of her examples—she takes major issue with Scar in the Lion King for instance, whereas to me, a scar that might have been gained in a fight seems like a fairly legitimate way to communicate a villain’s toughness visually, with other types of disfigurement being much more egregious. Meanwhile, in the mental health chapter she suggests that it’s too easy to map personality disorders onto villains. But personality disorders, to my understanding, aren’t actual illnesses so much as descriptions of patterns of behavior seen as disruptive or antisocial (medicalized for purposes of receiving therapy to change them)—and what is a villain if not disruptive and antisocial? There are stronger points to be made here, such as that Disney is apparently more likely to represent an evil old lady with a cane than a good old lady with one.
But the biggest issue that troubles me with this vein of criticism is the “disabilities shouldn’t be healed in fantasy” argument, which Leduc endorses. Certainly, I see the issues with stories implying that only people with perfect bodies can be happy, or that if you have a disability, you must deserve it (or you aren’t working hard enough to “overcome” it). That said, I think Leduc goes much too far in claiming to speak for people with disabilities generally and then arguing that they don’t want their disabilities cured, they just want greater accessibility.
This is a complicated issue, and I suspect a more accurate summation would be, “Many people with disabilities are realistic about the fact that they aren’t likely to be cured, and find that other people’s behavior and lack of accessibility can make living with a disability much harder than it needs to be and in some cases is worse than the disability itself. Therefore, people with disabilities may find it offensive when able-bodied people focus on potential cures while overlooking issues of inclusion. Also, some people—especially those who were born with their disabilities and consider them part of their identities [for instance, members of the Deaf community, some people with autism, etc.]—do not want to change this part of themselves.” The author doesn’t take this more nuanced approach however, seeming to lump everyone together in her insistence that disabilities are barely a medical issue at all and should be embraced as is. Given that the preponderance of disabilities are acquired with aging and an awful lot of disability involves issues nobody wants—pain, fatigue, depression—I suspect this is an area where activists don’t represent the majority. Even from the author’s story, while after decades of struggle she seems to have come to terms with her limp, I don’t get the sense she’d necessarily reject magical healing if it existed (she really wants to wear high heels).
But I’ve seen authors do contortions to avoid exactly that. Take Flame of Sevenwaters for instance (I’m about to partly spoil it but it isn’t a great book). The novel features a teenage girl, Maeve, whose hands were severely burned in a fire when she was about 10, such that she can no longer use her fingers. She goes on an unrelated quest, and the fae ultimately offer to repair her hands. Maeve refuses, because “it would be too easy.” Um. Too easy for our current world perhaps, but just another treatment option in hers, and people typically view “easy” as a major plus in treatment options. It comes across as an author forcing an inorganic and unbelievable choice on a character to forestall reader criticism. Storytellers should of course respect their audience, but they should respect the integrity of their story too, and if you’ve created a world and a plot where this is a possibility (which is by no means true of all fantasy) maybe you need to let it happen—just because the real world isn’t so easy doesn’t automatically make something offensive. Plenty of fantasy elements are out of reach in the real world (her disability isn’t actually why Leduc isn’t a princess, after all. Money and power, however, are easily come by in fantasy).
There’s also a bit of goalpost-shifting in pursuit of criticism. For instance, Leduc takes being an ogre as a metaphor for disability, but is nevertheless displeased with the happy ending of Shrek, in which Fiona embraces her ogre form, because she needs Shrek to tell her she’s beautiful. Look, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—which is another way of saying that beauty is socially defined. Everyone needs to be told that they’re beautiful. It’s just that the closer someone is to their society’s ideal, the more they’ve picked up that message already and so may not need to hear it from their current love interest. Fiona has never had anyone react positively to her ogre form, so of course she needs to hear it, and I don’t see how this takes away from the ending. Leduc also seems to take issue with the whole notion of a happy ending, because not everyone’s life trends toward happiness—which is fair, but muddled since she also wants disabled characters to get them.
All that said, I did appreciate the book; considering issues of representation is worthwhile even if you don’t agree with everything a particular activist says, and it’s important to listen to different voices. This book didn’t convince me on every point, but the writing is good, it doesn’t take long to read, and I enjoyed the memoir sections. Probably most eye-opening for those new to disability criticism, to whom it should prove accessible.
February 27, 2020
A brilliant young critic named Amanda Leduc explores this pernicious power of language in her new book, “Disfigured.” Her focus is fairy tales, those make-believe stories gathered hundreds of years ago in the forests of France and Germany, pruned to satisfy the tastes of Victorian audiences and finally polished to a high sheen by Walt Disney. They are, of course, just stories — in the same way the R-word is just a word.
Leduc follows the bread crumbs back into her original experience with fairy tales — and then explores their residual effects. Her daring approach is a hybrid of memoir, literary criticism and cultural commentary. She moves fluidly between grade-school memories and scholarly analysis. She quotes from medieval texts and TV shows. She’s equally familiar with the Brothers Grimm and the X-Men.
As a child, Leduc’s imagination was led into the magical land of beautiful princesses and princes. Like kids everywhere, she learned that good people are beautiful or, after some hardship, become beautiful, while wicked people are mad, scarred or disabled. Such are the universal narratives from which most of us construct our first aesthetics, our fantasies, even our. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
Leduc follows the bread crumbs back into her original experience with fairy tales — and then explores their residual effects. Her daring approach is a hybrid of memoir, literary criticism and cultural commentary. She moves fluidly between grade-school memories and scholarly analysis. She quotes from medieval texts and TV shows. She’s equally familiar with the Brothers Grimm and the X-Men.
As a child, Leduc’s imagination was led into the magical land of beautiful princesses and princes. Like kids everywhere, she learned that good people are beautiful or, after some hardship, become beautiful, while wicked people are mad, scarred or disabled. Such are the universal narratives from which most of us construct our first aesthetics, our fantasies, even our. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
March 11, 2021
I loved the message about how disabled people don't dream of magically becoming abled but of a world that focuses on accessibility, and it was interesting to hear about how better accessibility is often hindered by "movements" that don't actually help change things for everyone, but only for a select few, which reassures the public that nothing else needs to be changed.
The personal connection to Leduc's experiences and stories from other disabled people she knew were much more compelling than the rest of this book, and I wish there had been less in here about trying to fit her story exactly to that of the Little Mermaid's. Ariel "finds her land legs" pretty quickly after leaving the sea and prior to this, she has a body that fits in with the rest of the community she lives with. It's a much stronger case to point out that Ariel is mute for half of the story and treated as lesser than (esp. in the original tale) for it. There's a vast difference in what the Little Mermaid experiences depending on if we're talking about the original Hans Christian Anderson tale or the prettied-up Disney one. Leduc flip flops on if Ariel/the Little Mermaid is like Leduc (because the original story has her walking on legs with the pain of walking on sharp knives with every step), or is the model of what all the little girls wanted to be but Leduc could never be, or if there are absolutely no princesses with any disabilities.... and no firm stance was taken in the end, so it didn't drive the point home, especially because the author referred to both the original and remake in bursts that felt hurried and less thought-out than is needed. With a little more polish and focus, this could've been a lot more powerful, but it felt very jumbled as it was.
More things: Leduc spends an entire chapter gushing over Kate Middleton, which has aged so poorly given current events. I also don't know why it was necessary to include because Leduc just tells you how badly she wants to be Kate Middleton and marry Prince William, but doesn't really say anything else about her to tie back to her message.
I think this ultimately would be more interesting for folks who have not really examined the way stories we're told when we're younger are packed with messages that tend to punish women, disabled, ugly, fat, and coded-as-queer characters. It's fun to think of the alternate stories that warp the tales we're used to into something more interesting by following the "bad guy" and then seeing how immediately disadvantaged they may be (usually leading to a far more tragic tale). Take the case of Wicked and Twisted: the Untold Story of a Royal Vizier-- both cast the villains of their respective stories as the good guys, who just happen to be shunned by others for being "ugly." These stories give their audience a chance to reexamine the plot from another perspective, to see how truly unfair things may be and how often society will create a monster from an innocent to fit their narrative of "beauty = good and ugly = evil." This is an especially awful way of thinking when our own society has dictated for countless years that beauty is decidedly not synonymous with so many qualities that minorities have and this book is meant to mostly examine that as it relates to disabilities.
While some of what Leduc does here works well, the message is very muddled given that she seems to conflate disability with any and all disadvantages/pecularities fairy tale characters have such as "Jafar has thin features compared to everyone else," "Scar has a scar," "the Beast's form [is hairy]," and "Princess Fiona is an ogre." While there certainly is overlap in the ways these characters are rejected by society, they are NOT disabilities and actively work against Leduc's argument. The Grimm's fairy tale portion of the book functions a lot better at pointing to direct examples of how magically healing from disabilities and being punished by "receiving a disability" is a predictable end goal of these stories-- think Grimm's original Cinderella (in which the ugly stepsisters become blind because they are "evil") or Rapunzel (wherein the prince becomes blind but is healed by Rapunzel's magical tears). This weaves the gross narrative that good people are never disabled, or never disabled for long, and the evil people "deserve" their disabilities. But in the cases where this idea is subverted, Leduc isn't satisfied.
When Princess Fiona (surprise!) stays an ogre at the end of Shrek and says "I'm supposed to be beautiful," and Shrek affirms that she is, Leduc is not satisfied that Fiona needed a man's approval to consider herself beautiful. Okay....? But how does that relate back to the thesis? It's one of the very rare instances when Leduc points out that fairy tale women tend to look to men for validation. But this should serve her argument, given how taken she is with the idea of romantic love being the ultimate goal of all stories, proving disfigured people are worthy of love from people who do not see them as "other" for this disfigurement. (Again, being an ogre is not a disability.) And don't forget about the Cinderella sequel that has one of the evil stepsisters change her ways and find love! If we're taking "ugliness" as a synonym or metaphor for disability, that stepsister became a good person, but didn't physically change, but that's not mentioned at all in this book. It seems like Leduc cherry-picked examples to fit her narrative. She could've dug a lot deeper or made clear why these instances were not good enough.
I obviously have to have a little beef with what the author says about the Hunchback of Notre Dame. First off-- it's true, there needs to be way more representation in films and stories that are about disabled people getting happy endings and NOT being the villains. However, it's clear Leduc is sad that other kids have a variety of princesses to see themselves in (absolutely no mention of the problematic nature of Disney Princess Pocahontas, who is only mentioned by Leduc as a model for Indigenous little girls to look up to. Yikes.) but she is disgusted that she only has Quasimodo, whose movie she refers to as pity porn. Leduc argues that because he doesn't get a love interest, it's all null and void, and I think that's absolutely false. She says it's okay Brave's Merida doesn't get a love interest in the end because she didn't want one, but clearly is stuck on the idea that romance is the end all be all of these stories. It's not.
Let's be real... the whimsy of Disney princess movies revolve around their cute, fantastical stories that call back to Grimm-style fairy tales-- they're not realistic at all, a boy and girl meet and instantly fall in love, they mainly involve a weird moral where women get punished for existing, evil is defeated, and everything turns out great in the end because magic. In other words, they're fun and sometimes interesting, but anyone with critical thinking skills today can tell they're not that deep and they're pretty problematic and that's why Shrek exists. Disney tales from Walt's golden years and beyond are not exactly the perfect teaching moments to be showing your kids (and we didn't even get to my issues with Frozen 2's race war) and part of that is because they so heavily rely on the main character finding romance with a royal that will fix all their problems.
Now, I don't know if it's just a Victor Hugo thing or not, but yeah... it's a sad fucking story. It doesn't fit the usual Disney theme. And Quasi doesn't exactly "get the girl" in the end. The original is absolutely heart-breaking, with far more abuse and death than we see in the Disney film. But the point of the story is to point out the injustices that Quasi faced for being different and how those harmful ideas are passed down from institutions like the church, that shape the minds of the community not only about the disabled but also about poc (which... was kind of the point of Leduc's book, if I recall???). In the Disney film, the same message persists (albeit with a FAR happier ending) and we see him finding happiness alongside friends who love him and a community who has come to realize that disfigurement isn't a measure of a person's worth or goodness (again??? the point of the book????). I'm convinced Leduc didn't really watch or read the Hunchback of Notre Dame, given how little she says about it compared to the numerous other Disney tales she rips apart (as she should). If she had done so, I would've accepted, say, criticisms of the infantilization of Quasi's character as a valid dissection, but this is weak sauce.
Yes, we show Disney movies to kids to teach them about the world and yes, we should think about what we're putting in these movies knowing they will shape the minds of future generations. Engaging with books, movies, and media that have complexities and don't follow the usual hero's journey should be encouraged because it can be worthwhile and expands your understanding of the story. But if you're taking a face-value message like "Quasimodo is disabled and mistreated and therefore disabled people ought to be mistreated" away from this masterpiece of a film, I have news for you.
Even if the straight-to-DVD sequel where Quasi does find romantic love didn't exist (which... let's be real... it shouldn't; it was poor quality and diminished a lot of the worldbuilding and atmosphere from the original film, but I appreciate the filmmakers giving Quasi a chance at love without the distress of a race war breaking out), the story does not exist for Quasimodo to find romance. As a character, he is, for the first time, able to find his own worth and open his heart to all of the magnificent experiences he never got to have before. Part of that includes him falling in love (although he has a less than healthy understanding of it given his own mistreatment), but he still maintains that beautiful thread of love between himself and Esmeralda, which soon encompasses even more people. Can platonic love never be considered as worthwhile as romantic love? And would it make sense for Quasimodo to help rescue a refugee, escape his own dark prison, help rescue a soldier, escape another prison while the entire city is burning, lead a revolution, rescue the refugee from being burned for being a witch but actually just for refusing a man's advances, take down the most evil villain in all of Disney's history, become a town legend, find acceptance in himself, declare his personhood after years of abuse, earn loyal friends--ALL IN THE SPAN OF THREE DAYS-- and sit wishing by the wishing well that one day his princess will come a la Snow White? THERE'S A WAR. THERE'S TRAUMA. THERE ARE IDENTITY POLITICS AND SELF-DISCOVERY. AND DID I MENTION THE WAR??? THREE DAYS???? The Hunchback of Notre Dame has far more lessons to teach than "be good, get love," like every other Disney story.
All this to say, yes, I would love to see more disabled main characters in Disney films and movies in general, which are not focused on "fixing" anyone, but please don't ever come for my favorite movie with a weak ass argument like that ever again.
And last of all, and most unforgivable.............
LEDUC SPOILS TWO HUGE MOMENTS IN GAME OF THRONES WITHOUT WARNING IN ORDER TO PROVE A POINT THAT WAS NOT MADE WELL. THERE IS NO REASON YOU NEED TO BE OUT HERE SPOILING A SHOW WHOSE FINALE HAS AIRED NOT TWO YEARS PRIOR TO TODAY AND NOT ONE YEAR BEFORE YOU PUBLISHED THIS BOOK. ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE. GAME OF THRONES ISN'T EVEN A FUCKING FAIRY TALE. THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE TO INCLUDE THAT.
IN CONCLUSION, I'm really fucking mad about that GoT spoiler and deducting a full star for that, bringing us to a 2.5.
The personal connection to Leduc's experiences and stories from other disabled people she knew were much more compelling than the rest of this book, and I wish there had been less in here about trying to fit her story exactly to that of the Little Mermaid's. Ariel "finds her land legs" pretty quickly after leaving the sea and prior to this, she has a body that fits in with the rest of the community she lives with. It's a much stronger case to point out that Ariel is mute for half of the story and treated as lesser than (esp. in the original tale) for it. There's a vast difference in what the Little Mermaid experiences depending on if we're talking about the original Hans Christian Anderson tale or the prettied-up Disney one. Leduc flip flops on if Ariel/the Little Mermaid is like Leduc (because the original story has her walking on legs with the pain of walking on sharp knives with every step), or is the model of what all the little girls wanted to be but Leduc could never be, or if there are absolutely no princesses with any disabilities.... and no firm stance was taken in the end, so it didn't drive the point home, especially because the author referred to both the original and remake in bursts that felt hurried and less thought-out than is needed. With a little more polish and focus, this could've been a lot more powerful, but it felt very jumbled as it was.
More things: Leduc spends an entire chapter gushing over Kate Middleton, which has aged so poorly given current events. I also don't know why it was necessary to include because Leduc just tells you how badly she wants to be Kate Middleton and marry Prince William, but doesn't really say anything else about her to tie back to her message.
I think this ultimately would be more interesting for folks who have not really examined the way stories we're told when we're younger are packed with messages that tend to punish women, disabled, ugly, fat, and coded-as-queer characters. It's fun to think of the alternate stories that warp the tales we're used to into something more interesting by following the "bad guy" and then seeing how immediately disadvantaged they may be (usually leading to a far more tragic tale). Take the case of Wicked and Twisted: the Untold Story of a Royal Vizier-- both cast the villains of their respective stories as the good guys, who just happen to be shunned by others for being "ugly." These stories give their audience a chance to reexamine the plot from another perspective, to see how truly unfair things may be and how often society will create a monster from an innocent to fit their narrative of "beauty = good and ugly = evil." This is an especially awful way of thinking when our own society has dictated for countless years that beauty is decidedly not synonymous with so many qualities that minorities have and this book is meant to mostly examine that as it relates to disabilities.
While some of what Leduc does here works well, the message is very muddled given that she seems to conflate disability with any and all disadvantages/pecularities fairy tale characters have such as "Jafar has thin features compared to everyone else," "Scar has a scar," "the Beast's form [is hairy]," and "Princess Fiona is an ogre." While there certainly is overlap in the ways these characters are rejected by society, they are NOT disabilities and actively work against Leduc's argument. The Grimm's fairy tale portion of the book functions a lot better at pointing to direct examples of how magically healing from disabilities and being punished by "receiving a disability" is a predictable end goal of these stories-- think Grimm's original Cinderella (in which the ugly stepsisters become blind because they are "evil") or Rapunzel (wherein the prince becomes blind but is healed by Rapunzel's magical tears). This weaves the gross narrative that good people are never disabled, or never disabled for long, and the evil people "deserve" their disabilities. But in the cases where this idea is subverted, Leduc isn't satisfied.
When Princess Fiona (surprise!) stays an ogre at the end of Shrek and says "I'm supposed to be beautiful," and Shrek affirms that she is, Leduc is not satisfied that Fiona needed a man's approval to consider herself beautiful. Okay....? But how does that relate back to the thesis? It's one of the very rare instances when Leduc points out that fairy tale women tend to look to men for validation. But this should serve her argument, given how taken she is with the idea of romantic love being the ultimate goal of all stories, proving disfigured people are worthy of love from people who do not see them as "other" for this disfigurement. (Again, being an ogre is not a disability.) And don't forget about the Cinderella sequel that has one of the evil stepsisters change her ways and find love! If we're taking "ugliness" as a synonym or metaphor for disability, that stepsister became a good person, but didn't physically change, but that's not mentioned at all in this book. It seems like Leduc cherry-picked examples to fit her narrative. She could've dug a lot deeper or made clear why these instances were not good enough.
I obviously have to have a little beef with what the author says about the Hunchback of Notre Dame. First off-- it's true, there needs to be way more representation in films and stories that are about disabled people getting happy endings and NOT being the villains. However, it's clear Leduc is sad that other kids have a variety of princesses to see themselves in (absolutely no mention of the problematic nature of Disney Princess Pocahontas, who is only mentioned by Leduc as a model for Indigenous little girls to look up to. Yikes.) but she is disgusted that she only has Quasimodo, whose movie she refers to as pity porn. Leduc argues that because he doesn't get a love interest, it's all null and void, and I think that's absolutely false. She says it's okay Brave's Merida doesn't get a love interest in the end because she didn't want one, but clearly is stuck on the idea that romance is the end all be all of these stories. It's not.
Let's be real... the whimsy of Disney princess movies revolve around their cute, fantastical stories that call back to Grimm-style fairy tales-- they're not realistic at all, a boy and girl meet and instantly fall in love, they mainly involve a weird moral where women get punished for existing, evil is defeated, and everything turns out great in the end because magic. In other words, they're fun and sometimes interesting, but anyone with critical thinking skills today can tell they're not that deep and they're pretty problematic and that's why Shrek exists. Disney tales from Walt's golden years and beyond are not exactly the perfect teaching moments to be showing your kids (and we didn't even get to my issues with Frozen 2's race war) and part of that is because they so heavily rely on the main character finding romance with a royal that will fix all their problems.
Now, I don't know if it's just a Victor Hugo thing or not, but yeah... it's a sad fucking story. It doesn't fit the usual Disney theme. And Quasi doesn't exactly "get the girl" in the end. The original is absolutely heart-breaking, with far more abuse and death than we see in the Disney film. But the point of the story is to point out the injustices that Quasi faced for being different and how those harmful ideas are passed down from institutions like the church, that shape the minds of the community not only about the disabled but also about poc (which... was kind of the point of Leduc's book, if I recall???). In the Disney film, the same message persists (albeit with a FAR happier ending) and we see him finding happiness alongside friends who love him and a community who has come to realize that disfigurement isn't a measure of a person's worth or goodness (again??? the point of the book????). I'm convinced Leduc didn't really watch or read the Hunchback of Notre Dame, given how little she says about it compared to the numerous other Disney tales she rips apart (as she should). If she had done so, I would've accepted, say, criticisms of the infantilization of Quasi's character as a valid dissection, but this is weak sauce.
Yes, we show Disney movies to kids to teach them about the world and yes, we should think about what we're putting in these movies knowing they will shape the minds of future generations. Engaging with books, movies, and media that have complexities and don't follow the usual hero's journey should be encouraged because it can be worthwhile and expands your understanding of the story. But if you're taking a face-value message like "Quasimodo is disabled and mistreated and therefore disabled people ought to be mistreated" away from this masterpiece of a film, I have news for you.
Even if the straight-to-DVD sequel where Quasi does find romantic love didn't exist (which... let's be real... it shouldn't; it was poor quality and diminished a lot of the worldbuilding and atmosphere from the original film, but I appreciate the filmmakers giving Quasi a chance at love without the distress of a race war breaking out), the story does not exist for Quasimodo to find romance. As a character, he is, for the first time, able to find his own worth and open his heart to all of the magnificent experiences he never got to have before. Part of that includes him falling in love (although he has a less than healthy understanding of it given his own mistreatment), but he still maintains that beautiful thread of love between himself and Esmeralda, which soon encompasses even more people. Can platonic love never be considered as worthwhile as romantic love? And would it make sense for Quasimodo to help rescue a refugee, escape his own dark prison, help rescue a soldier, escape another prison while the entire city is burning, lead a revolution, rescue the refugee from being burned for being a witch but actually just for refusing a man's advances, take down the most evil villain in all of Disney's history, become a town legend, find acceptance in himself, declare his personhood after years of abuse, earn loyal friends--ALL IN THE SPAN OF THREE DAYS-- and sit wishing by the wishing well that one day his princess will come a la Snow White? THERE'S A WAR. THERE'S TRAUMA. THERE ARE IDENTITY POLITICS AND SELF-DISCOVERY. AND DID I MENTION THE WAR??? THREE DAYS???? The Hunchback of Notre Dame has far more lessons to teach than "be good, get love," like every other Disney story.
All this to say, yes, I would love to see more disabled main characters in Disney films and movies in general, which are not focused on "fixing" anyone, but please don't ever come for my favorite movie with a weak ass argument like that ever again.
And last of all, and most unforgivable.............
LEDUC SPOILS TWO HUGE MOMENTS IN GAME OF THRONES WITHOUT WARNING IN ORDER TO PROVE A POINT THAT WAS NOT MADE WELL. THERE IS NO REASON YOU NEED TO BE OUT HERE SPOILING A SHOW WHOSE FINALE HAS AIRED NOT TWO YEARS PRIOR TO TODAY AND NOT ONE YEAR BEFORE YOU PUBLISHED THIS BOOK. ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE. GAME OF THRONES ISN'T EVEN A FUCKING FAIRY TALE. THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE TO INCLUDE THAT.
IN CONCLUSION, I'm really fucking mad about that GoT spoiler and deducting a full star for that, bringing us to a 2.5.
May 31, 2022
i don't typically give star ratings to autobiographies/memoirs that i have mixed feelings about; to be clear, my rating for this book doesn't reflect how i feel about the author's personal disclosures. in fact, i related a lot to what she shared - particularly as someone who grew up in canada around the same time and who also has a condition affecting her leg. reading about the author's personal experiences was deeply affirming for me. moreover, i think it's so incredibly important to have more books published by and about disabled creators - books about justice, representation, and community and the role of storytelling across each of these areas.
that being said, i was disappointed with my overall experience with disfigured :( i think i was expecting a deeper (or clearer, or more groundbreaking) analysis of the thematic material, as the book itself comes across somewhat haphazard, disjointed, and repetitive to the point of feeling hazy or superficial - particularly in the moments when a random paragraph would be thrown in about a specific anecdote or statistic that, to me, wasn't clearly connected to what was just being discussed. i also felt weird about pocahontas being named as an Indigenous disney princess (and heralded as an icon of Indigenous representation in the franchise) without discussion or even mention of how problematic her disney story is.
lastly, i can't believe there were explicit, non-tagged, MAJOR spoilers for the game of thrones ending! i've worked so hard to keep away from spoilers, and they were just thrown into this book casually and without warning - it was maddening and disappointing. for anyone who doesn't want to read spoilers, i'd recommend avoiding the end of chapter 7 and also the afterword.
that being said, i was disappointed with my overall experience with disfigured :( i think i was expecting a deeper (or clearer, or more groundbreaking) analysis of the thematic material, as the book itself comes across somewhat haphazard, disjointed, and repetitive to the point of feeling hazy or superficial - particularly in the moments when a random paragraph would be thrown in about a specific anecdote or statistic that, to me, wasn't clearly connected to what was just being discussed. i also felt weird about pocahontas being named as an Indigenous disney princess (and heralded as an icon of Indigenous representation in the franchise) without discussion or even mention of how problematic her disney story is.
lastly, i can't believe there were explicit, non-tagged, MAJOR spoilers for the game of thrones ending! i've worked so hard to keep away from spoilers, and they were just thrown into this book casually and without warning - it was maddening and disappointing. for anyone who doesn't want to read spoilers, i'd recommend avoiding the end of chapter 7 and also the afterword.
December 21, 2019
Damn, this book will make you think long and deep about the fairy tales we internalized as kids. Once you think about it, the connection between disability and fairy tale is so obviously there, but since so many of us started watching/reading/hearing these tales in our youth we accepted major themes as truth. Only certain beautiful princesses or maidens were worthy of a happy ending. Disfigurement meant you were deceitful and/or a villain. If you were ugly or beastly (beauty and the beast/ the ugly duckling) you had to go through a trial to prove you were worthy of being beautiful. Unless you were the hunchback of Notre Dame; a good guy; but his looks made him unfit for love. Chapters tied in with the authors personal story of learning to live with other's perceptions of her and understand her own disability through her lens and not the worlds. Extremely eye opening and sure to be a great conversation starter. From Disney to superheros to Game of Thrones to Grimm; all angles are covered. As an able-bodied person; this really made me think long and hard about how I need to continually be making space for others with different needs then my own. A fascinating book!
August 4, 2024
(1.5)
I’m going to be very honest … I’ve never been so frustrated at a book before. I had maybe thirty pages of notes when I finished reading! I feel bad, because as someone who’s disabled and crippled myself (someone with mobility problems), I really wanted to love this book and support the author.
Content warnings:
- ableism and ableist slurs
- nazi mention
- suicide
Okay, so again, I’m crippled, multiply disabled, and have a few mental health issues (one of them being depression, like the author). The most frustrating and troublesome symptom for me, though, is pain, which will become relevant later in the review. I wanted to get this out of the way first, so it’s more clear where I’m coming from.
I was so, so excited to read this book. Just reading the printed quotes after the dedication made me teary eyed. But then Leduc says in the intro that the book isn’t a work of fairy tale scholarship, and it also isn’t meant to be a work of disability scholarship. But then what is it? Isn’t that what it’s advertised to be? After finishing the book, it’s only slightly clearer. It’s divided into different parts, some with different fonts (like the medical records her doctor wrote, which help you understand the way doctors think about and classify disabled people) There are many memoir-like elements throughout the novel--my favorite parts overall--as well as essay-like reflections on a variety of subjects from Disney to Kate Middleton to Marvel movies, and finally, to actual Western European fairy tales.
But one of my main problems is that it’s so ridiculously unorganized. She repeats her points over and over--in random sections of the book--without adding anything new. All of her sections (memoir, doctor’s notes, analyzing media, talking about ableism and disability in general) are in what seems to be random order as well, with the few exceptions being an introduction to disability terms in the beginning leading into the most structured part: a look at ableism in specific fairy tale examples. Honestly, the book feels stream-of-consciousness, as if Leduc is talking to us in a cafe, saying, “And another thing!”
In the afterword, I learned that some chapters were printed independently as essays and thinkpieces, which then made things clearer. It’s why she kept repeating herself, why some elements seemed completely separate from her actual title and main ideas (superheroes as modern-day fairy tales? A stretch) … it was because she tried to connect a bunch of separately published works into one without enough editing.
Which then got me thinking about her actual title. “Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space” … does that actually make sense, when you think about it? But this is getting too nitpicky, so that’ll be something I’ll talk about with my own friend in a cafe or something.
Now this is where things get subjective, and it’s why I listed a few of my disabilities upfront: I disagree with many of her points and takes on disability (& disability activism). Leduc writes all these chapters/essays with two models of disability in mind, while remaining firmly rooted in the idea that one model (the social model) is superior to the other. In her words, the social model of disability is “maintained by barriers, exclusion, and negative attitudes toward these disabilities more than the physical limitations of the conditions themselves. (If a building has elevators and accessible entryways the fact that a person uses a wheelchair doesn't limit them in the building in any way.)” She then defines the medical model of disability as linking “a body directly to a diagnosis and places emphasis on the intervention of medicine as a way of solving or eradicating the particular disability or condition.”
However, she does mention a third model--and sadly, it’s just a brief mention: something called “complex embodiment” by disability activist Tobin Siebers. The theory “raises awareness of the effects of disabling environments on people's lived experience of the body, but emphasizes as well that some factors affecting disability, such as chronic pain, secondary health effects, and aging, derive from the body.”
This theory is never brought up again. But it’s the intersection where I--and so many other disabled people--live. I understand that it’s not possible to encompass every disabled person’s experience in a single book like this, and Leduc does mention that in a little disclaimer upfront, but then she should have perhaps made her topic less broad. And more importantly, she should probably avoid making sweeping statements about disabled people as a whole. Throughout the entire book, she barely mentions pain being an accessibility issue for people, or honestly as being a symptom at all. When she does, it’s in passing, a “there are some people who experience pain,” and that’s about it.
She spends so much time in the book with a black-and-white look at these theories (the medical model is BAD, the social model is GOOD), when a more nuanced discussion could help provide a more thorough education on what disabled people need, who they are, and also leave less disabled people out. Especially when so many people wouldn’t be alive without medical intervention, whether that be surgery like Leduc had herself or medication like I take for my autoimmune diseases.
Which brings me to the next point: sometimes our bodies really do need help, sometimes our bodies are different, and cause us to be “disadvantaged”, as Leduc constantly says isn’t the case. Just because there’s nothing wrong with “different” doesn’t mean the difference isn’t there. Leduc herself quotes the website Disabled World in her book, which defines a disability as a “condition or function judged to be significantly impaired relative to the usual standard of an individual or group.”
The medical model’s obsession with curing is something that should be criticized, though, I agree with Leduc there. But if there truly is nothing wrong with being disabled or different, like Leduc constantly says, then there should be nothing wrong with literally inhabiting a body that needs help, whether that be social and/or medical.
I mentioned earlier that I thought the overall topic should have been a little more focused. It’s been almost a month since I finished the book, and I think this is increasingly becoming the biggest issue I have with it. The author wants to write about so much in this one book, and I applaud her enthusiasm, because we need more people like her in our community actively trying to make change. But trying to cover so much (analysis of older Grimm-style Western European fairy-tale ableism, real-life ableism, models of disability, memoir-like sections, doctor’s notes, analysis of Disney movies, analysis of superhero media, discussions about how anyone who looks different and/or has scars also falls within the umbrella of disability, etc.) just means barely touching on each point before rushing off to the next one, which happened in every chapter, but increasingly toward the end.
It also feels like maybe Leduc should have written this about what she’s obviously more passionate about: media representation and ableism. Only one chapter discusses actual fairy tales, but it also mostly devotes its page time to long-winded summaries. Most of the time, when Leduc discusses examples of ableism in media, she’s talking about Disney representation, Marvel movies, and then toward the end, Game of Thrones (where she tries to say that being a woman in that world means being disabled. Technically, using the theory she puts forward, it “works”, but I don’t buy it). But why does she try to cover traditional W. European fairy tales--going so far as to use them in the title--when she admits that she’s not very familiar with them? I think a qualitative approach would have worked much better for her rather than quantitative … but then again, I’m in the minority, looking at all these reviews.
I know this is getting very long already, but I want to mention sexism before I end the review. Reading the memoir sections, it seemed to me that a good deal of what she struggled from, in addition to ableism, was sexism and stiff gender roles. I spent the whole book hoping she would talk about the intersection of ableism and sexism or ableism and gender, but she never did. Instead of using old material and reaching to justify how superheroes are kind of like modern-day fairy tales, she could have talked about how Disney movies made her obsessed with happy endings, weddings, a prince and romantic love, etc., and how her body and her limp bred internal ableism inside her from a young age.
Okay, I’ve been working on this review for a long while, and my arthritis has made it incredibly difficult to finish it in the way I’d like. Instead, I think I’m just going to make a couple annoying lists to end it. Sorry about that! You have to do what you have to do.
Things I liked:
- The author mentioning changeling folklore and how it originated from the ableist fear of having a disabled child (I’ve been wanting to read something about this for so long!)
- There are some sections of her memoir where I feel such genuine emotion from her. The part where one of her editors asks, “Are you sure it isn’t a big deal?” held so much feeling.
- Loved her insight on the old belief that autistic children were the product of fairies because of the way they like to do repetitive tasks (it was believed in the 19th century in W. Europe that fairies were obsessed with repetitive tasks, like counting gold coins)
- Her points on productivity and usefulness in relation to disability
Things I disliked:
- The use of Hans My Hedgehog as a fairy tale example … Hans seems to violently attack a woman for reacting badly to his disfigurement, and the author takes his side.
- It bothers me that she got interviews from people who are diverse in almost every way except for how they’re disabled, which is almost always cerebral palsy, like the author. The disabled community is so vast and holds such a variety of experiences and opinions, and she picked the few who are and think like her. It feels less like a discussion/nonfiction book, and more like a persuasive speech.
- She has a tendency to pit representation against each other: “It took seventy-two years for Disney to make a film starring a Black princess. Fifty-five years for a princess who was South Asian. Fifty-eight years for an Indigenous princess. Sixty-one years for a princess from China. No disabled princess yet, so far as I can see.” That’s not okay. Especially because many of those aren’t even great--or even okay--representations.
- When she talks about Ariel from The Little Mermaid being disabled, she only mentions her mutism in passing. Instead, she spends her time on Ariel’s legs. Why? Similarly, when she says Steve Rogers from Captain America has a disability pre-supersoldier, she fixates on his physical appearance, how he looks weaker in relation to the other soldiers, saying that’s his disability. A friend told me Steve Rogers canonically has disabilities: asthma, scoliosis, rheumatic fever, and pernicious anemia.
- Cherry picking. She does this a lot.
I’m so sorry. This has become so long, and I still have many more points. I’m going to end this by saying that Leduc claiming she has never read or seen a fictional woman with power who hasn’t gone mad reveals just how narrow her media experience has been. She is an example of how the media we consume shapes us. There are, in fact, many stories about disabled characters by disabled people out there, and it continues to grow! This book proves that, too, and adds to a list of growing nonfiction about disability. I’m glad it’s getting attention as well, and I’m happy for Leduc. I hope our community continues to produce more and more. I didn’t like this one in particular, but I will cheer Leduc on through her career.
I’m going to be very honest … I’ve never been so frustrated at a book before. I had maybe thirty pages of notes when I finished reading! I feel bad, because as someone who’s disabled and crippled myself (someone with mobility problems), I really wanted to love this book and support the author.
Content warnings:
- ableism and ableist slurs
- nazi mention
- suicide
Okay, so again, I’m crippled, multiply disabled, and have a few mental health issues (one of them being depression, like the author). The most frustrating and troublesome symptom for me, though, is pain, which will become relevant later in the review. I wanted to get this out of the way first, so it’s more clear where I’m coming from.
I was so, so excited to read this book. Just reading the printed quotes after the dedication made me teary eyed. But then Leduc says in the intro that the book isn’t a work of fairy tale scholarship, and it also isn’t meant to be a work of disability scholarship. But then what is it? Isn’t that what it’s advertised to be? After finishing the book, it’s only slightly clearer. It’s divided into different parts, some with different fonts (like the medical records her doctor wrote, which help you understand the way doctors think about and classify disabled people) There are many memoir-like elements throughout the novel--my favorite parts overall--as well as essay-like reflections on a variety of subjects from Disney to Kate Middleton to Marvel movies, and finally, to actual Western European fairy tales.
But one of my main problems is that it’s so ridiculously unorganized. She repeats her points over and over--in random sections of the book--without adding anything new. All of her sections (memoir, doctor’s notes, analyzing media, talking about ableism and disability in general) are in what seems to be random order as well, with the few exceptions being an introduction to disability terms in the beginning leading into the most structured part: a look at ableism in specific fairy tale examples. Honestly, the book feels stream-of-consciousness, as if Leduc is talking to us in a cafe, saying, “And another thing!”
In the afterword, I learned that some chapters were printed independently as essays and thinkpieces, which then made things clearer. It’s why she kept repeating herself, why some elements seemed completely separate from her actual title and main ideas (superheroes as modern-day fairy tales? A stretch) … it was because she tried to connect a bunch of separately published works into one without enough editing.
Which then got me thinking about her actual title. “Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space” … does that actually make sense, when you think about it? But this is getting too nitpicky, so that’ll be something I’ll talk about with my own friend in a cafe or something.
Now this is where things get subjective, and it’s why I listed a few of my disabilities upfront: I disagree with many of her points and takes on disability (& disability activism). Leduc writes all these chapters/essays with two models of disability in mind, while remaining firmly rooted in the idea that one model (the social model) is superior to the other. In her words, the social model of disability is “maintained by barriers, exclusion, and negative attitudes toward these disabilities more than the physical limitations of the conditions themselves. (If a building has elevators and accessible entryways the fact that a person uses a wheelchair doesn't limit them in the building in any way.)” She then defines the medical model of disability as linking “a body directly to a diagnosis and places emphasis on the intervention of medicine as a way of solving or eradicating the particular disability or condition.”
However, she does mention a third model--and sadly, it’s just a brief mention: something called “complex embodiment” by disability activist Tobin Siebers. The theory “raises awareness of the effects of disabling environments on people's lived experience of the body, but emphasizes as well that some factors affecting disability, such as chronic pain, secondary health effects, and aging, derive from the body.”
This theory is never brought up again. But it’s the intersection where I--and so many other disabled people--live. I understand that it’s not possible to encompass every disabled person’s experience in a single book like this, and Leduc does mention that in a little disclaimer upfront, but then she should have perhaps made her topic less broad. And more importantly, she should probably avoid making sweeping statements about disabled people as a whole. Throughout the entire book, she barely mentions pain being an accessibility issue for people, or honestly as being a symptom at all. When she does, it’s in passing, a “there are some people who experience pain,” and that’s about it.
She spends so much time in the book with a black-and-white look at these theories (the medical model is BAD, the social model is GOOD), when a more nuanced discussion could help provide a more thorough education on what disabled people need, who they are, and also leave less disabled people out. Especially when so many people wouldn’t be alive without medical intervention, whether that be surgery like Leduc had herself or medication like I take for my autoimmune diseases.
Which brings me to the next point: sometimes our bodies really do need help, sometimes our bodies are different, and cause us to be “disadvantaged”, as Leduc constantly says isn’t the case. Just because there’s nothing wrong with “different” doesn’t mean the difference isn’t there. Leduc herself quotes the website Disabled World in her book, which defines a disability as a “condition or function judged to be significantly impaired relative to the usual standard of an individual or group.”
The medical model’s obsession with curing is something that should be criticized, though, I agree with Leduc there. But if there truly is nothing wrong with being disabled or different, like Leduc constantly says, then there should be nothing wrong with literally inhabiting a body that needs help, whether that be social and/or medical.
I mentioned earlier that I thought the overall topic should have been a little more focused. It’s been almost a month since I finished the book, and I think this is increasingly becoming the biggest issue I have with it. The author wants to write about so much in this one book, and I applaud her enthusiasm, because we need more people like her in our community actively trying to make change. But trying to cover so much (analysis of older Grimm-style Western European fairy-tale ableism, real-life ableism, models of disability, memoir-like sections, doctor’s notes, analysis of Disney movies, analysis of superhero media, discussions about how anyone who looks different and/or has scars also falls within the umbrella of disability, etc.) just means barely touching on each point before rushing off to the next one, which happened in every chapter, but increasingly toward the end.
It also feels like maybe Leduc should have written this about what she’s obviously more passionate about: media representation and ableism. Only one chapter discusses actual fairy tales, but it also mostly devotes its page time to long-winded summaries. Most of the time, when Leduc discusses examples of ableism in media, she’s talking about Disney representation, Marvel movies, and then toward the end, Game of Thrones (where she tries to say that being a woman in that world means being disabled. Technically, using the theory she puts forward, it “works”, but I don’t buy it). But why does she try to cover traditional W. European fairy tales--going so far as to use them in the title--when she admits that she’s not very familiar with them? I think a qualitative approach would have worked much better for her rather than quantitative … but then again, I’m in the minority, looking at all these reviews.
I know this is getting very long already, but I want to mention sexism before I end the review. Reading the memoir sections, it seemed to me that a good deal of what she struggled from, in addition to ableism, was sexism and stiff gender roles. I spent the whole book hoping she would talk about the intersection of ableism and sexism or ableism and gender, but she never did. Instead of using old material and reaching to justify how superheroes are kind of like modern-day fairy tales, she could have talked about how Disney movies made her obsessed with happy endings, weddings, a prince and romantic love, etc., and how her body and her limp bred internal ableism inside her from a young age.
Okay, I’ve been working on this review for a long while, and my arthritis has made it incredibly difficult to finish it in the way I’d like. Instead, I think I’m just going to make a couple annoying lists to end it. Sorry about that! You have to do what you have to do.
Things I liked:
- The author mentioning changeling folklore and how it originated from the ableist fear of having a disabled child (I’ve been wanting to read something about this for so long!)
- There are some sections of her memoir where I feel such genuine emotion from her. The part where one of her editors asks, “Are you sure it isn’t a big deal?” held so much feeling.
- Loved her insight on the old belief that autistic children were the product of fairies because of the way they like to do repetitive tasks (it was believed in the 19th century in W. Europe that fairies were obsessed with repetitive tasks, like counting gold coins)
- Her points on productivity and usefulness in relation to disability
Things I disliked:
- The use of Hans My Hedgehog as a fairy tale example … Hans seems to violently attack a woman for reacting badly to his disfigurement, and the author takes his side.
- It bothers me that she got interviews from people who are diverse in almost every way except for how they’re disabled, which is almost always cerebral palsy, like the author. The disabled community is so vast and holds such a variety of experiences and opinions, and she picked the few who are and think like her. It feels less like a discussion/nonfiction book, and more like a persuasive speech.
- She has a tendency to pit representation against each other: “It took seventy-two years for Disney to make a film starring a Black princess. Fifty-five years for a princess who was South Asian. Fifty-eight years for an Indigenous princess. Sixty-one years for a princess from China. No disabled princess yet, so far as I can see.” That’s not okay. Especially because many of those aren’t even great--or even okay--representations.
- When she talks about Ariel from The Little Mermaid being disabled, she only mentions her mutism in passing. Instead, she spends her time on Ariel’s legs. Why? Similarly, when she says Steve Rogers from Captain America has a disability pre-supersoldier, she fixates on his physical appearance, how he looks weaker in relation to the other soldiers, saying that’s his disability. A friend told me Steve Rogers canonically has disabilities: asthma, scoliosis, rheumatic fever, and pernicious anemia.
- Cherry picking. She does this a lot.
I’m so sorry. This has become so long, and I still have many more points. I’m going to end this by saying that Leduc claiming she has never read or seen a fictional woman with power who hasn’t gone mad reveals just how narrow her media experience has been. She is an example of how the media we consume shapes us. There are, in fact, many stories about disabled characters by disabled people out there, and it continues to grow! This book proves that, too, and adds to a list of growing nonfiction about disability. I’m glad it’s getting attention as well, and I’m happy for Leduc. I hope our community continues to produce more and more. I didn’t like this one in particular, but I will cheer Leduc on through her career.
October 11, 2019
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'Disability is not a monolith- every disabled person’s experience in the world is different, and the way that we all navigate the world is likewise varied and complex.'
This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in years. Fairy-tales are a part of our lives, serving as a model for modern day stories, often as lessons in morality, a warning, a guiding tale that even smacks of those early after school specials my generation was so fond of. Then there are the romances, a foundation on which so many little girls have built their castles, with a Prince waiting to save them. Beautiful girls, at least. What exactly is the measure of beauty? In nearly all of the well known tales, it certainly isn’t any character who has a disability, unless of course it is conquered, all that spell breaking, true love’s kiss, shucking off the ‘deformity’ or ‘madness’ or ‘disfigurement’. Disfigurement is only enchanting if it is has a use for the ‘able bodied’ narrative, and it’s often not something the ‘able-bodied’ think about. Amanda Leduc dissects many of the familiar fairy tales, and lesser known ones, to shed light on how the disabled are used, abused, or downright invisible in such stories. It’s eye opening, and disheartening. Growing up with Cerebral Palsy, Amanda certainly didn’t see any stories about little girls with her hospital stays, operations, struggles. Princesses only twirled with balletic perfection, they sure weren’t in wheel chairs, and if any characters had a disease or deformity, they were either evil, cursed, or imbeciles who are lucky to be mentioned at all. The goal is often landing the Prince or taking one’s rightful place on the throne, but it is always about golden beauty because anything less won’t procure a happy ending. How could anyone have a happy ending if they have a chronic illness, a disease, a disability, and don’t get me started on mental health? Happy endings while deformed? The horror of it!
While this book explores the theme of disability in fairy tales, it is Leduc sharing how she has felt, and feels now, about her place in the world as defined by others, and herself. A child can have the most loving parents, but that child still must go out into the world, and face condescending attitudes, pity, cruelty even in our current time of awareness, (it is still half-assed awareness, though). Often, the person who has a disability or illness is meant to feel like it’s a special boon to be offered the same treatment the able-bodied receive. Maybe there are teaching moments, but does anyone you know want to be a poster child every waking moment of their life, or feel like a curiosity? For their body to be a horror story for another, one they just could’t survive if they had to reside in it? A big moment that hit me like a gut punch in the book is the idea that only in overcoming, ignoring everything from mental illness to very real pain and obstacles makes someone worthy because damn, it’s only a good life if the curse of sickness or imperfection is lifted! How is that for reality? Why should the world accommodate you, don’t you want to be just like the rest of us? Why are you so different? It is true, people equate disease, illness, disability, disfigurement as weak. Try harder! Rally around yourself! Go out in the sunshine! Sure…
My son grew up under the umbrella of autism, he didn’t look like he had struggles (what does that mean) and a label didn’t help as much as it should have, in fact often once educators knew how to define him, well he was no longer an individual, just an autistic. Some people meant well, others not so much. There were kind children, well meaning adults but attitudes tended to shift in the negative, with mocking, laughter, and exclusion, a forced feeling of isolation. Amanda’s story about her school journal made me heartsick, a violation as brutal as the wing scene in Maleficent. These things stick, we carry them with us. There are still hard times, he graduated college but still has obstacles, in real life unlike in fairy tales, there isn’t some spell that collecting the right ingredients will break, nor a quest that will allow some god or fairy to shine their benevolence upon him anymore than on the people who face each day of their life with their disability, illness. They aren’t asking for a gold star, special treatment, is it special treatment to be afforded dignity, accessibility, to be heard when speaking, understanding beyond a parking space or a toilet stall (that, let’s face it, more often than not is occupied by able-bodied folks)?
Disfigured is one of the most provocative books on disability I have read and I admit ignorance, there were connections I never thought about in the same light as Amanda. We are moving forward though at a snail’s crawl. I remember a commercial recently for a store selling Halloween costumes for children in wheel chairs, and I thought that is fantastic and yet ‘long overdue’. I fell the same about commercials serving as campaigns for acceptance showing skin with scars, freckles, vitiligo and how my daughter would have benefited from that when she was a little girl and at school was harassed by one constant question, ‘what is wrong with your skin.’ Inclusion is still a fight, resources are incredibly lacking in the school system alone, training isn’t always available, some schools push you to keep your kid separated not because it’s easier for the student but easier on everyone else, you think the adult world of disability is better? Amanda Leduc is right, who has fought more for everything they have? Why can’t they be represented in stories that children can look up to, beyond being a curse that love can fix, only of value when the disability or disfigurement is no more? Maybe with more voices being heard, the world can change, rather than push conformity.
This is a book everyone should read. Positive affirmations have their place, say if you have a cold, but this grin and bear it nonsense aimed towards people coping with obstacles so many of us cannot fathom just minimizes many lives, reduces real flesh and blood people. There is no shame in disability, different isn’t a tragedy and certainly our stories should include all of humanity. Happy endings, if we’re honest, don’t end in broken curses. Life is ups and downs, ill health, good health, loss and gains. There is no shame in needing medication, mobility aids, therapy… the shame is that it has been circulated as a tragedy, a horror story, a lesson in badness, evilness or that beauty is only one thing, ‘able-bodied’. My review does not do justice to the insights Amanda Leduc shares, absolutely read this book!
Publication Date: February 4, 2020
Coming soon
Coach House Books
'Disability is not a monolith- every disabled person’s experience in the world is different, and the way that we all navigate the world is likewise varied and complex.'
This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in years. Fairy-tales are a part of our lives, serving as a model for modern day stories, often as lessons in morality, a warning, a guiding tale that even smacks of those early after school specials my generation was so fond of. Then there are the romances, a foundation on which so many little girls have built their castles, with a Prince waiting to save them. Beautiful girls, at least. What exactly is the measure of beauty? In nearly all of the well known tales, it certainly isn’t any character who has a disability, unless of course it is conquered, all that spell breaking, true love’s kiss, shucking off the ‘deformity’ or ‘madness’ or ‘disfigurement’. Disfigurement is only enchanting if it is has a use for the ‘able bodied’ narrative, and it’s often not something the ‘able-bodied’ think about. Amanda Leduc dissects many of the familiar fairy tales, and lesser known ones, to shed light on how the disabled are used, abused, or downright invisible in such stories. It’s eye opening, and disheartening. Growing up with Cerebral Palsy, Amanda certainly didn’t see any stories about little girls with her hospital stays, operations, struggles. Princesses only twirled with balletic perfection, they sure weren’t in wheel chairs, and if any characters had a disease or deformity, they were either evil, cursed, or imbeciles who are lucky to be mentioned at all. The goal is often landing the Prince or taking one’s rightful place on the throne, but it is always about golden beauty because anything less won’t procure a happy ending. How could anyone have a happy ending if they have a chronic illness, a disease, a disability, and don’t get me started on mental health? Happy endings while deformed? The horror of it!
While this book explores the theme of disability in fairy tales, it is Leduc sharing how she has felt, and feels now, about her place in the world as defined by others, and herself. A child can have the most loving parents, but that child still must go out into the world, and face condescending attitudes, pity, cruelty even in our current time of awareness, (it is still half-assed awareness, though). Often, the person who has a disability or illness is meant to feel like it’s a special boon to be offered the same treatment the able-bodied receive. Maybe there are teaching moments, but does anyone you know want to be a poster child every waking moment of their life, or feel like a curiosity? For their body to be a horror story for another, one they just could’t survive if they had to reside in it? A big moment that hit me like a gut punch in the book is the idea that only in overcoming, ignoring everything from mental illness to very real pain and obstacles makes someone worthy because damn, it’s only a good life if the curse of sickness or imperfection is lifted! How is that for reality? Why should the world accommodate you, don’t you want to be just like the rest of us? Why are you so different? It is true, people equate disease, illness, disability, disfigurement as weak. Try harder! Rally around yourself! Go out in the sunshine! Sure…
My son grew up under the umbrella of autism, he didn’t look like he had struggles (what does that mean) and a label didn’t help as much as it should have, in fact often once educators knew how to define him, well he was no longer an individual, just an autistic. Some people meant well, others not so much. There were kind children, well meaning adults but attitudes tended to shift in the negative, with mocking, laughter, and exclusion, a forced feeling of isolation. Amanda’s story about her school journal made me heartsick, a violation as brutal as the wing scene in Maleficent. These things stick, we carry them with us. There are still hard times, he graduated college but still has obstacles, in real life unlike in fairy tales, there isn’t some spell that collecting the right ingredients will break, nor a quest that will allow some god or fairy to shine their benevolence upon him anymore than on the people who face each day of their life with their disability, illness. They aren’t asking for a gold star, special treatment, is it special treatment to be afforded dignity, accessibility, to be heard when speaking, understanding beyond a parking space or a toilet stall (that, let’s face it, more often than not is occupied by able-bodied folks)?
Disfigured is one of the most provocative books on disability I have read and I admit ignorance, there were connections I never thought about in the same light as Amanda. We are moving forward though at a snail’s crawl. I remember a commercial recently for a store selling Halloween costumes for children in wheel chairs, and I thought that is fantastic and yet ‘long overdue’. I fell the same about commercials serving as campaigns for acceptance showing skin with scars, freckles, vitiligo and how my daughter would have benefited from that when she was a little girl and at school was harassed by one constant question, ‘what is wrong with your skin.’ Inclusion is still a fight, resources are incredibly lacking in the school system alone, training isn’t always available, some schools push you to keep your kid separated not because it’s easier for the student but easier on everyone else, you think the adult world of disability is better? Amanda Leduc is right, who has fought more for everything they have? Why can’t they be represented in stories that children can look up to, beyond being a curse that love can fix, only of value when the disability or disfigurement is no more? Maybe with more voices being heard, the world can change, rather than push conformity.
This is a book everyone should read. Positive affirmations have their place, say if you have a cold, but this grin and bear it nonsense aimed towards people coping with obstacles so many of us cannot fathom just minimizes many lives, reduces real flesh and blood people. There is no shame in disability, different isn’t a tragedy and certainly our stories should include all of humanity. Happy endings, if we’re honest, don’t end in broken curses. Life is ups and downs, ill health, good health, loss and gains. There is no shame in needing medication, mobility aids, therapy… the shame is that it has been circulated as a tragedy, a horror story, a lesson in badness, evilness or that beauty is only one thing, ‘able-bodied’. My review does not do justice to the insights Amanda Leduc shares, absolutely read this book!
Publication Date: February 4, 2020
Coming soon
Coach House Books
July 10, 2022
Please take a minute of your time to read some very important food for thought below.
Representation matters. Accessibility matters. Consider your actions and your words. If someone refers to a disabled person as not being 'normal' or 'regular', call them out. Who cares if it makes it awkward? This is how things shift. Someone is not less than if they are disabled, so they should not live in a society where they are spoken to and treated to as if they are.
• We exist in an able-ist world, where happiness is associated with not being disabled. The ‘problem’ is ‘fixed’ when the hero becomes able-bodied again. This conditions us from the beginning that having a disability is a weakness and must be overcome.
• Discussing one person’s ability to ‘overcome’ their disabilities puts disabled people in a competition with each other. Everyone is in a different situation, and not all disabilities can be ‘overcome’, which just further makes someone feel less than. Are disabled people who are unable to compete in the Paralympics less than the ones who can? Of course not.
• Society cannot imagine a world where someone is happy with a disability, so they focus on curing it. But what about creating a society where your worth is not determined by your productivity or ‘output’?
• So many ‘bad characters’ have physical disfigurements, outside of fairy tales as well. The Joker. Voldemort. Darth Vader. Most villains in Bond movies. Al Pacino in Scarface. Most horror movies. The “I am not your villain” campaign in Britain was the first organization to announce they are no longer funding films where villains have facial disfigurements or scarring.
I listened to this, which was the only reason I finished it, but I think it missed the mark. Although the author stated how it was not meant as a scholarly piece of work, it would have benefitted from a more concise, analytical approach. This could have been an informative article instead of a repetitive, drawn out book. It is a shame because there are several very important ideas here, but it gets swallowed by the repetition and by the memoir aspects of the author's life.
Representation matters. Accessibility matters. Consider your actions and your words. If someone refers to a disabled person as not being 'normal' or 'regular', call them out. Who cares if it makes it awkward? This is how things shift. Someone is not less than if they are disabled, so they should not live in a society where they are spoken to and treated to as if they are.
• We exist in an able-ist world, where happiness is associated with not being disabled. The ‘problem’ is ‘fixed’ when the hero becomes able-bodied again. This conditions us from the beginning that having a disability is a weakness and must be overcome.
• Discussing one person’s ability to ‘overcome’ their disabilities puts disabled people in a competition with each other. Everyone is in a different situation, and not all disabilities can be ‘overcome’, which just further makes someone feel less than. Are disabled people who are unable to compete in the Paralympics less than the ones who can? Of course not.
• Society cannot imagine a world where someone is happy with a disability, so they focus on curing it. But what about creating a society where your worth is not determined by your productivity or ‘output’?
• So many ‘bad characters’ have physical disfigurements, outside of fairy tales as well. The Joker. Voldemort. Darth Vader. Most villains in Bond movies. Al Pacino in Scarface. Most horror movies. The “I am not your villain” campaign in Britain was the first organization to announce they are no longer funding films where villains have facial disfigurements or scarring.
I listened to this, which was the only reason I finished it, but I think it missed the mark. Although the author stated how it was not meant as a scholarly piece of work, it would have benefitted from a more concise, analytical approach. This could have been an informative article instead of a repetitive, drawn out book. It is a shame because there are several very important ideas here, but it gets swallowed by the repetition and by the memoir aspects of the author's life.
February 28, 2022
QUE LEITURA INCRIVEL!! o livro fala sobre capacitismo em contos de fadas e em como as historias que contamos importam e influenciam a sociedade.
É falado sobre a pequena seria, os anões da branca de neve, a fera de a bela e a fera, o scar do rei leao e em como em varias narrativas de contos de fadas tem um tantão de capacitismo no meio se vc olhar a fundo.
um gostinho do livro:
"A campanha "Não sou seu Vilão" foi lançada em 2018 no Reino Unido, organizada pela Changing Faces, uma organizaçao de caridade que tem o objetivo de aumentar a conscientização sobre o uso de cicatrizes, desfiguramento e diferenças faciais como atalho para criaçao de vilões em filmes e séries. É só pensar no Scar de O rei leão, Coringa e Duas Caras do Batman, o Caveira Vermelha do filme do Capitão America, Doutora Veneno do filme da Mulher Maravilha de 2017, os vilões da franquia James Bond do Daniel Craig (3 dos 4 viloes do Bond tem algum tipo de cicatriz ou deformaçao facial). Darth Vader, Scarface, Freddy Krueger, Deadpool, Snake Eyes da franquia G.I Joe, Gregor e Sandor Cleage de Game of Thrones, Leatherface, Voldemort..." (ate traduzi esse trecho pq PQP É MT REAL ISSO)
"why the disfigured body has historically been seen as less than whole; why fairy tales, narratives so often associated with seeming empowerment, have provided a breeding ground for anti-disability narrative"
"Give me stories where disability is synonymous with a different way of seeing the world and a recognition that the world can itself grow as a result of this viewpoint."
É falado sobre a pequena seria, os anões da branca de neve, a fera de a bela e a fera, o scar do rei leao e em como em varias narrativas de contos de fadas tem um tantão de capacitismo no meio se vc olhar a fundo.
um gostinho do livro:
"A campanha "Não sou seu Vilão" foi lançada em 2018 no Reino Unido, organizada pela Changing Faces, uma organizaçao de caridade que tem o objetivo de aumentar a conscientização sobre o uso de cicatrizes, desfiguramento e diferenças faciais como atalho para criaçao de vilões em filmes e séries. É só pensar no Scar de O rei leão, Coringa e Duas Caras do Batman, o Caveira Vermelha do filme do Capitão America, Doutora Veneno do filme da Mulher Maravilha de 2017, os vilões da franquia James Bond do Daniel Craig (3 dos 4 viloes do Bond tem algum tipo de cicatriz ou deformaçao facial). Darth Vader, Scarface, Freddy Krueger, Deadpool, Snake Eyes da franquia G.I Joe, Gregor e Sandor Cleage de Game of Thrones, Leatherface, Voldemort..." (ate traduzi esse trecho pq PQP É MT REAL ISSO)
"why the disfigured body has historically been seen as less than whole; why fairy tales, narratives so often associated with seeming empowerment, have provided a breeding ground for anti-disability narrative"
"Give me stories where disability is synonymous with a different way of seeing the world and a recognition that the world can itself grow as a result of this viewpoint."
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
January 3, 2024
“Why, in all of these stories about someone who wants to be something or someone else, was it always the individual who needed to change, and never the world?”
I originally checked this out in book format in the optimistic idea that I would read it, but like most nonfiction in print, it wasn't holding my attention despite being really, really good. Luckily, my library's hoopla account had the audiobook, and I bulldozed through this so quickly, entranced by Leduc's words.
Examining disability through a fairy tale lens, Leduc shows the history of able-bodied mindsets and how ugliness and physical difference have been crappy shorthand for villainy and evil. How the myth of the changeling hurt and killed neurodivergent children and postpartum women. How the world has been, and continues to be, designed with the intention on making disabled actively ostracized from society.
What then, does a world look like when community embraces difference?
“Disability is not a monolith--every disabled person's experience in the world is different, and the way that we all navigate the world is likewise varied and complex.”
I originally checked this out in book format in the optimistic idea that I would read it, but like most nonfiction in print, it wasn't holding my attention despite being really, really good. Luckily, my library's hoopla account had the audiobook, and I bulldozed through this so quickly, entranced by Leduc's words.
Examining disability through a fairy tale lens, Leduc shows the history of able-bodied mindsets and how ugliness and physical difference have been crappy shorthand for villainy and evil. How the myth of the changeling hurt and killed neurodivergent children and postpartum women. How the world has been, and continues to be, designed with the intention on making disabled actively ostracized from society.
What then, does a world look like when community embraces difference?
“Disability is not a monolith--every disabled person's experience in the world is different, and the way that we all navigate the world is likewise varied and complex.”
July 14, 2020
One aspect of this book is a memoir of Amanda Leduc, her experience of disability and the influence of fairy tales on her and on society in general. The other is analysis of particular fairy tales and popular culture as they relate to disability. The concept for this book is potentially wonderful, but it needs more organization. Also, as someone who has read academic texts I am accustomed to a certain amount of redundancy, but the repetition in Disfigured is excessive. It could have used more rigorous editing.
There were times when I thought that Leduc's fairy tale analysis was a revelation, but others when it felt myopic.
Leduc tells us that she wants different stories that affirm those living with a disability. I look for stories like that too. Maybe Leduc will write, or has written such stories.
There were times when I thought that Leduc's fairy tale analysis was a revelation, but others when it felt myopic.
Leduc tells us that she wants different stories that affirm those living with a disability. I look for stories like that too. Maybe Leduc will write, or has written such stories.
January 2, 2023
2023 reads: 3/350
this book discusses how fairytales perpetuate ableist views. from belle marrying the beast out of pity just to be “rewarded” with a handsome prince in the original tale to the villain in the lion king being named after his facial deformity, ableism is something that unfortunately runs rampant in fairytales, which of course affects our societal beliefs. due to the author’s experiences, this book mainly focuses on western fairytales. while i thought these discussions were interesting (and, as a western reader, relatable), i’d definitely be interested in reading something similar to this with a focus on non-western cultures just to see how they differ and how they’re similar. i highly recommend this book!
this book discusses how fairytales perpetuate ableist views. from belle marrying the beast out of pity just to be “rewarded” with a handsome prince in the original tale to the villain in the lion king being named after his facial deformity, ableism is something that unfortunately runs rampant in fairytales, which of course affects our societal beliefs. due to the author’s experiences, this book mainly focuses on western fairytales. while i thought these discussions were interesting (and, as a western reader, relatable), i’d definitely be interested in reading something similar to this with a focus on non-western cultures just to see how they differ and how they’re similar. i highly recommend this book!
November 28, 2023
very necessary read
September 29, 2021
I had incredibly high hopes for this book but they unfortunately fell flat. I was expecting an in-depth, fully formed analysis of various fairly tale narratives and tropes—and the specific ways ability and disability are reinforced as part of larger cultural structures. There was some of that, of course, but it was all surface level and often tedious to slog through a reading of various fairy tales whose moral purpose is flattened (unjustly imo) to "beautiful is good, ugly is bad" in order to prove her point. I think it does a disservice to both the intelligence of the writers and orators of said fairytales but also of the consumers of said fairytales who have passed on said media when taken in this light.
I also have very specific points of divergence with Leduc's perspective on disability, as someone who is neurodiverse and suffers from chronic illness. Oftentimes, her book reads as particularly against medical models in favor of social models of of disability, particularly in one section where she actually pits them against each other. She describes proponents of the medical model as those who see "disabled life as an unhappy ending because the medical model can fix it; proponents of the social model see the prospect of a cure as an unhappy ending because it removes the responsibility of bettering the social environment from society at large and places the onus on the individual to transform, thus eradicating the physical differences and accompanying memories that so often tether the disabled person's experience of the world."
I find this perspective quite baffling for a couple of reasons. For one, Leduc herself is alive particularly because of medical intervention in her childhood. Two, I don't believe that life-shaping experiences borne out of physical and mental struggles are necessarily worth it just so we can virtue signal that "everyone is good just the way they are." Of course the experiences of disabled people are valuable in every way, but searching for cures to diseases that impact the quality of life for those who have to endure trauma through every day acts of living is vital and important for advancement of the human species.
The idea that it is somehow unhappy to not want to subject a child to medical trauma from surgery and physical therapy at a young age—because even if it doesn't cause emotional trauma, it is a stressor to the body that does not need to happen—when it does not need to happen boggles the mind.
The medical and social models can work together—there is no need for competition, and Leduc herself is proof of that in action.
This also dovetails with another section in which she mentions that she "would not be who [she is] today" if she was not born with the cyst in her brain, and thus did not undergo her surgeries, the wheelchair, crutches, and the eventual bullying. The message that "trauma makes you who you are" is one that I hope we are trying to actively move away from, as a community and as a society, and this just reinforces it on the level of disability.
The most interesting parts of this book were the portions that could be categorized as "memoir," but even then I had my gripes—particularly with her descriptions of other (able-bodied) women. I thought it strange that in book that was supposed to be a deconstruction of the ways in which fairytales shape our ability to perceive good and bad in every day life by making things too clear-cut, Leduc sets up her own narrative in which the reader feels morally obligated to take her side in every situation. Against everyone else. In the most weirdly antagonistic fashion sometimes. There was a particular paragraph that struck me, in which she compares herself to a young girl named Grace when they were 9-years-old. Grace was "not mean to me, not exactly, but I do not belong in the popular circles, and she fits in there right away." And there's an ongoing tirade against herself that ends with "I know that I am not the kind of girl that anyone could love." What does Grace have to do with this? Other than the blank space upon which the author projects and lashes out against? And this happens again and again, even as the author grows up and becomes an adult. It happens when she's an adult woman and she sees an able-bodied author with whom she shares a stage at a literary event wear high heels that she cannot. And she feels defeated.
As the kids say, she has bad vibes.
I also have very specific points of divergence with Leduc's perspective on disability, as someone who is neurodiverse and suffers from chronic illness. Oftentimes, her book reads as particularly against medical models in favor of social models of of disability, particularly in one section where she actually pits them against each other. She describes proponents of the medical model as those who see "disabled life as an unhappy ending because the medical model can fix it; proponents of the social model see the prospect of a cure as an unhappy ending because it removes the responsibility of bettering the social environment from society at large and places the onus on the individual to transform, thus eradicating the physical differences and accompanying memories that so often tether the disabled person's experience of the world."
I find this perspective quite baffling for a couple of reasons. For one, Leduc herself is alive particularly because of medical intervention in her childhood. Two, I don't believe that life-shaping experiences borne out of physical and mental struggles are necessarily worth it just so we can virtue signal that "everyone is good just the way they are." Of course the experiences of disabled people are valuable in every way, but searching for cures to diseases that impact the quality of life for those who have to endure trauma through every day acts of living is vital and important for advancement of the human species.
The idea that it is somehow unhappy to not want to subject a child to medical trauma from surgery and physical therapy at a young age—because even if it doesn't cause emotional trauma, it is a stressor to the body that does not need to happen—when it does not need to happen boggles the mind.
The medical and social models can work together—there is no need for competition, and Leduc herself is proof of that in action.
This also dovetails with another section in which she mentions that she "would not be who [she is] today" if she was not born with the cyst in her brain, and thus did not undergo her surgeries, the wheelchair, crutches, and the eventual bullying. The message that "trauma makes you who you are" is one that I hope we are trying to actively move away from, as a community and as a society, and this just reinforces it on the level of disability.
The most interesting parts of this book were the portions that could be categorized as "memoir," but even then I had my gripes—particularly with her descriptions of other (able-bodied) women. I thought it strange that in book that was supposed to be a deconstruction of the ways in which fairytales shape our ability to perceive good and bad in every day life by making things too clear-cut, Leduc sets up her own narrative in which the reader feels morally obligated to take her side in every situation. Against everyone else. In the most weirdly antagonistic fashion sometimes. There was a particular paragraph that struck me, in which she compares herself to a young girl named Grace when they were 9-years-old. Grace was "not mean to me, not exactly, but I do not belong in the popular circles, and she fits in there right away." And there's an ongoing tirade against herself that ends with "I know that I am not the kind of girl that anyone could love." What does Grace have to do with this? Other than the blank space upon which the author projects and lashes out against? And this happens again and again, even as the author grows up and becomes an adult. It happens when she's an adult woman and she sees an able-bodied author with whom she shares a stage at a literary event wear high heels that she cannot. And she feels defeated.
As the kids say, she has bad vibes.
September 29, 2021
A fascinating and eye-opening exploration of the connection between fairytales and disability. Amanda LeDuc did an excellent job of compiling a tremendous amount of information into a compulsively readable, concise, and understandable format.
Disability and mental illness are so often vilified in the stories we consume; used as shorthand to indicate that someone is unworthy or wicked. A trope in lazy writing that directly correlates with how disabled and mentally ill people are treated in their day-to-day lives.
How does it feel for a young person consuming media such as The Little Mermaid to see themselves represented in a way they never had, only to find that the heroine is magically cured of her "ailments" and gets her happy ending as an able-bodied woman, with legs and a voice.
How does this reinforcement of the idea that a happy ending is inextricably linked with able bodiedness impact our preconceived notions and biases as we grow up?
This is a world-view shifting book that everyone should read.
Trigger/Content Warnings: ableism, stillbirth, bullying, depression, suicidal ideation, chronic illness, sexual assault, violence, medical content, body horror
VIDEO REVIEW: https://youtu.be/Z6jPExstT1Y
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Disability and mental illness are so often vilified in the stories we consume; used as shorthand to indicate that someone is unworthy or wicked. A trope in lazy writing that directly correlates with how disabled and mentally ill people are treated in their day-to-day lives.
How does it feel for a young person consuming media such as The Little Mermaid to see themselves represented in a way they never had, only to find that the heroine is magically cured of her "ailments" and gets her happy ending as an able-bodied woman, with legs and a voice.
How does this reinforcement of the idea that a happy ending is inextricably linked with able bodiedness impact our preconceived notions and biases as we grow up?
This is a world-view shifting book that everyone should read.
Trigger/Content Warnings: ableism, stillbirth, bullying, depression, suicidal ideation, chronic illness, sexual assault, violence, medical content, body horror
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April 21, 2020
4.5 ⭐
April 17, 2023
While I found this to be an interesting read, there were major issues with this work. The most striking one being that the marketing is completely wrong. This story has barely anything to do with how fairytales shape able-bodied persons views of the disabled. This is mostly a memoir, where the author then attempts to interweave medical definitions and various histories of fairytales, Disney portrayals, and superheroes. Yet the story was not cohesive, and the scope of what the author was trying to examine was too broad. I have no clue what the takeaways were supposed to be from this work because - as a history of disability in fairytales - this is not a credible analysis or even an understandable narrative. One of the most frustrating parts of this overall was the analysis of the Grimm Brothers. I studied German literature - specifically Grimm's fairytales – through much of my time in university and the author’s analyses of the stories were a surface level examination. Furthermore, the rants the author would go on were often simply about what to diagnose the characters with rather than an in-depth analysis of why things were problematic, or a deconstruction of stories and representation. My final gripe about the Grimm’s section is that if you are going to write about German translation, you need to clarify where you are getting these translations. If you are having someone else narrate the audiobook, make sure that the narrator is correctly pronouncing the German words that you chose to include. The pronunciation was horrendous in this and one particular translation was inaccurate. Later in the work, there is also the inclusion of a random element from a popular television show that completely spoiled the series finale. This part of the story was unnecessary, as she was attempting to argue the character had a mental illness when this was not at all what was expressed within the show. There were many more subjects discussed to this, but the story jumped back and forth constantly. Topics were broken up throughout the book and revisited at times that made no sense and I cannot even begin to describe how confusing that made the memoir aspect. Overall, this was a frustrating read. There were at least 2-3 sections where I enjoyed the author’s discussion of a particular experience, or how representation affected her. I think that there definitely needs to be more positive disability representation and more ownvoices within that representation. However, this was not marketed as a memoir and it honestly isn’t really a memoir – I don’t know what to consider this at all.
October 27, 2019
Oh. My. God. This book. 🙌🏼😭
I'm not disabled, but I've always been a chubby kid and am now a plus-size woman, and I related SO HARD to Leduc's thesis that fairy tales allow only certain types of bodies to be granted happy endings. Leduc also raises many good points on the trope of transformation in fairy tales and superhero stories, and the message therein that you must "overcome" your less-than-"perfect" body to get your happily ever after. There's a lot of emphasis on "overcoming" your own obstacle, and considerably less emphasis on the role that a supportive community can play in making your world better overall.
There are so many gems in this book, and I don't even know how to begin writing my blog review because there's just so much to absorb and to unpack.
I had requested the e-galley for review because I've been trying to reduce my physical book collection, but literally a few pages in, I regretted that decision. There was so much in this I wanted to highlight, so much I wanted to scribble notes on, and alas Overdrive wouldn't let me mark up the e-galley. (Hence all my Goodreads updates, and my apologies to anyone who saw much more of me in the last 24 hours than in forever.)
It's been a while since a book has affected me this much, and I can only imagine its impact on disabled readers. This book is out in February -- read it.
I'm not disabled, but I've always been a chubby kid and am now a plus-size woman, and I related SO HARD to Leduc's thesis that fairy tales allow only certain types of bodies to be granted happy endings. Leduc also raises many good points on the trope of transformation in fairy tales and superhero stories, and the message therein that you must "overcome" your less-than-"perfect" body to get your happily ever after. There's a lot of emphasis on "overcoming" your own obstacle, and considerably less emphasis on the role that a supportive community can play in making your world better overall.
There are so many gems in this book, and I don't even know how to begin writing my blog review because there's just so much to absorb and to unpack.
I had requested the e-galley for review because I've been trying to reduce my physical book collection, but literally a few pages in, I regretted that decision. There was so much in this I wanted to highlight, so much I wanted to scribble notes on, and alas Overdrive wouldn't let me mark up the e-galley. (Hence all my Goodreads updates, and my apologies to anyone who saw much more of me in the last 24 hours than in forever.)
It's been a while since a book has affected me this much, and I can only imagine its impact on disabled readers. This book is out in February -- read it.
Read
April 4, 2021Disability Readathon 2021
Narrated by Amanda Barker
8h 17 min
"Disfigured" by Amanda Leduc is a book that I had been wanting to read since last year and I was so happy when I randomly come across the audiobook through Storytel. ''Disfigured'' is a memoir but it also has an academic approach which makes it top notch. Amanda Leduc explores how disability has been portrayed in (western) fairy tales and the influence on society especially children.
A princess in a wheelchair would have trouble finding those blackberries, I thought as I crept through the bushes. And then I stopped, briefly, and smiled. A princess in a wheelchair? Whoever heard of such a thing?
When I say this book made me think, I mean it! From Disney princess movies to Grimms fairy tales, disability has always been depicted as something that needs to be cured to get a happy ending. As an able bodied woman, this was eye opening and thought prvoking. Highly recommend checking out this book!
Narrated by Amanda Barker
8h 17 min
"Disfigured" by Amanda Leduc is a book that I had been wanting to read since last year and I was so happy when I randomly come across the audiobook through Storytel. ''Disfigured'' is a memoir but it also has an academic approach which makes it top notch. Amanda Leduc explores how disability has been portrayed in (western) fairy tales and the influence on society especially children.
A princess in a wheelchair would have trouble finding those blackberries, I thought as I crept through the bushes. And then I stopped, briefly, and smiled. A princess in a wheelchair? Whoever heard of such a thing?
When I say this book made me think, I mean it! From Disney princess movies to Grimms fairy tales, disability has always been depicted as something that needs to be cured to get a happy ending. As an able bodied woman, this was eye opening and thought prvoking. Highly recommend checking out this book!
January 15, 2023
i am someone that is chronically ill, and most people would never know because i happen to have something often referred to as an “invisible illness.” i experience extreme amounts of fatigue and brain fog if i over exert myself physically, mentally, or emotionally and this can often result in very painful headaches and naps that last longer than normal. my joints don’t do very well most of the time, either. i spend most of winter feeling very “crunchy” and most of summer swollen and uncomfortable. but despite this, i don’t really require a mobility aid of any kind— though i probably will further into the future.
the author of ‘disfigured,’ amanda leduc, has cerebral palsy and walks with a limp. she had multiple operations as a child that resulted in the necessary use of mobility aids and relentless bullying from other children. in ‘disfigured,’ leduc offers up her own experiences with disability while closely examining the use of disability and disfigurement in fairy tales and disney movies. we learn about the dwarves in snow white, the original version of the little mermaid and all the versions that came after (especially disney’s 1989 adaptation), disney’s live action maleficent, and more.
this book really aims to bring to light how often disability and disfigurement are used as plot devices to portray either truly reprehensible villains or useless characters with no agency in fairytales and folkloric stories. which, spoiler alert, is not just very often but almost always. leduc uses her own experiences, especially in childhood, to show how this negative representation affects the way we see ourselves and how we perceive disabled people.
good, well-written representation in fairy tales is important because most children grow up around them, watching and rewatching and reading and rereading. disney is the most popular media company that consistently adapts fairy tales, and if all of the princesses and heroines are physically ‘perfect’ and all of the villains and schmucks are visibly disabled in some way, then children are bound to view the world this way. children shouldn’t grow up thinking that the only way they can be valuable in society and worthy of love is by being unattainably perfect and able-bodied.
leduc also briefly discusses how, when able-bodied, ‘normal’ people, are faced with physical/visible disability and/or disfigurement vs. mental disability, these people are much more likely to view the physically disabled as human and worthy of basic respect or basic human decency. physical disability can be forgiven because, ultimately, it can’t be the person’s fault. but, if an able-bodied person views a mentally disabled person as ‘stupid’, then the conclusion is drawn that ‘stupid’ is intentional and can’t be helped.
this examination on disability in fairytales and disney movies as explored through the author’s memoir is nuanced and, in my opinion, a very important read. it’s only 250 pages and i got through the audiobook in just a few hours on 1.5x speed and i recommend it to everyone.
the author of ‘disfigured,’ amanda leduc, has cerebral palsy and walks with a limp. she had multiple operations as a child that resulted in the necessary use of mobility aids and relentless bullying from other children. in ‘disfigured,’ leduc offers up her own experiences with disability while closely examining the use of disability and disfigurement in fairy tales and disney movies. we learn about the dwarves in snow white, the original version of the little mermaid and all the versions that came after (especially disney’s 1989 adaptation), disney’s live action maleficent, and more.
this book really aims to bring to light how often disability and disfigurement are used as plot devices to portray either truly reprehensible villains or useless characters with no agency in fairytales and folkloric stories. which, spoiler alert, is not just very often but almost always. leduc uses her own experiences, especially in childhood, to show how this negative representation affects the way we see ourselves and how we perceive disabled people.
good, well-written representation in fairy tales is important because most children grow up around them, watching and rewatching and reading and rereading. disney is the most popular media company that consistently adapts fairy tales, and if all of the princesses and heroines are physically ‘perfect’ and all of the villains and schmucks are visibly disabled in some way, then children are bound to view the world this way. children shouldn’t grow up thinking that the only way they can be valuable in society and worthy of love is by being unattainably perfect and able-bodied.
leduc also briefly discusses how, when able-bodied, ‘normal’ people, are faced with physical/visible disability and/or disfigurement vs. mental disability, these people are much more likely to view the physically disabled as human and worthy of basic respect or basic human decency. physical disability can be forgiven because, ultimately, it can’t be the person’s fault. but, if an able-bodied person views a mentally disabled person as ‘stupid’, then the conclusion is drawn that ‘stupid’ is intentional and can’t be helped.
this examination on disability in fairytales and disney movies as explored through the author’s memoir is nuanced and, in my opinion, a very important read. it’s only 250 pages and i got through the audiobook in just a few hours on 1.5x speed and i recommend it to everyone.
March 13, 2021
3/5 stars
Perhaps a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I didn't relate to this book as much as I wanted to. I absolutely loved the idea of it, but I feel the execution could have been a bit more polished and definitely had some issues. Mainly repetitiveness, oversimplification, but also a narrative tone that may come off as preachy to some, and antagonize some parties that are integral in the discussion surrounding disability.
It's important to recognize that LeDuc describes her experiences with disability and her opinion on it, and it's only natural that my experiences and my opinion will differ from hers, as my body and life are different in their (dis)abilities. It's still something I'd love to open a discussion on, so full lengthy review and discussion to follow...
Perhaps a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I didn't relate to this book as much as I wanted to. I absolutely loved the idea of it, but I feel the execution could have been a bit more polished and definitely had some issues. Mainly repetitiveness, oversimplification, but also a narrative tone that may come off as preachy to some, and antagonize some parties that are integral in the discussion surrounding disability.
It's important to recognize that LeDuc describes her experiences with disability and her opinion on it, and it's only natural that my experiences and my opinion will differ from hers, as my body and life are different in their (dis)abilities. It's still something I'd love to open a discussion on, so full lengthy review and discussion to follow...
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