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Post by Triassic on Jan 4, 2006 16:36:22 GMT -5
Just saw Murderball. Man, if I had a slinky babe like Zupan's at home I sure wouldnt be going hither and yon for some dopey athletic contest.
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Post by Triassic on Jan 8, 2006 1:39:48 GMT -5
After watching Murderball a couple of times I'm *kinda* beginning to see where devs are coming from in finding quads attractive. All the guys featured are vital, interesting, active men; and they're competant in dealing with their lives. But their impairment does cause them to move and to use their hands in a kind of deliberate, but faltering, unsteady way. It is oddly compelling, I have to admit. And it's NEVER an able-bodied trait.
So maybe it's this tremulous, but also workable quality of gesture, touch and movement that is attractive. Does a dev imagine those clumsy hands on her body?
I remember what the first dev I ever met IRL told me. She said: "I like fine cars; Porsches, Jaguars...but only if they're real banged up."
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Post by damedevo on Jan 8, 2006 2:39:09 GMT -5
"So maybe it's this tremulous, but also workable quality of gesture, touch and movement that is attractive. Does a dev imagine those clumsy hands on her body?"
[Gulp!] Yes. This dev does, anyway. I also imagine the tremulous hands of a vital paraplegic whose wellspring of desire has long been building pressure underground--trapped by the burden and isolation of his disability--and now starts to pulsate upward toward the vent of my own desire....
Ah, this contrived use of geologic metaphor is making me damp with effort, not to mention desire!
Triassic, I'm impressed that you are able to perceive the dev-to-quad attraction and characterize it so accurately. I still recall with weak-kneed fondness the quadriplegic vet in the VA hospital where I volunteered with two friends, at age 14: One day, when I leaned forward to rearrange the pillow that served as his trunk support, he weakly pulled me closer with splinted arms....
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Post by Leilia on Jan 8, 2006 10:10:20 GMT -5
thats very accurate indeed Triassic, this dev has im ;)agined those clumsy hands forsure.
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Post by rebecca on Jan 8, 2006 21:15:05 GMT -5
Found a great one this weekend - Kenneth Branagh in "Warm Springs". Who knew FDR could be such a hotty? I mean, other than Lucy Mercer...
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Post by damedevo on Jan 12, 2006 0:57:56 GMT -5
So, I rented "Murderball," watched it with my husband and daughter--all of us fascinated; then I loaned it to my neighbors, two elementary school teachers, both women in their late thirties. They returned it unwatched.
"We're into upbeat movies, these days!" "Yeah!" "Wheelchair rugby? Uh--no thanks!" "That first scene of the guy getting dressed in his wheelchair was, like, a total downer!"
Non-devos are so peculiar.
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Post by Oved on Jan 12, 2006 3:13:01 GMT -5
Dang, I wanna see it (Murderball)!!!! Any suggestions on how I can get it if it's not playing in my area???
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Post by Triassic on Jan 12, 2006 4:51:49 GMT -5
Actually, that's one of the faults I found with Murderball. It IS upbeat...rather too upbeat. Murderball has been billed, reviewd and considered as this brash, new, unapologetic, etc, film about disability; and in some ways it is...but it's core message is deeply conventional. It's the old Supercrip wheeze; Overcome, Compensate, Strive, No Whining. The non-disabled mainstream eats that shit up with syrup on it.
If you notice, in Murderball, no-one out of the early phase of post-injury life makes ANY kind of statement that being disabled can suck. It's all relentlessly positive.
-There's NO reference at all to bowel and bladder issues. None.
-The sexual stuff is way glossed over. After seeing that movie about all you'd 'know' is that the woman needs to be on top.
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Post by Triassic on Jan 12, 2006 4:59:26 GMT -5
Also, after listening to the DVD player commentary featuring Zupan, Cohn and Hogsett...they're kinda dicks. They're very funny, but their continual negative cooments about Soares-who's not there to defend himself-and some other remarks aren't very gentlemanly or sportsmanlike-at all.
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Post by damedevo on Jan 12, 2006 10:45:11 GMT -5
Oved, "Murderball" is out on DVD, so you can rent yourself a copy.
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Post by damedevo on Jan 12, 2006 13:51:26 GMT -5
Triassic, I agree with your observation that Murderball is upbeat, which is why I was floored by my neighbors' "eeew, yuck" response. But only devs, crips, and medics would watch the movie, if it were otherwise.
Most people simply refuse to confront the harsher picture, because they want to believe that it's not so bad. They want to believe that they would have nothing much to fear, if they should become disabled themselves.
A litany of profound losses--bowel and bladder control, freedom from pain, freedom from infection, sexual enjoyment, sitting balance, standing, walking, running, climbing, social status, marital satisfaction or romantic prospects, job status and prospects--would be far more than most movie-goers would tolerate. Then add in the losses from limited arm and hand use, in the case of quadriplegia.
AB people don't want details about what they might stand to lose--any more than they want to see people throwing up and screaming in movies about cancer, or prepare themselves (their homes, cars, offices, and vulnerable family members) for the eventual certainty of an earthquake.
In my daughter's school with 700 students, we've got ten parents on the volunteer earthquake committee, maintaining two corrugated steel containers of supplies, updating student rosters and evacuation procedures for every teacher, and staging an annual drill at enormous effort. Assuming every kid starts life with two biologic parents (give or take for death and remarriage), that's a ratio of 1:140 rational, responsible adults. Perhaps not surprisingly, about half of these ten volunteers work in the medical or rescue fields, in their professional lives.
Most people just wanna have fun. Besides, a movie harsher than Murderball might make them feel bad when swiping a "disabled only" parking spot.
There is an old Ironside episode ("Split Second to an Epitaph") that glosses over plenty but at least includes a scene in which our paraplegic protagonist declines to coddle a newly disabled man, whom their mutual surgeon has sent to Ironside for solace. As Ironside warms up to his subject, he shouts at the cowed man: "It starts out as pure hell and gets worse...It's a lot of hell, Ralph. It's impossible, Ralph! You can't take it, Ralph--any of it! Nobody can!" And after a long pause: "But you do."
Isn't that where the real heroism lies--that "but you do"? That's what these movies fail to show--the dogged endurance without reward, without any stinking triumph or Paralympic medal, usually in complete emotional isolation. That's what the general public doesn't want to see.
When my right hip was at its worst, before my salvation through hip replacement, certain little social encounters were somehow the most devastating. I went to pick up my daughter from a friend's house, where she'd been playing, and the mother asked me if I would please take off my shoes at the door, to protect her floor. I was mortified, because I could not manage my tie shoes, by myself. My six-year-old daughter had helped me get my right sneaker on in the morning and had grudgingly tied it for me, and that's where I had planned to leave it till evening. I could have pulled it off with the toe of my other foot, but I was not about to offer a public demonstration of my helplessness in getting the goddamned shoe back on. My long shoehorn was at home; and in any case, I had not succeeded in making elastic laces work for me. I was no longer stable trying to walk in clogs. I had to rely on my first-grader for help with tie shoes.
So, I forced a lighthearted quip about being too lazy and said I would wait right there by the door, till the girls came upstairs. But my stomach was in knots, and I couldn't wait to get away--particularly since this mother kept finding things she wanted to show me, farther inside the house. I'm sure I seemed unfriendly, callous, and obstinate.
Now, what would have happened, if I'd said: "You know, Cynthia, I'd like to accommodate you and your beautiful floor. But my hip feels like it's lined with broken glass, and my range of motion is so awful, that if I try to manage the right shoe by myself, I'll get my leg stuck in excruciating pain and may be unable to talk or move for the next few hours."
Hmm?
"Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?" -- Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)
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Post by devogirl on Jan 12, 2006 15:03:36 GMT -5
Oh come on, Triassic, do you really want to see Zupan with his finger up his ass? You're not gonna see that stuff in a mainstream movie. The movie already breaks so many stereotypes, by showing the guys getting dressed, falling out of their chairs, hitting each other, etc, I think that more than makes up for those lacks. Too many people seem to think the chair is bolted to your ass (did anyone see that Family Guy episode with Stephen Hawking and his girlfriend in bed?) so it was great to see the guys being so active. And yeah, they are dicks, but so what? It was refreshing to see them being real people, counter to the "The Handicapped are Saints" myth. Triassic, no one single movie can show the whole truth about anything, particularly a topic as complex as disability. Your comments just show how much more needs to be said. You should make your own movie about yourself! You're not SCI, right? I bet your experiences have been very different and interesting.
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Post by E on Jan 12, 2006 17:23:29 GMT -5
Now, what would have happened, if I'd said: "You know, Cynthia, I'd like to accommodate you and your beautiful floor. But my hip feels like it's lined with broken glass, and my range of motion is so awful, that if I try to manage the right shoe by myself, I'll get my leg stuck in excruciating pain and may be unable to talk or move for the next few hours." Hmm? She'd have probably understood. A shorter explanation, maybe, but I can't imagine her disagreeing or thinking any worse of you. Maybe I'm just used to telling people my reality so they don't assume some other intention (like, as you assumed, that the woman think you rude), but it seems to work out.
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Post by damedevo on Jan 12, 2006 17:59:30 GMT -5
CreativeE, I'm sure you're right that she would have understood a succinct explanation of some sort. But I couldn't cough one up. The topic was too emotionally loaded for me.
Part of the problem was my own difficulty in continually readjusting to the progressive pain and loss of my physical abilities--especially in the absence of any outward sign except a limp. Once I was on crutches, it became much easier to say, "Oh, sorry, I can't manage that." People quit asking, "Why not?"
It was that "why not" that I couldn't bear to get into--and the incredulous questions that always followed: "Arthritis? At your age? Well, can't you take anything for it?" Everyone "knows" that OTC drugs handle "the minor aches and pains of arthritis," and that Celebrex allows grandmothers to bound laughing through the surf. They saw it on TV.
Luckily, my hair is now turning gray, so I'll certainly be more believable when my other hip bites the dust.
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Post by dolly on Jan 12, 2006 19:45:58 GMT -5
Non-devos are so peculiar. ;D ya, i enjoyed the movie, of course, from a dev perspective, but personally i wouldn't date any of the players featured...just not my type of guys.
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