Research Question: How is the intersectionality of disability, race, and gender represented in art, media, and growing technologies? Does it actually raise awareness for people with disabilities?
Portrait of Antoinetta Gonzalez by Lavinia Fontana
The Portrait of Antoinetta Gonzalez is an oil painting of a young girl with a condition called hypertrichosis. Hypertrichosis is also called “Werewolf Syndrome” because it causes excessive hair growth either all over the body, or in localized areas normally not covered with thick hair. In the era of “Freak Shows” many afflicted with hypertrichosis found work as attractions, being advertised as half animal half human, which is very interesting to consider when looking at this piece. The Gonsalvus (Gonzalez) family was the first recorded case of hypertrichosis, and Antionetta’s father, Petrus, was a nobleman in French courts. Despite their high class, the Gonsalvus family still weren’t ever considered “fully human” by most yet their portraits say otherwise. In her portrait, Antoinetta is depicted as a gentle, kind, and innocent little girl, despite being covered completely in hair. She is wearing very fine clothes and holding a letter she wrote. Antoinetta is depicted as a young girl of high class, not as half animal half human like the lower class people afflicted with her same condition. She is not depicted as masculine or wild like other women and girls not just with hypertrichosis, but with any “excessive” hair growth. Though Antoinetta was dealt the same card as others with hypertrichosis, she had many more in her hand. Wealth, class, and otherwise conventional beauty all worked together to set her a small step above the others, allowing her to have her portrait painted in this way as opposed to plastered on posters advertising a wolf girl.
Leaving Evidence: Mia Mingus
Mia Mingus is a queer, disabled, Korean transracial activist and writer who primarily focuses on "disability and transformative justice," a term she references frequently in her blog Leaving Evidence. "Disability and transformative justice" is the idea of educational justice, in which systemic discrimination is challenged at its core with early education of marginalized races, sexualities/genders, disabilities, etc. In her blog, Leaving Evidence, Mingus uploads impactful opinion pieces on, often, intersectional injustices she sees. In her most recent piece, You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence, Mingus writes about the erasure of disabled identities during the Covid pandemic, two years after the initial hit of the virus. With the general population diminishing the intensity of the virus two years after the Covid pandemic initially began, the disabled community is often left to fend for themselves, many of them still adhering to rigid precautions, such as isolating, to this day. Mingus also notes that a high amount of Covid-related deaths are within the BIPOC community, but even more so among the disabled BIPOC community. Nowadays with the normalization of the Covid virus, even more deaths are attributed to high-risk disabled individuals. Mingus' unique perspective as a disabled Asian woman offers a strong, emotional tone, which hopefully incites guilt and frustration among the readers in an attempt to try and acknowledge disabled POC suffering.
"We will not trade disabled deaths for abled life."
Objectively, Mingus' blog style and her direct connection to disabled suffering are effective in communicating intersectional issues between disabled and minority individuals. Annamma and Handy reference Mingus' work in their research article: Sharpening Justice Through DisCrit: A Contrapuntal Analysis of Education in which they highlight Mingus' breakdown of intersectionality in disability. The intersectionality of issues results in a unique form of othering that is often not discussed. Analyzing Mingus' ideas of disability justice, Annamma and Handy reinforce Mingus' works as educational tools to dismantle systemic intersectional issues.
Artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Born in the mid 1800s, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born into aristocracy as his father was a French count. Around adolescence he broke both of his legs which caused them to stop growing for the rest of his life, separately from his torso up, which grew normally. Researchers are unsure of what caused his legs to stop growing, but there are a variety of speculations due to his family’s history of inbreeding. Lautrec was bedridden for a lot of his early life and that’s where he found a love of art and eventually immersed himself in the life of bohemia in France. He began finding inspiration in using the prostitutes of Paris as his muses and was vocal in his admiration and support of Vincent van Gogh. Throughout his career he maintained his fascination with Parisian prostitutes and created a series of paintings of two women kissing which was uncommon for the time. His close relationship with these women is really interesting to me because he worshipped them and didn’t depict them as low or dirty because of their profession. He saw liveliness and beauty in them outside of their existence as sex workers. All considered outcasts of society, Lautrec found close kinship in the Paris underground, prostitutes, performers, artists, the disabled all found community.
Self Portrait with Cropped Hair: Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter most well known for her self portraits which depicted aspects of her Mexican identity. Kahlo was a disabled woman, having survived polio as well as a car accident at the age of 18. Some of her paintings depict her physical disabilities as an important aspect of her identity, such as the famous piece, Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill in which Kahlo draws herself in a wheelchair. This specific piece delves into themes of her ambiguous sexuality, her Mexican heritage, along with her disability. In the painting, Kahlo is holding a pair of scissors and long strands of hair are seen scattered along the floor, the chair, as well as her lap. Her hair is cut short, and she is wearing a suit--an iconic masculine fashion. These elements feed into her alleged bisexual identity and androgynous style. Though cut off on the left, Kahlo had painted atop the piece a popular Mexican song lyric, which when translated, states:
"Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore."
This painting was completed after Kahlo had divorced from her husband which puts these intersectional identities in an interesting space: love and relationships. In this specific piece, I believe Kahlo was trying to depict how these marginalized identities do not fit into society's ideas of heteronormative relationships. Kahlo is showcasing parts of her identity that were not normalized during her marriage--parts of her identity that are often not accepted or not typically discussed in heterosexual relationships: ambiguous sexuality and disability. I believe Kahlo does an exceptional job at depicting how these intersecting identities are not accepted in mainstream ideas of love/relationships.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame- Novel, Movie, Musical
I feel like we have all been exposed to at least one version of the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, either reading the original novel, watching the Disney movie, or by listening to the Broadway musical. The story has small variations across medias, but the plot always centers around Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame with multiple disabilities, and Esmerelda, the young traveler girl who serves as the sexual desire of many of the men in the story. Quasimodo is a popular character in disability representation, often serving as the best example of one of the main disability stereotypes, the victim. He is hidden away from the public due to his “hideousness” when all he desires is to be among the “normal” people and live in the town below. The novel is more focused around Esmerelda’s story as an outcast in society, manipulated and objectified by the men who desire her, which includes Quasimodo. They become bonded in a moment when Esmerelda offers him water when he is trapped in the public stocks. In the musical and movie however, the two bond over being outsiders in society. This creates an interesting element of intersectionality. Quasimodo is in love with Esmerelda, and though she doesn’t reciprocate, it can be easy to think that she should end up with him despite that. He pines after her after just showing him simple kindness, but just because he is the “victim” of his disability, she doesn’t owe him reciprocation of his love, which is what basically happens. In both the novel and the musical, Esmerelda is put to death, and Quasimodo lies with her body until his death, and in this they are united again in the mass grave for the bottom of society, united again in their “otherness.”
Slow Poke: Em Kettner
Em Kettner is a sculptor based in California whose works touch on themes of gender and disability. In her recent piece Slow Poke, Kettner sculpted multiple miniature fluid, long figures--some resembling people and some resembling everyday objects. Kettner states that this piece was meant to capture the everyday lives of disabled individuals, especially those individuals that have many intersecting marginalized identities. Kettner states that for many women who are disabled, they feel that they unnecessarily take up space both as women and as disabled individuals. Therefore, she captured this in her work with some of the people-resembling figures bending in different directions trying to grab the object-resembling figures, resting, or embracing other human figures. Disabled individuals often find comfort in people who understand them as well as being alone, and in a more literal sense, need objects to stabilize them in daily life.
I believe this representation is often overlooked--the simultaneous feeling of being bothersome while also feeling ignored. Kettner manages to capture both of these feelings in her work, but ultimately, she wants to reinforce the idea that dependency is not a bad thing. Humans need dependency. Kettner stresses that dependency should not be seen as shameful for one group and not stigmatized for another.
References
Fontana, L. (1595). Portrait of Antionetta Gonzalez [oil]. Musée du Château, Blois, France. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
Frida Kahlo. Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair. 1940: Moma. The Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2022, from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78333
Kettner, E. (2021) Em Kettner on Sculpting Disability, Dependency, and Court Jesters. Art in America Retrieved October 22, 2022 https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/em-kettner-slow-poke-interview-1234598988/
Michael, C. (2010, May). Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). The Met Museum. Retrieved October 31, 2022. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/laut/hd_laut.htm
Mingus, M. (2022) You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence. Leaving Evidence (n.d) Retrieved October 22, 2022
Victor, H. (1831). The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Gosselin.