“We
will not tolerate a society that sees us as less than whole people.” Before the
disability rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, people with disabilities were
barred from fully participating in many areas of society—jobs, universities,
even public education facilities were at best segregated. When the President
broke his promise to sign into law anti-discrimination policy for disabled
people, protestors launched one of the largest disabled rights demonstrations
in history. For 28 days, 150 people with disabilities staged a sit-in for their
right to be treated as human beings. Today, the results of their bravery can be
seen on every college campus, bus stop and city block throughout the country.
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ReplyDeleteLess Than Whole is my number one pick, because while the story it presents may be difficult to deal with, it absolutely needs to be told (I apologize ahead of time for the length of this, but I have a lot of feelings about the topic). Too often we marginalize groups who don’t look or act like us, and this segregation is not restricted to ethnicities. If the topic makes us – as writers and artists and readers – uncomfortable, then it’s doing its job. This sort of erasure of people with both visible and invisible disabilities hasn’t stopped: it’s still painfully relevant. Parents without the money to put their children into specialized schools have to battle the public school system for every “concession” to their children’s health and education. Public spaces forget to take into account wheel chair access when designing their layouts. The health care system was only just reformed so that insurance companies can’t deny people with preexisting conditions the coverage they need.
ReplyDeleteWe will have to work hard to present these people as more than the sum of their parts – even in graphic forms, we as readers have the tendency to look down our noses at unusual, not traditionally winsome character designs. But here we have the opportunity to present people as people and effect change, even if only a change of heart, in the minds of readers. I would only change the format of the story: instead of working purely in chronological order, I think it would be more interesting to work from the sit-in as a the hub of a wheel. Then the plot can flash backwards and forwards to what brought them there and what they did afterwards. Parallelism about the struggles they face in that extreme environment and then in their every day lives would really drive home the need for the reforms they affected. Opportunities for juxtaposed perception (how the world sees these people and how they see themselves, how they see their environment – steps as an insurmountable obstacle for a wheelchair – and how able-bodied people see it) abound. And, of course, unusual paneling to delay reveals.
This is my second choice pitch. I think that this is an extremely important issue that can have a lot of impact in terms of changing minds and making people more aware even on our own campus when it comes to ableism and general mindfulness.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, think that if we were to move forward, we would need to focus on one or two of the three protagonists (if we didn't we would have about 40 pages allotted for each, which just isn't enough especially in light of the rest of the plot). I also think that we would have to figure out ways to make talking heads and political protests interesting (a bigger challenge than it may at first appear). I really think that this story is important to tell--I just don't know if a graphic novel is the right medium for it.
This was my third choice pitch. I think that the plot was extremely well written and that the characters were already fleshed out quite well. I don't worry about the visual aspect too because our protagonists will have very different perspectives from others (for instance, someone in a wheelchair might perceive stairs as a giant insurmountable mountain.) The only thing that holds me back is the possible length of the book. I don't think we would do justice to the story if we cut back, but I also don't know if 120 pages is enough...
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