Disability and Metaphor in Welcome to Night Vale

[katiemariie]

Content notice: the linked blog post contains discussion of forced cures, medical and parental abuse, violence, character death, and ableist slurs. Also contains spoilers through "Dana."

The Two-Headed Quarterback: Disabled Identity in Night Vale

Comments

[vass]

That is a wonderful post right there. Space Crip spun gold out of Michael's story arc.

What I thought when I heard the first episode about Michael: "I blame telethon/awareness-raising culture. The general public literally thinks that CP is a degenerative, terminal childhood disease and that there are no adult sufferers because they're all dead, because that's what they're getting from the mainstream public discourse. If no 'awareness-raising' ad EVER showed adults with a given condition, why wouldn't you think they all died in childhood?"

[katiemariie]

Thanks! (I'm the author, btw.)

That makes a lot of sense. The only adult with CP I ever recall seeing in the popular media was the sister of a main character on ER and she only appeared in a few episodes.

[rydra_wong]

Excellent, excellent link. Thanks for posting it.

[lisaquestions]

A bit belated:

I haven't listened to any Nightvale yet, so I lack a lot of context. I do like your analysis, however. I am not really able to go in-depth on it because I can't right now, but I did enjoy reading it.