Disc Full of Tropes

Towards the mid-2010s, AJ Mendez (AJ Lee) was one of the most recognizable faces on WWE's women's roster. The female wrestler brought an agile performance with unmatched charismatic mic skills. However, the character didn't become most known because of her wrestling skills. It's cause she was "crazy."

AJ Lee's gimmick of the "Crazy Girl" was not so subtle. When she came out, she would skip to the ring in Converse sneakers with her head tilted to one side. When the character was featured in matches, she was often there to manipulate, sabotage, or lash out altogether.

Consistently, she was called unstable, erratic, and obsessive. This storyline wasn't written to heal past trauma or even educate people. It was purely a character written for someone's entertainment. WWE, around this time, leaned into this theme very hard. They even changed AJ Lee's role to a General Manager, so that she could interfere in matches erratically. The company even pushed her into love-triangle storylines, where he craziness was the twist in the story.

This gimmick is not new whatsoever. We've seen it in characters like Harley Quinn from the Batman series and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. This stable expresses that women are allowed to be powerful, as long as they are unhinged. These "crazy" behaviors are fun to watch and easy to dismiss.

After leaving WWE, AJ Mendez (AJ Lee) revealed in her autobiography, Crazy is My Superpower, that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This only made her resent how her character was written and handled on the WWE network. She wrote openly in her book about her own struggles with mental illness and how uncomfortable she had felt for being known as "crazy" on screen. Since then, AJ has become a very strong advocate for mental health awareness. She uses her established platform to promote real-life conversations people should be having about mental illness.

While Marvel's Daredevil wants you to believe it's doing disability representation right. On the surface, it does seem that way. Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer, but a hero by night. The man is a brooding fighter who refuses to be defined by his disability. Although scratch beneath the surface, and you'll find something much more complicated. Daredevil walks a fine line between empowerment and erasure. A part of the show represents blindness and the struggles that come with it, but also fantasizes about it. By doing so, this show leans into the common ableist theme of the Supercrip.

What is a supercrip? A supercrip is a person who is disabled, but is depicted as having superhuman abilities as compensation for their disability. Matt Murdock is a brilliant example of this. He doesn't just avoid his blindness, nor does he let it stop him. Rather, he transcends his disability in ways that defy reality. The problem isn't that a blind man is a superhero; the issue is that his blindness is only acceptable because of his superhuman powers.

The show treats Matt's blindness less as a meaningful part of his identity but more as a visual concept. Throughout the show, there are scenes where Matt uses his cane or reads braille. However, the show invests most of its time in making the viewer forget he's blind. Take this, for example. We never really see how Matt practically navigates his daily life. I want to know what kind of accommodations he has in his office. I want to know how he cleans his apartment or even cooks! Yet the show doesn't unveil that. To the show's credit, though, there are scenes where Matt resists the pity that often follows his disability.

Professional wrestling relies on many factors, and one of the biggest elements is drama. However, when that drama exploits real-life health conditions for a "cheap shot", it's not just a storyline anymore, it's a stigma. One of the most infamous examples was a feud between Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy, where WWE turned to Hardy's very much real-life battle with addiction into a narrative piece.

This angle became extremely popular in late 2018, when Samoa Joe ambushed a celebration of Hardy's 20-year career. His promo started almost heartfelt, but that turned into a mock intervention. Samoa Joe was big on pointing out to Jeff that, "This is your future," taunting Hardy about relapsing due to his long history with substance abuse. The crowd was hooked, deeming Samoa Joe the bad guy and Jeff Hardy the good guy. But the public discomfort was still very real.

Hardy's history with alcoholism and drug abuse is a well-documented subject. The majority of the time, rather than framing his struggles in terms of mental health, trauma, or even medical need, WWE chose to position this fact as a character flaw for Hardy. This fact made him unreliable and unworthy.

This is an example of classic ableism. Why? Ableism isn't just about mocking or associating someone's physical or mental disability; it's about weaponizing any form of impairment. In this case, Samoa Joe's attacks not only targeted Hardy's wrestling skills, but they also undermined his humanity.

This is not the first example of addiction being exploited in wrestling. From Jake "The Snake" Roberts to Scott Hall, real-life struggles with substance abuse have been encouraged for storyline purposes. All of these portrayals use addiction for shock value. What's even worse is that sometimes there's no mention of injuries or further mental health issues that are brought on by these storylines. Instead, wrestlers are shamed for their recovery, rather than supported.

Split was a 2016 horror movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The cinema offered many powerhouse actors such as James McAvoy and Anna Joy-Taylor. However, representatives of the disabled and mental health communities didn't just consider this movie a thriller, but also a trigger to a deeper issue.

The film is centered around a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). Crumb houses many personalities that range from a little boy to a fashionista. Although one of his personalities seems to be more violent than the others, this personality is known as "The Beast." The Beast is depicted as a superhuman or monstrous creature that becomes the movie's ultimate horror device. This isn't the only horror in the movie. Split doesn't just use mental illness as a moving plot device, but rather weaponizes the mental illness.

It's very clear from the beginning that Crumb's mental illness isn't just a part of his character; it's the overarching danger of the story. Equating psychological disorders with violence or evil in general is a trope common in Hollywood media. For example, we see this in other movies such as You (2018) or The Silence of the Lambs (1991). For numerous decades, mainstream media has long painted these outrageous portrayals of mental illness, which only reinforces the public's biased fears.

The film never actually uses the word "disabled" throughout the movie, however, the movie still indicated ableist implications. DID is a complex, and at often times, misunderstood mental condition. Rather than educating the public or humanizing the disorder, Split twists the disorder into something superhuman. On top of this, Crumb is shown as monstrous yet pitiable. Some aspects of his human character are taken away through the writing of his disorder, but returned/excused when talking about his prior abuse.

Another unsettling thing about the film is how it flirts with the idea of "survival through suffering." The protagonist of the story, who also has a past of trauma, is spared by The Beast. There's an odd implication that trauma, in a way, makes people more evolved. This is a subtle version to what disability scholars might call Inspiration Porn.