Being a cyborg is cool right now, thanks in large part to gee-whiz media coverage. But actually using a bionic arm can really suck.
...the media’s coverage of these new kinds of prosthetics is so focused on the initial joy or incredulity — on the idea that “lives are changed” — that they forget to ask if these hands are actually useful and what happens in the weeks and months after the unboxing.
The media narrative, says James Young — husband of Ashley and a cyborg himself — is designed to be reassuring to people: If you happen to, God forbid, lose your arm, “they” can replace it. “People want to make sure that the technology is out there that can remake you as you are right now,” he says.
For Alexis Hillard, the creator of the YouTube channel “Stump Kitchen,” the obsession with cyborgs is “continuing to drive that wedge between disenfranchised disabled people and those with money and power, creating a new ‘desirable disabled person.’”
A good read for our followers writing amputee characters in contemporary or speculative fiction settings.
As always, take this not as a message to "stop writing cyborgs/advanced prosthetics ever," but rather to read and center disabled perspectives, understand your motivations, and trace your logic.
- Writing With Color
