#disfigured

I made a small au last night called Sig-Null

It's a small idea where Bendy is adopted by Joey and Henry who actually have a successful art career together.

Henry makes a program for teens with behavioral issues and Bendy gets curious about the group since they're being taught in the second house on their property which was turned into a small school with dorms.

Bendy becomes their friends and understands why Henry made the program to begin with. Originally it was due to Bendy's issues which the schools nearby didn't have any resources for, but most of his new friends had also never had a good home life or had other issues leading to their behavior or needs that a typical school wasn't willing to handle. so this was giving them a chance to learn life skills on top of catching up to their peers in homework.

(I also forgot that Bendy has his own health issues but idk what it would be considered yet....)

It may be just me or my personal bias, because I have a walking disability and a chronical illness. But to me, the creature in Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" is very much disability-coded: - His whole body is disfigured. - The ways he walks, moves (including the movements of his hands and fingers) and talks seems like he is disabled in one way or another. On the other hand, the creature has supernatural strength. But to me, that is not a paradox at all. We disabled people are not only our disabilities, we have talents and abilities too. Therefor, I very much celebrate this character and how he gets depicted (and for several other reasons too). --- EDIT: In the comments, two people pointed out to me that there are several articles and scholarship about disability (and other marginalization topics) regarding Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and thanks to @atimesfeeler I read this interesting political article: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Disability, and the Injustice of Misrecognition" by Amber Knight (ca. 35 minutes to read) https://dsq-sds.org/article/id/890/

You need to keep in mind that things like Tourette’s and scarring and bodily disfigurement and schizophrenia and more are all things people have in real life. These people can still be and deserve to be loved despite this. Treating people with these things as subhuman and people incapable of feeling attracted to is so awful to the community, even outside of the character.

James Morrison, a twenty-three-year-old British soldier, returned home to England on 12 August 1919, wearing a painted metal mask. Shell fragments during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 had disfigured his face — he no longer had a nose, nor a lower jaw, and scar tissue replaced his facial features. The British Army had asked the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood to create facial masks for wounded soldiers. James received his mask in 1918: a painted metal face, moulded to fit his injuries, painted to match his skin tone, designed to resemble a human face from a distance. Up close, it was obvious that it was a mask, but from a certain distance, James appeared almost normal. Almost human. Almost like the man he was before the war, in 1916.

James's wife, Eleanor, had not seen his real face since 1917. She had visited him in hospital, but James refused to remove the mask. He told her, "You don't want to see what's underneath. The mask is better." Eleanor had seen photographs of wounded soldiers during the war and understood his situation. She replied, "I love you, mask or no mask." James insisted, "You love the man you remember. The man beneath this mask is no longer that man. The mask looks more like the man I used to be. Let me keep it."

James came home wearing the mask, which he never removed in front of Eleanor or their children, Michael, aged seven, and Sarah, aged five. The children only remembered him as a man with a face. Now, they had a father with a painted metal mask. The children were frightened. Michael asked, "Why doesn't daddy take off his mask?" Eleanor replied, "Daddy was hurt in the war. The mask helps him." Michael asked, "And under the mask?" Eleanor replied, "Daddy's face. Different than before. But still daddy."

The photographer who documented the return of the soldiers visited the Morrison home on 20 August 1919. James was sitting in his lounge, wearing his painted metal mask. Eleanor sat beside him, her hand on his arm, trying to maintain some sense of normality. The children — Michael and Sarah — stood on the other side of the room, their eyes fixed on their masked father, their fear visible. This image illustrates the domestic impact of the war, how James came home but did not truly return, how the mask preserved an illusion of normality while making that normality impossible, how his children were frightened of their own father because of the mask.

James lived with the mask for twenty-three years. He never took it off in front of his family. Eleanor never saw his real face after 1917. The children grew up with a masked father. James died in 1942, at the age of 46, still wearing his mask. His funeral was conducted with a closed casket: even after his death, James could not be seen without his mask.

Eleanor lived for another eighteen years after James's death, passing away in 1960, at the age of 68. She had been married to James for 26 years, 10 before the war and 16 after. During those 16 post-war years, she never saw her husband's real face. At her funeral, her daughter Sarah testified: "My father came back from the First World War in 1919. He wore a metal mask to cover his wounds. He never took it off in front of us. My mother never saw his face after 1917. My brother and I grew up with a masked father. We were afraid of him when we were children. We loved him. But we were frightened. He was our father, but he had no face. He had a painted metal mask. He died in 1942. We buried him with his mask. My mother lived for another eighteen years. One day she said to me, 'I was married to your father for 26 years. For 16 of those years, I never saw his face. I saw the mask. I loved him nonetheless. But I did not see him. The war took his face. The mask replaced it. I married a man with a face. I was widowed from a man with a mask. Both were your father. Neither was whole.' My mother died yesterday. She is with your father now. Perhaps he has removed the mask. Perhaps she can finally see him. I hope so. They deserve that. He wore the mask for twenty-three years. She lived with the mask for sixteen years. They are together now. Perhaps they can finally see each other."

Sources:

BBC ("The man who wore a mask after World War I")

Bridal Plasty, Let me in (Korean show that brought up abuse as a reason the women wanted to look "pretty"), My 600lb Life (was for health reasons but many people died after weight loss surgery and the show focused about their "transformation"), and so many more I likely don't know about.

(plus shows about specific people who needed surgeries because of deformations that presented these people as entertainment rather than documentaries about their experiences. still looksism but in the opposite direction (?) since these surgeries weren't cosmetic and were actually necessary for a better quality of life.)

This shows are inherently lookist.

I haven't seen any of these specifically, but this kind of reality TV shows are very common and I've found a lot of them with similar premises and they all fall in this saneist lookist ideology.

But I want to also talk a little about what they could've been. As a show talking about a specific topic doesn't inherently have issues portraying it —It certainly can, and commonly does, but it also always could have a lot of potential if done with good intentions and knowing about the demographic without dehumanizing them.

First with the plastic surgeries. Almost all of them are generally gender affirming care, be it trans or cis individuals alike. So they could've for one, gone in depth about how GAC is not a trans thing. And they could've also gone in depth about the intersection of the general idea, of this surgeries happening so often because of toxic social pressure and standards of commodifying people and making them have to fit into boxes of desirability. Which are always full of ableism, misogyny, racism, colorism, orientalism, antisemitism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. But also the connection that us as individuals are often victim of this system, and the pressure and disadvantages of not following it are undeniable. So it's a much more nuanced topic than just, "cosmetic surgery bad" or "The cosmetic surgery industry is perfect!".

Then for the one about obesity. Extreme obesity can and often ends up being very disabling to a person. It reduces mobility extremely, like the ability to walk longer distances because of the weight the legs have to suspend. It reduces the ability of self care sometimes, making some parts of your body inaccessible when showering or to look for skin cancer for example. And it has it's own side effects in heart health and other organs. But apart from being able to give someone the support they need to live better, which is almost always partly losing weight, it's also very important to note why someone ends up like this. Why are the basic foods like vegetables and fruits so expensive? Why do people have so little time to actually cook? Why do people have so much bad mental health? Could the physical and mental health systems improve? Would that help? Giving support to people earlier? How do all of these intersection with class inequality, the lasting effects of segregation and slavery, abusive situations, etc? These are just some basic ideas. And it's already way better. Also, focusing on improving health and lived experience should always be the focus of this.

And regarding surgeries for deformities/disfigurements. It's important to note that still to this day, most surgeries on disabled people have other alternatives for improving life experience/pain relief. A lot of these surgeries aren't actually done with informed consent. As the patient isn't actually in the fully known of other alternatives and the pros and cons of each of them. But systematically, surgeries are recommended to "look more normal". Like how if you need braces medically, they most likely will insist on you using them until you have what's considered "perfect teeth", or how while they do that they can and even do without consent the act of shaving off your canines for it (as it happened to me, which I still I'm mad about as I loved my little fangs). So this should be present in any TV show about it.