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Time to Grow Up continued

Great change is occurring in the relationship between disabled and nondisabled people; one that neither of them fully understands the reasons for; one that many are afraid of; one that many are fighting hard to resist.

When such psychological upheavals occur, either in an individual or in a society, there’s an effort to keep the old roles. This happens in individual therapy: old roles are comfortable…

Many disability charities hold telethons; yet Jerry Lewis’s telethon has always been the target of disabled people’s ire. Why his, and not the others? It’s the same reason MDA is the most successful of all the telethons: focus.

MDA has either been savvy or has simply stumbled onto the truth: a hero, one larger-than-life individual, draws people like no mere cause ever does. MDA latched onto this hero in Jerry Lewis. No other telethon has had such a larger-than-life hero.

Lewis has served MDA well because of his great ego; MDA has helped Lewis, too. It gave him an image, a persona, greater than anything he could have ever attained as a comedian. In a way, MDA saved Lewis – something that becomes clear from a look at published accounts of Lewis’s life.

The image Lewis would assume is an image that forms a deep and powerful myth: "hero to children…"

But the hero image is one of limited staying power. When children grow up, they no longer need such heroes; the hero has served his purpose for them.

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