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Time to Grow Up continued

MDA, in creating a hero for disabled children in Jerry Lewis, in a way poised itself for the problem it’s now facing.

It exacerbated it, too, by attempting to cut off the process such a hero serves in myth: though it gave disabled children a hero, the Association evidently did not understand that in such myths children in the end always complete their own hero journeys. Despite MDA’s attempt to stop the myth in midstream, it has, as myths do, followed its own course, and the disabled children did grow up. Passage of the ADA made disabled people their own heroes.

Whether MDA has intended it or not, its refusal to dismiss Lewis has had the effect of appearing to be an attempt to thwart the psychological growing up of an entire generation of disabled people… By refusing to let Jerry go, MDA is in a sense commanding that growth not occur.

This is dangerous on two fronts: What will happen when there’s no longer a Jerry (for we all pass on, sooner or later)? And what happens when kids grow up and no longer need a hero?…

Telethons did not create the image of the disabled person as perpetual child; it’s been society’s view of disabled people for as long as anyone can remember – and it’s powerful. The MDA telethon’s creators merely observed (probably unconsciously) what role it could play in raising money, appropriated it, honed it, focused it, and burned the image ever deeper into our national consciousness...

Vulnerability, lack of capability, immature abilities – these are traits that we, as a society, want to deny in ourselves – that we seek to project onto others. Who better to project them onto than disabled people? And that’s what society’s been doing. It’s a lot easier to project one’s vulnerability onto someone else – a disabled person – than to have to face it personally.

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