Eli Clare and Glee

In Eli Clare's short story "The Mountain" she talks about the difference between having a disability and having an impairment. This can be related to the "Wheels" episode of Glee we watched in class. Eli's definition of an impairment is having something physically wrong with you such has loss of use of a limb. Her definition of a disability is a mindset established by society. These two definitions can be related to some of the characters in Glee.
One character that has an impairment in Glee is Artie. He lost the use his legs in a car accident when he was younger. His disability according to Clare would be the loss of use of his legs. One impairment was having trouble getting into school because they only had one handicap ramp which was at the end of school. Another impairment was that he could not take the bus with the rest of the Glee club to their performance. Artie faces many of these impairments each day because of his disability. The Glee club had to have a fund raiser to raise money to get a handicapped bus. The Glee club spent a few hours each day to get a feel for the impairments that Artie has to deal with every day.
Another character that had a disability was the girl who tried out for cheerleading. The disability she had was down syndrome. She had to deal with problem in education and social problems. All she wanted to do was to fit in and be treated like everyone else and i think that the cheerleading coach saw that. That is why the coach added her to the team and is trying to treat her like everyone else on the team.

Glee and Eli Clare

I think that it is important to understand not just the differences between oneself and a disabled person, but also the similarities. In fact, I feel that it is more important to understand the similarities. We really are all the same, whether the disability is physical or mental, everyone is the same inside and the world really needs to start treating everyone that way. Eli Clare had a really good point, we shouldn't see the people as their disability, we should see them as people who just happen to have something about their body or mind that makes life a little different for them. One of the things that really rang true in my head from the Glee episode was when the glee club teacher, I don't watch the show so I am not sure on everyone's name, stated that there was only one wheelchair accesspoint in the whole school. This is a big deal to me because one of my friends from high school is in a wheelchair and my high school only has one handicap ramp. By only having one way in or out it made it really difficult for him. I remember that we had a fire drill one time and we were all the way on the other side of the building, but the only way for him to get out of the school was through that one door, so I went with him and we had to take make our way through the swarm of kids going the other way just to make it out. We were one of the last people out of the building. All we could think was, "what if that had been a real fire?" So in our junior year when the school was planning on renovating the main entrance, my friend and I went to all the school board meetings in the evenings and made the people in charge realize that just because they weren't in a wheelchair and the majority of the student body wasn't in a wheelchair, it was important to have more than one access point in or out of the building. Because of our persistance, when the new plans were created they included a wheelchair ramp in the main entrance so that now my friend and everyone else in a wheelchair who goes, or will go, to my high school will not be the last ones out in an emergency.

Glee Post and Eli Clare

In Eli Clare's The Mountain and the Wheels episode of Glee, the subject of disabilities is presented and shown through the everyday challenges that people must face. In The Mountain, Eli Clare explains the challenges that she must face to climb a mountain. However, the literal mountain that Clare climbs is also a metaphorical mountain for the challenge that people with disabilities go through and overcome. Some of these obstacles that Clare speaks of are shown through the Glee episode. In this episode, people become aware of the hard times that people in wheelchairs face. Artie is in a wheelchair and the Glee Club is going to sectionals but the school will not provide a wheelchair bus for them. Therefore, the club needs to raise money to get the bus and in turn they have to spend 3 hours a day in a wheelchair to realize the difficulties that Artie faces. In class, we discussed if this would be a productive way to understand their challenges. Some argued that if people are to "copy" other people with difficulties that it would be seen as them taking pity on them. The disabled would feel that they would be offending them and it would be very disrespectful. Also, it would be not accurate for they could get out of the wheelchair whenever they wanted. Therefore, they would never understand the difficulties that the disabled face on an emotional level.

To fix this problem, we argued ways that people can understand the challenges that the disabled face without offending them. I suggested that if people wanted to experience being in a wheelchair they should stay in it 24/7. That way, it takes out that problem that it would be fake and unfair that they could just stand whenever they wanted. Others stated, depending on the person, that the disabled might rather have people come up to them and just ask how it is to live that way. It all depends on your tone of voice and the attitude of how you present yourself in order to not offend them. However, through Clare and this episode, we are presented with some of the ideas of how life is for the disabled. We learn that the disabled just want to be like everyone else and that we should treat them equally. The challenges are very hard to overcome but they are people just like you and me.

-Bethany Davis (Post #9)

Eli Clare & Glee Post

Eli Clare and the Glee episode both incorporate how disabled people face challenges while displaying how people without disabilities can easily overcome that task. In Glee, the student in the wheelchair needs a specific bus to ride while his classmates can just ride any bus they want. He also must enter the school through only one entrance, the entrance with the ramp, while his classmates have a greater selection. This can cause a huge inconvience because if the disabled student's classroom is on the opposite end of the building, he will most likely be late or really have to hurry. Eli Clare displays people with disabilities facing the challenge of climbing a mountain. People without a disability will have a hard time climbing the mountain, so being physically disabled makes this task nearly impossible. Climbing a mountain can be a metaphor for any challenge people with disabilites must face - driving, sports, stereotypes, etc. Driving can be possible, if for example, the disability is that a person does not have any arms. Special pedals can be installed in the car and the person can learn to drive with their feet. (I saw this on a tv special - this girl got electrocuted so she lost her arms.) Despite having a disability, people should not treat them differently because they want to be like everyone else. The cheerleading coach in Glee treated the disabled girl just like she treated the girls that did not have a disability. Although I admire how she didn't patronize the disabled girl, I have to question the way she was yelling at her. This reminds me of a good point my boss brought up with running a restaurant. He said when he had all male staff at his old restaurant, he could discipline his male staff by yelling or talking loudly to. When he gained females in his staff, he could no longer do that because women do not usually respond positively to yelling. I think the coach should discipline her, but without excess yelling and telling her how much she needed to improve when she was trying her hardest. Pam Kawalerski Post Number Nine

My post is just food for thought I guess; I missed my original presentation on Audre Lorde's "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action." This post is that presentation to provide my insights into her work; like I said it's late but it's food for thought. The critical article I chose was not a book review of Audre Lorde's work; however, I do feel that it is very useful in understanding what Audre Lorde stood for as well as what her message is in her piece, "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action". The article is entitled, "Breaking the Silence A Black Feminist Response to the Thomas/Hill Hearings." It deals with a Supreme Court case of sexual harassment of a black woman by the name of Anita Hill. Judge Thomas had allegedly sexually harassed Anita when he was her boss. The issue, besides the obvious one of sexism and possible racism, is the fact that Orlando Patterson, a Harvard professor and supporter of Thomas claimed that Thomas was justified by publicly denying the allegations even if he committed them. This suggests that Anita, black women in general, should remain silent about such sexual encounters; as if to elude that the primary distinction of this case is its sexual nature rather than the violation of Anita's rights. The author of this article, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, makes a valid observation; she suggests that if the trial had not been aired via television than perhaps the negative connotation of "dirty laundry" would have ceased to be relevant and the real issues could have shown through rather than the media generated propaganda.

"Transformation of Silence into Language and action" is primarily about Lorde's struggle to break her, self-proclaimed, lifetime of silence to conform to white society and male domination. She has this change of heart after hearing she has a tumor with a 60-80% chance of being malignant. For three weeks she is faced with the trial of living with the devastating notion that she is running out of time. This frightens and aggravates her because she feels her silence has held her back.

My discussion question is: How many of us can honestly say were not constrained by the same notion of silence? Furthermore, who thinks they would have the courage to speak out for what they believe in even if the odds are mounted against you as they were for black, feminist, lesbian, warrior, and poet; Audre Lorde.

Eli Clare vs. Glee

Eli Clare's Freaks and Queers, along with The Mountain can relate in many ways to the Glee episode that we watched in class. Clare discusses the issues regarding disability and the ability/lack of to climbing a mountain per-say which references climbing the societal mountain as to fitting in. Clare allows the reader to interpret her questions on their own while providing them with history and knowledge of said disabilities or 'hurtful words'. In comparison to this, one can recognize the purpose of the "Wheels" episode of Glee. In this episode we learn the struggles that people face in wheel-chairs. In class, we discussed this in depth. We discussed whether or not it was a good decision to portray a disabled character that was played by a real life non-disabled person. Personally, I think that it's the talent that matters. I mean, lets use a more popular example...if someone if portraying a person with an eating disorder, that topic is highly talked about and many people can relate...and in saying so, it may be more difficult for a person actually suffering to portray that in character for television.

All in all, Clare in her works, and the hit show Glee share many similarities when discussing and portraying 'disabilities'. It is however, up to the reader/watcher to determine for themselves the relevance or 'lesson' that is to be learned.

Courtney Bisher

Extra Credit Blog

For the extra credit I read, "Death Watch" by Aimee Bender. This is a story about ten men who are told that they only have two weeks to live. Some men are angry, others are sad, one is happy and another does not have any reaction at all. All the men react differently and do different things on their last two weeks. Soon after, the doctors seemed to have made a mistake and only two of the five crying men are actually going to die. The one starts a new life because he realized what he was missing out on. The other continues his regular life and just says that it was a close call. The other was unable to be reached because he was in Greece living the rest of his life. After three years and realizes he is not going to die, he starts a new life in Denver. In the end some of the men died when they were told, others before and some lived longer than expected.

Like all of Bender's stories, there is a moral embedded in the story. I feel like this is a very important one because it talks about living your life to the fullest. The men were told when they were going to die and they all had different reactions to that, however the doctors messed up and were not actually sure when they were all going to die. I feel like Bender is trying to tell us to just live our life, knowing that we are not going to live forever. We obviously can not live everyday like it's our last or else we would spend all our money and not have a job but we should live our life so that we are happy because we never now when were are going to die. Like the doctors say that can not account for murder or accidents so they are not sure when the men are actually going to die, but we should live by doing things we like and by living with people we love.