Re-Presenting Disability: Section Two

I found Chapter 7, titled “Disability Reframed,” a useful case study in analyzing the success of using the social model of disability as a theoretical framework for exhibits. While I think it is essential to reframe disability in this way, I am afraid that these representations may get lost among the other, more prevalent representations of people with disabilities as either victims or heroes. When I consider the most common contexts where I see disabled people in the media, it is usually in commercials or advertisements either showing a person with disabilities “heroically” performing some act despite their disability, or in advertisements for charities that paint people with disabilities as pitiful or helpless. It is therefore understandable that many visitors’ comments framed people with disabilities in this way. As mentioned in this chapter, reframing these kinds of stereotypes is also more difficult because a medicalized or individualized understanding of disability is not viewed as harmful, and it is generally understood that no one wishes harm on people with disabilities. In your opinion, are these kinds of stereotypes harder to change than more negative ones?

For the exhibit mentioned in Chapter 7, curators and exhibit developers chose to use comment cards at the end of the exhibits to collect visitors’ reactions and opinions of their experiences. These comments helped museum staff measure if people felt their views had been changed or influenced by the exhibits. Are publicly-viewed comment cards an ideal method of recording visitor reactions? How could they be problematic? For instance, I think visitors are less likely to post negative comments or admit their opinions hadn’t changed if the cards are visible to all visitors. If the comment cards are more private and turned into a staff member at the end of the exhibit, how do you think the visitor responses would change? Are there problems with this approach as well? I also found it intriguing that the museums asked visitors to provide demographic information on the back of the card, as I have never seen that approach. If you were implementing a comment card program, would you ask for such information? If you were a visitor, would you provide it?

Chapter 11, “Revealing Moments” was an open and honest account of the challenges and triumphs of putting on an exhibit about disability and sexuality. I found the controversy surrounding the Museum of Sex’s choice to include information on the medical definitions of the participants’ disabilities to be particularly revelatory. While some disability activists thought the inclusion of this information only served to further “medicalize” perceptions of disability, many participants approved of the museum’s choice. If you brought the exhibit to your museum, would you include that information?

Elizabeth Mariko Murray and Sarah Helaine Jacobs, the authors of this chapter, mentioned how the Museum of Sex is in a unique position as a for-profit, private museum; there is a degree of freedom that other museums receiving public funds do not have, yet there is a constant struggle to make enough money to stay open. In fact, they are the only authors I have read in this book who openly admit that they must always consider the money-making potential of their exhibitions. Is having the freedom to take on more controversial issues and exhibits worth worrying about losing your job or keeping the lights on? Given that many government-supported museums are struggling as well, does it even matter?