stunt_muppet

So it turns out my Disability and Literature Studies professor is an MST3K fan.

By today we were supposed to have a  topic for our research paper. Because I am a lump, I really did not have one, so I came up with the first thing that I thought of: I'm intrigued by the pulp-horror figure of the "beautiful monster", the female figure who sees herself as disabled, imperfect, or disgusting, but is played by an able-bodied, classically-attractive woman and is still conventionally attractive to both the audience and the male cast - the Bride of Frankenstein, that sort of thing. They generally play on stereotypes of disability - biterness, self-hatred, desire for revenge against the "normate" body, isolation, tragic narrative, etc - without actually making the audience feel for or even observe an extraordinary body. I'm interested in what that says about ideas of feminity, body, and disability, as well as why writers even bother portraying the character as 'disabled', and what narratives that buys into.

The first example that I thought of was from the MST'ed movie "The Brain that Wouldn't Die". I figured if I just threw that movie out there, no one would know what it was, so I first asked if anyone in the room watched Mystery Science Theater, expecting no answer. Imagine my surprise when the professor piped up.

So I mentioned "The Brain that Wouldn't Die", and the victim that the lead character chooses to serve as a substitute body for Jan-in-the-pan; said victim is first seen posing in a fur bikini, and is bitter, isolated, and hates men because of her 'disfigurement' that prevents anyone from loving her. Said 'disfigurement' is a bit of scarring on the side of her face that is mostly covered by her hair and that we don't even see for most of the movie. Now, if the writers had chosen to play up her psychological trauma, that'd be one thing, but they keep referring to her as 'damaged' and her face as unbeautiful. 

When I was finished, my professor laughed and said, "You know, I don't think I've heard anyone talk about 'The Brain that Wouldn't Die' since 1994. MST got me through my graduate thesis."

I laughed as well and responded that it got me through my sophomore year of college, so I knew the feeling. And then I squeed a little bit inside, because it is rather lovely to find people you wouldn't expect with geeky interests.

I'm not sure if I'll keep going with that thesis, because it's more about gender than disability and anyway I'm not sure where I'm going or what I'm trying to prove with it. But it was worth it just to find out my professor watches MST3K.

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In even more frivolous news, I am most certainly not going to buy the Arcee toy, because I am not the kind of silly person who spends money on plastic toys. My Prowl is different, okay, he is useful for having something sitting by my computer to stare me down and make sure I'm getting my work done, and anyway he was a present. I cannot even justify that purchase to myself on the pretense that femme toys need good sales figures so that Hasbro will keep making them so that the cartoon writers will have to write more ladies, because in the end my paltry consumer dollars are just not going to make that much of an impact. Also, if I bought an Arcee I would feel compelled to buy a Ratchet to keep her company, and then I'm out thirty bucks and kicking myself even harder.

But I am rather entertained by her packaging, in which she is wielding her energy swords like a badass and described in her back-of-box blurb as being "one of the best swordfighters on Cybertron". I realize this has very little to do with her character and more to do with the fact that they have to make her toy super-special-awesome if they want little boys to buy it despite it being pink, but it comforts me somewhat to think that she's really skilled and tough and determined and we just never got to see it.

I am equally entertained by the fact that Cybertron-mode Ratchet comes with defibrillator paddles. I'll bet he zaps people if they backsass him.

brb, writing Arcee a fight scene for that AU I'm always on about. Or, um, doing homework. Yes. Homework, then writing. I must be disciplined.