Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

In middle school, Taussig imagined her life as an adult, a fantasy that excluded her disability. She did so because she saw the world as two worlds: “the Real Citizens of Life,” the able people for whom the world was made, and people with disabilities, who were meant to “inspire” the “Real Citizens” since they themselves were unworthy of leadership and relationships (82). She frames these two groups of people as primary and secondary characters in a performance.

When Taussig and Micah moved in together, a neighbor assumed they were siblings because he couldn’t imagine a person with a disability in a relationship. When she attended a professional conference during graduate school, a stranger gave her money, telling her that he had been in a wheelchair and understood what it was like to need money. To her, he wanted to play the role of “Helper” to the “Begging Cripple.” These stories illustrate the roles projected onto people with disabilities, despite their own narratives about being strong, independent, or sexual.

Media representation increasingly includes people of different races, genders, sexualities, sizes, and other identities, and Taussig argues this shift brings up additional concerns. For example, Mindy Kaling’s film Late Night, which addresses inclusivity in late night writers’ rooms, leaves out characters with disabilities while including other identities.