Tod Browning's Freaks

FILM (streaming)


Freaks, Tod Browning's peek behind the curtains of a circus sideshow, was greeted with disgust and outrage on its initial release due to its unflinching portrayal of disability, as well as its gruesome ending, (and was not helped by the lurid title and marketing campaign – "Can a full grown woman truly love a MIDGET?"). Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival (funfair) performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs". Director Browning took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup. Browning forgoes elaborate make-up and special effects, and instead draws on his own background working in circuses to cast real life sideshow performers with a wide variety of physical conditions.

In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers to obtain his large inheritance.MGM quickly disowned the film, letting it sink into semi-mythical obscurity, but the last 40 years or so have seen a massive upswing in both the popularity and reputation of Freaks. If you can look past its notoriety, it paints a largely compassionate picture of the title characters, and has an amazing and inflammatory message of the downtrodden and mocked violently getting one up over the beautiful people, a group of people banding together against a society that only wants to deride and reject them.

The first half of the film is taken up with scenes of the characters and their day to day life; we see them eating, drinking, doing the washing, showing off their new born children, and in an amazing scene with the armless and legless "Human Slug" Prince Randian, lighting and smoking a cigarette. All rather normal, and not always totally scintillating to watch, but it does make the point that "they" are deep down no different from "us". However, other themes and events in the film show that the Freaks definitely do at least think of themselves as being different and isolated from the rest of the world and its morality.

In the film's climax, the freaks attack Cleopatra and Hercules with guns, knives, and various sharp-edged weapons, hideously mutilating them during a bad storm. Though Hercules is never seen again, the original ending of the film had the freaks castrating him; the audience sees him later singing in falsetto. The film concludes with a revelation of Cleopatra's fate; she has become a grotesque, squawking "human duck". The flesh of her hands has been melted and deformed to look like duck feet and her lower half has been permanently tarred and feathered.

In an ending MGM threw in later for a "happier ending", Hans is living a millionaire's life in a huge house. Venus and her clown boyfriend Phroso (Wallace Ford) come with Frieda to visit, and Frieda comforts Hans when he begins to cry.

Freaks began filming in October 1931 and was completed in December. Following disastrous test screenings in January 1932 (one woman threatened to sue MGM, claiming the film had caused her to suffer a miscarriage), the studio cut the picture down from its original 90-minute running time to just over an hour. Much of the sequence of the freaks attacking Cleopatra, as she lay under a tree, was removed, as well as a gruesome sequence showing Hercules being castrated, a number of comedy sequences, and most of the film's original epilogue. A new prologue featuring a carnival barker was added, as was the new epilogue featuring the reconciliation of the tiny lovers. This shortened version - now only 64 minutes long - had its premiere at the Fox Criterion in Los Angeles on February 20, 1932.

Journeyman screenwriter, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was nursing a hangover in the studio commissary and looked up from his meal to behold the Siamese twin sisters walking in to order lunch. "What shall we have today?" one asked the other. Fitzgerald ran to the bathroom and vomited.

Despite the extensive cuts, the film was still negatively received by audiences, and remained an object of extreme controversy. Today, the parts that were removed are considered lost. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), had trouble finding work afterward, and this effectually brought his career to an early close. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for 30 years. Beginning in the early 1960s, Freaks was rediscovered as a counterculture cult film, and throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the film was regularly shown at midnight movie screenings at several movie theaters in the United States. In 1994, Freaks was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was ranked 15th on Bravo TV's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Both the "normal" people and the Freaks themselves constantly reinforce this separateness. Animal references abound in the script, sometimes as insults (at various points Hans is called a bug, an ape, and a polliwog), or as one of the performers many creature related monikers (Bird Women, Turtle Girl). This all serves to emphasize the idea that, in society's view, whatever the Freaks are, they are not human. The Freaks' language at the wedding party, with their chant of "We accept you, one of us" also underlines the way they see themselves as a distinct and separate group of people. An interesting footnote to this are the real life tales of the cast getting sucked into the Hollywood dream, thinking they would be rubbing shoulders with the stars, only to find themselves barred from the main studio canteen. Instead, they were made to eat on picnic tables far away from the rest of the MGM workforce, in a direct mirror of the isolation suffered by the characters they were playing in the film.

This sense of difference is also apparent in some of the sexual behavior in the film, which, while never explicit, hints at things that certainly breach the Hays Code, the censorship guidelines of the day. For a start, the dwarf Hans is lusting after a "normal" woman like Cleopatra. Although he wants to do the "decent" thing and marry her, he will presumably want to consummate the wedding at some point. At the wedding party, he is publicly humiliated, and symbolically castrated by his new wife kissing her lover Hercules right in front of him and the other guests. It is also worth noting that in the original script, instead of being murdered, Hercules was castrated, a much more appropriate punishment, given his cuckolding of Hans.

There is also the clown, Roscoe, who is married to one of the Siamese Twins, and is presumably sharing his marital bed with his sister-in-law. There is a further kinky twist to this with the suggestion (without any scientific basis) that physical sensations felt by one twin can also be felt by the other, with the obvious implications this has for the bedroom. The real point to all of this, beyond titillating the audience, is the fact that none of the performers think anything strange of any of this, which seems to emphasize their complete rejection of "normal" society as it was then, along with its rules and ethics.

The climax of the film is audacious, thought provoking and chilling, as, after all the effort expended to get us to think of the Freaks as being human and sympathetic, they are now portrayed as utterly inhuman. You can see this both in their appearance, silently slithering through the mud and rain, illuminated mostly by flashes of lightning, and in the horrifying violence they inflict on Cleopatra. We don't actually see the attack, only the end result, with their victim left covered in feathers, her hands mutilated so that they resemble chicken feet, and her vocal chords wrecked so she can only squawk like a bird. The message from the Freaks is that if she sees "us" as animals, then making her "one of us" will be the ultimate revenge.

How far are we prepared to take that sympathy? Do we think they are in any way justified in their behavior? Can we identify with their thoughts of murderous revenge? There are no scenes of anybody being brought to justice or paying any kind of price for the act of violence, so with the director refusing to make any moral judgments, we have to provide the answers ourselves.

Freaks was a critical and box office disaster for MGM, and they couldn't wait to get rid of it, selling the rights to exploitation producer Dwain Esper (of Maniac and Reefer Madness fame), who took it round his roadshows under various titles such as Nature's Mistakes and Forbidden Love. It soon sank into obscurity until the sixties, when college campuses and art house cinemas began to revive it, and this may have some connection to the fact that, by then, the word Freak had acquired new connotations for a generation feeling alienated from mainstream society.

ALTERNATE ENDING VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ5ZxlqOou8 

Freaks!

Challenge: Support and Advocacy Groups

Mutter Museum Catalog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFY4BxNgge0

What is the meaning of DISABILITY in our (popular) culture?

• Villian/Evil
• Slasher of horror films
• sign of moral corruption/bad behavior
• pirate with peg leg and hook arm
• phantom of the opera

How does the study of displaying human oddities help us understand disability in the United States? What does this say about our culture?

THESIS

"Our reaction to freaks is not a function of some deep seated fear or some energy that they give off, rather the RESULT OF OUR SOCIALIZATION, and of the way that social institutions managed these people's identities. Freak shows are not about isolated individuals, either on platforms or in the audience. They are about organizations and patterned relationships between them and us. FREAK is not a quality that belongs to a person on display. It is something that we created: a perspective , a set of practices-a SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION." (IX-X)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF FREAKS: 

•  Freak  is a frame of mind
• being extremely tall is one thing, being a giant is another
• It is a set of practices, a way of thinking about people
• It is an enactment of a tradition, the performance of a stylized presentation

• TERMINOLOGY: despised and degraded
• TYPES OF FREAKS:
• Illustrates the connection between the ongoing development of SCIENCE and FREAK SHOWS

• Non-Westerns Peoples (nature's jokes)
• Freaks of nature (monsters)
• Born Freaks, made freaks, novelty freaks, humerous freaks
• Fakes (gaffed freaks)- all are misrepresentations, but gaffs are EXTREME

 

• RECORDING TRADITIONS:
• portraits and photographs of VICTORIAN TRADITION (albums) and souveniers
• "true life pamphlets"- promotions and false biographies for exhibits.

HISTORY OF FREAK SHOWS

• Early Years
• 18th century followed the English Model: 
• singular freaks who traveled from town to town with a presenter looking for an audience. Displayed animal curiosities as well.
• "Living Curiosities" to designate that the show had both human and animal exhibits

• 19th Century -VICTORIAN (Science Oriented)
• "Lustus nature" were evil omens, yet enamored with them
• working of witchcraft, punishment for parental transgressions but also GOD'S GREAT ORDER OF CREATURES as scientific inquiry became more mainstream knowledge. Here they should be the SUBJECTS OF STUDY and CLASSIFICATION.
• Science legitimized the public's interest in freaks
• spurred great debates on MONO versus POLY-GENESIS
• MUSEUMS: rise as a place to view human curiosities

• Early Museums: 
• Freaks viewed as scientific specimens on display. they contained a hodgepodge of live exhibits and photographs, paintings and panoramas. 
• gave scientific lectures and discussions
• humans were displayed but they were not the featured attractions; they were NATURAL rather than unnatural history
• The public preferred these human oddities and they drew better crowds
• puritanical beliefs frowned upon shows and concerts and dancing, but museums were legitimate RATIONAL AMUSEMENT for Christians.

"By becoming attached to museums and later circuses, show men and exhibits were incorporated into the burgeoning industry, the popular amusement industry. They thus joined a segment of society that was in the process of developing a way of life apart from the mainstream. Connections were no longer confined to a simple partnership between exhibit and manager. A FREAK SHOW was emerging as a larger collectivity" (30)

Kinds of Freaks

Exotic & Aggrandized Modes (chapter 4)

THE MODES OF PRESENTATION REVEAL THE IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS EMBODIED IN THE FREAK SHOW WORLD BY ALLOWING US TO FOCUS ON THE INSTITUTION OF EXHIBITING PEOPLE AND THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOSE INVOLVED.

• Showmen created public identities for the freaks that they presented, and their success was determined by this presentation.

• Fabricated backgrounds, natures of their conditions, circumstances of their lives, and other aspects of their lives for marketing purposes. 
•   In other cases, deception was merely an exaggeration

Two major modes of presentation:

o   Aggrandized

§  Endowed freak with status enhancing characteristics

• Flaunted social position, achievement, talents, family and physiology 
• Presented with high status titles: duke, captain, major, prince, king, general, Lady… 
• Characteristics: highly educated, spoke many languages, snobbish hobbies (poetry), linked to well-known high status people (usually in history), membership in high status and exclusive clubs and organizations
• Like CELEBRITIES
• Performances: 
•  Super-gimp 
• Talent

• Normalcy of freaks family life and relationships and children emphasized aggrandized status 
• Causes: maternal impressions (traumatic), medical testimonials, rational answer. Not the work of evil or devil. NOT SICK or patients

o   Exotic

§  Strange creature from a little-known part of the world

• Appeal to the curiosity about culturally strange, primitive, bestial, and exotic
• Exaggerated stereotypes or just contrived from myth and legend
• Events had scripts which fit biography of presentation
• Source stories important: scientific discoveries, historical travelogues, news stories  
•  “races of men” and “missing links” were common themes 
• Genetics: CROSS-BREEDING (hybridity) examples were often explanations for exotic freaks
• “throwback theory” humans could give birth to children who were throwbacks to an earlier time in human evolution 
• Presentation at scientific meetings and even the study of these freaks by scientists asked to authenticate them gave them authenticity (despite the actual results of these investigations)
• RACIST: presentations emphasized physical differences and were often set in a position to prove the validity and reality of racial differences. Native Americans were presented as “exotic” and foreign even though they are “Americans” in the rue sense. ALL EXOTICS ARE “OTHERS” 
• Printed materials with biographies, banners, barkers talking up the show were the first three lines of assault in show promotion. 
• Entertained crowd once inside 
• Sold souvenirs and curiosities from the freak attractions 
• Photographic portraits 
• True-life story booklets 
• Trinkets (giant’s huge rings, dwarf’s miniature bibles, etc.) 
• Blow off: Finale show for more bucks…often seedy (nudity)

What determined presentation?

• Condition 
• Skin color 
•  Age of acquisition (train young) by showmen and managers

• HUMEROUS MODE; never fully developed, but mocking mode became popular at the end of 1930’s (KooKoo the bird woman). ---Jerry Springer????

Galen Buckwalter: The Good Patient

Click HERE to watch "Rolling"

The Good Patient

by Galen Buckwalter. First published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The visit to my doctor was not terribly out of the ordinary. I had waited several months, hoping the pain would remit, but the throbbing in my shoulders, initially episodic and activity-related, became constant, woke me early in the morning, and made me reluctant even to try to exercise. So there I was in my doctor’s office, waiting. But this time, as I waited, I talked to a digital camera I had perched on the exam table.
Every time I watch this scene, I cringe — not at the time wasted in waiting, and not even at the fact that, as I noted in the film, “it would take a hell of a gimp” to make the transfer from my wheelchair to the examining table. I do get a bit irritated when the doctor eventually waltzes into the office and, after having me reach over my head and touch the back of my head, cheerfully tells me I probably have “acromioclavicular strain.” But what makes me want to cover my eyes every time is the way I interact with my doctor. I am a professional research scientist, a member of several study sections at the National Institute of Mental Health, a vice president of a successful company that I played a pivotal role in developing. I don’t consider myself brash, but I am certainly no wallflower. Yet there I am, on screen, wagging my head like a dashboard puppy. I then agree with a saying that is not only inaccurate but degrading: “Your arms are your legs, too.”
Well, my arms are not my legs. My shoulders, however, as subsequent imaging demonstrated, are largely lacking in cartilage, and they hurt terribly. Not because they are my legs, but because I have stubbornly used them to push a manual wheelchair for over 30 years in my determination to live as independently as possible. Yet in the exam room, I see myself unable to communicate this problem effectively to my physician; instead, I collaborate in his avoidance of the real reasons I am there.
In looking back at that scene, I see myself in crisis. I am beginning to wonder whether I can tolerate the increase in pain. I live in a manual wheelchair, which is, in a meaningful sense, my legs. I enjoy the gentle dance of playing with gravity as I swivel down slight grades and the jarring thwack of timing the jump across a large crack in the sidewalk — every bit as much as I used to love the feel of freshly cut grass on bare toes. Yet I am aware that many people who once moved just as synchronously with their chairs now can barely get out of bed independently. Shoulder replacement may loom, or trading the control and synergy I feel with my manual chair for the additional dependence that comes with a monstrous power chair. Coming to my doctor represents my recognition of the inevitability of another profound loss 30 years after my spinal cord injury. Though I have no illusion that anyone can relieve the emotional pain of my physical loss, the superficiality of our interaction left me alone to cope with a significant advancement in my disability. My physician’s failure to study the literature on the diagnosis and management of disorders of weight-bearing shoulders delayed effective treatment; in retrospect, his response to my problem seems like incompetence. But I am convinced that if he had simply sat down, looked me in the eyes, and talked to me, he would have gained information that would have made the visit far more beneficial.
Looking at my life through a camera lens gave me a different view of my disability and my interactions with others. My zeal for objective research crumbled when I became a subject in the documentary film ROLLING. I realized I couldn’t portray, much less live, my life as an object if I wanted to be engaged as a person, not a specimen or a data set.
On one level, my camera’s presence gave me a currency in other people’s eyes that I typically lack. Perhaps because I live in a city that values what it sees on screen above all else, when I went out with my camera, it validated me. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know why I was so important as to be filming my life. Granted, this is not the stuff on which one wants to build a sense of self, but it beats being ignored. In addition, the camera seemed an open invitation to others’ stories. Who knew so many people had spent time in wheelchairs, had a wheelchair-bound aunt, had narrowly escaped being disabled by an injury?
At another level, ROLLING allowed me to shift from attempting to describe my experiences to showing my life to the world. And as life emerged, so did complexity; the camera became both friend and adversary. It challenged me to show something relevant, something creative — and, as in the doctor’s-office scene, revealed gaps between my implicit goals and my words and actions.
As a disabled man, I must maintain lifelong relationships with health care providers. I typically feel compelled to be the good patient, the patient to whom medical professionals will respond. Repeatedly, I have seen compliant stoicism rewarded with more time, more generous touch, more attention to my medical needs as a middle-aged, C6-C7, hypertensive quadriplegic. Expressing the emotions that accompany living with my disability evokes varied responses, but seldom has a physician responded by becoming more engaged or more determined to understand how my experience of disability can inform medical treatment. But the process of making ROLLING changed forever the expectations I bring to encounters with physicians.
Can video cameras help other patients make themselves known to physicians in ways that will improve the quality of health care interactions? Some of the scenes we filmed are difficult to watch, but they happen. Through them, I see what I hope will change. I have experienced what it can be like to engage with nondisabled persons without trying to anticipate what they want me to be — and such memories provide a cherished antidote to the feeling I reexperience each time I watch that doctor’s visit unfold. Ultimately, at least for me, taking the camera changed the equation.

The Body Silent: Disability and Stigma

SEX AND DISABILITY

Robert Murphy & Becoming Paralyzed

"The lessons learned from the experience of paralysis have profound meaning for our understanding of human culture and the place of the individual within it. The relationship between society and its symbolic standards for acting and evaluating on the one hand, and the strivings and interests of ordinary people on the other are not easily adjusted to each other or mutually supportive. Rather, the individual and culture are essentially in conflict, and history, instead of being the realization of human intentions and cultural values, is commonly a contradiction of both. The study of paralysis is a splendid arena for viewing this struggle of the individual against society, for the disabled are not a breed apart, but a metaphor for the human condition." (Murphy)

Dispassionate Autobiography of Paralysis: Why start this way?

"There is a halcyon period in the life of a middle-class American male that comes at some time between the realization of his ambitions and the start of serious physical decline. It is a time when his earning potential and position in life re at their near zenith, but before the triple bypass or the discovery of diabetes. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, middle age ascendency is usually a time of self-doubt and fear of failing, foe it poses the terrible question: Is this all there is? I had little time to ask that question, for my own golden age lasted on one week" (9)

WHAT DOES MURPHY MEAN BY THESE STATEMENTS?

• The disabled represent humanity stripped down to its bare essentials (????)
• Illness and impairment are, are social and psychological conditions, as well as somatic problems (????)
• Anatomy may not be destiny, but it is indeed the unstated first assumption in all our enterprises (Simone de Beauvoir) (?????)
• Illness negates the "lack of awareness of the body"-the body can no longer be taken for granted

THE SICK ROLE (Parsons)

• Follows Goffman's rules of the stigmatized:
• a persons ordinary roles (mother, father, doctor, friend, neighbor) all become temporarily suspended when one falls ill.
• the individual becomes the SICK PERSON (primary role) with certain obligations
• make every effort to get well again
• seek medical attention, follow doctors orders, etc.
• exaggerated in the hospital setting
• give up power and SUBMIT to treatment
• devote full time attention (every moment) to getting better
• freed from normal responsibilities
• Rules for being sick
• don't complain (have a good attitude)
• only take advantage of the sick role freedom as is suited to the severity of your illness
• patient must conform to rules, regulations and taboos 
• see yourself as the patient (hospital bureaucracy demands this)-conformity and subservience

DISEASE AS A VIOLATION OF ORDER

• many cultures see disease in this way
• failure to observe ritual protocol
• traced to discord in the community
• imbalance in the cosmos
• breaking a food/other taboo
• threat from immigrants
• curing in these cases restore to wholeness/order the BODY POLITIC, allays fears, envies and secret hostilities

" I had an increasing apprehension that I had lost much more than the full use of my legs. I had lost a part of myself. It was not just that people acted differently toward me, which they did, but rather that I felt differently toward myself" (85)"

THE HOSPITAL AS AN ALTERNATE SOCIETY

• bureaucracy with its own hierarchy, values and rules for behavior
• doctors have all the agency
• filled with sick (sometimes gravely sick) people
• treated as things-their identity is reduced to a punch card status 
• little knowledge or interest about the outside world
• role of hospital patient is found in many symbolic indicators
• hospital gown
• hospital bed
• hospital food
• protocols and rules for performing everyday bodily functions
• strict schedules which must be followed
• dimensions of the disability "hit home" for Murphy therefore, only when he returned home to familiar things.
• COMMUNITAS (Turner): formal rules concerning social distance are suspended  and people relate to each other  affectively and diffusely--They no longer hide behind narrowly defined and formal rules of conduct, but rather MEET AS A WHOLE AND CARING PEOPLE (patients/stigmatized)
• saw this in deaf culture, gay culture, etc.

THE PROBLEM OF REEMERGENCE INTO SOCIETY

• "nothing is quite so isolating as the knowledge that when one hurts, nobody else feels the pain; that when one sickens, the malaise is a private affair; and that when one dies, the world continues on without barely a ripple"(63)-SEPARATION & ISOLATION
• facing your own death can be the cause of ANOMIE (Durkheim)
• DEPENDENCE & loss of spontaneity
• attempts to deny disability (ambivalence at new role as an invalid-stigmatized)
• overcompensation
• method for protecting his identity, preserving that inner sense of who one is
• seen as unwillingness to accept the disability and become a good, passive client for their service

THE DAMAGED SELF 

• What is the experience of being a paraplegic
• physical symptoms: disassociation from the body
• not knowing where your legs are
• bed sore/pain & discomfort
• DEPENDENCY (ramp, wife, children, colleagues,students, wheelchair) 
• psychological symptoms
• isolation-being alone in a crowded room (isolation from those who are standing)
• loneliness
• patterns of avoidance by "normals"
• overload with emotion, exhaustion, fear-need a "break", but can not get one
• desire to withdraw from social interaction
• guilt and SHAME 
• DEPENDENCY 
• is this gendered? 
• social symptoms
• infantalization
• Emasculation
• loss of sexuality (gendered???)
• impotence (male)
• female????
• asexual or overly sexed (halo)
• SUPER-GIMP: cover for this loss.
• weakening attributes of the body threaten social/cultural attribution of masculinity.(strength, activity, speed, virility,stamina, fortitude) paralytic tries to compensate for these deficiencies by overachieving in some gendered way
• female: super mom, beautiful appearance, advocate for others in the cause
• male: paralytic athlete, advancement in work, produce children
• Theory of Everything (film)-Stephen Hawings life-an illustration of this.
• loss of social interaction (in chair)
• "The amputee is missing more than a limb, he is missing one of his conceptual links to the world, an anchor of his very existence"
• SUMMARY:
• lowered self-esteem (dependency)
• Invasion and Occupation of thought by the physical deficit (no time for normalcy)
• Strong undercurrent of Anger: 
• Acquisition of a new, totally undesirable identity (replace the biography you carefully worked through your whole life)

"Stigmatization is not the byproduct of disability , but its SUBSTANCE---The greatest impediment to a person's taking full part in his society are not his physical flaws, but rather the tissue of MYTHS, FEARS, and MISUNDERSTANDINGS that society attaches to them (113)"

 THE BODY: Phenomenology of Merleau Ponty (& others)

• Rehabituation: how experience is changed when one learns new ways of making sense of and using their bodies

• Kinestesia: (Maxine Sheets Johnstone) not an object of consciousness or perception, but more accurately a “felt unfolding dynamic” Knowing where you body is in space all at once. Something that athletes possess. Movement and attention to movement can produce a heightened sense of awareness and less stressed sense of identity---a less rigid sense of self. What does lack of movement do therefore? Changing one’s way of moving our bodies also has an impact on how we feel about ourselves and the environment.

                “…Depression is often experienced in the body as a passive giving in to weight.. The slightest movement can diminish this. What is important is the indication of participation, rather than passivity”

• Embodiement (Philip Zarelli). Relational modes of experience. When we engage with our bodies we are able to have more heightened levels of experience  in which we see ourselves as full human beings…the body connected to the mind in a dialectic

• Corporeality (Maurice Merleau-Ponty): the body is the way that we place ourselves in environments and experience the world. Therefore, the body is the basic starting point for understanding EVERY experience
• phantom limb phenomenon: 
• a refusal of the mutilation and disablement is a commitment to "a certain physical world despite handicaps and amputations and who, to this extent, does not recognize them openly and completely"
• the amputee is missing more than a limb, he is missing one of his conceptual links to the world. 

• Body Centrality (Simone de Beauvior): The body is not a thing, an entity separate from the mind and the rest of the world in which it is situated.
• the body is also a "set of relationships that link the outer world and the mind into a system"

• Disembodiment (Oliver Sacks):
• loss of all sense of the body. A proprioceptive knowledge that enables the coordination of movement and feeling and such. 

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE BODY IN AMERICAN CULTURE

• a good body requires exercise and diet that attains the appropriate shape and proportions. This is a reflection of your discipline and moral character
• moral quality supported by the notion of "self-improvement"
• the disabled "contravene" all the values of youth, virility, activity and physical beauty
• disabled present a fearsome possibility about the nature of imperfection in American culture & society

GOFFMAN: DEFERENCE & DEMEANOR

• "each party must comport him/herself as a person of worth and substance, and each must put social space and distance around the self. The other in turn, respects the demeanor by according deference. The extent of this mutual respect varies of course, with the situation and the people involved , and the way in which it is expressed is an artifact of culture. It occurs through the subconscious grammar of gesture and verbal nuance , a language so subtle that it escapes the awareness of both user and hearer, except when it is withheld-as it so often is for the physically impaired (119)"
• disabled are always met with partial withdrawal of deference
• disabled are sometimes seen as evil (pop culture) FACE
• SPREAD--when a physical deformity is generalized to one's character (Beatrice Wright)
• disability is at center stage , the parties involved in conversation must take pains to practice DEVIANCE DISAVOWAL (Fred Davis) where the participants try to conduct themselves as if nothing is amiss.
• TOUCHING is a sign of changed deference
• common bond with others that are disenfranchised
• ease with the opposite sex-NOT A THREAT

SHIFTS IN THE SOCIAL ORDER-Meaning of TOUCH

• Not long after I took up life in a wheelchair, I began to notice other curious shifts and nuances in my social world. After a dentist patted me on the head in 1980, I never returned to his office. But undergraduate students often would touch my arm or shoulder lightly when taking leave of me, something they never did in my walking days, and I found this pleasant. Why? The dentist was putting me in my place and treating me as one wold a child, but the students were affirming a bond. They were reaching over a wall and asserting that they were on my side. I ws a middle-aged professor and just as great an exam threat to them as any other instructor, but my physical impairment brought them closer to me because I was less imposing to them socially (126-127)

TAKING DISABILITY OUT OF THE FRAMEWORK OF DEVIANCE-LIMINALITY

• WHY? --it confuses many issues
• Disability as LIMINALITY
• initiate, isolation, instruction of the initiate, reincorporation into society in a new status)
• rules surrounding the treatment and interaction are unclear
• they are in the transitional phase between isolation and emergence
• Reason that there is such aversion toward the disabled

THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY

Disabled people share a lot in common but are also very diverse . What they do share is the experience of having to overcome great human and physical barriers in order to avoid isolation

INSISTENCE UPON CREATING NORMALCY

"I find it easier to handle encounters with small groups than with individuals. Individuals pose the problem of IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT-of negotiating the difficult process of normalizing the meeting, of negating the great contingency upon my identity"(170)

INCREASING DEPENDENCY

• dependency versus independence
• autonomy versus contingency

"the problems of dependency versus independence, of contingency versus autonomy are...universal aspects of all social relationships. the ability to survive on ones own and to maximize the self-determination, are essential ingredients of the basic drive to live. We try to shape the soil life around us, rather than become its pawns and victims, and this involves the use of POWER, however subtle or gentle. The disabled have few such resources, instead they must seek social control by MORAL COERCION, and social standing by CULTIVATION OF ADMIRATION. But to become admired, one must be stoical and self-reliant...nowhere is this more difficult than in the disabled persons own family (202)"

• inability to stand anymore
• loss of speech
• loss of shoulders to move wheelchair

TREATED AS CHILDREN

• pat on the head by the dentist
• "lack of autonomy and unreciprocated dependence on others bring debasement of status in American culture---and in many other cultures. Most societies socialize children to share and reciprocate , and also to become autonomous to some degree. Over-dependency and non-reciprocity are considered childish traits, and adults who have them-even if it is not their fault-suffer a reduction in status (201)"
• ESCAPE FROM DEPENDENCY HAS BEEN A CENTRAL THEME IN THE DISABILITY MOVEMENT-independence

EFFECT ON THE FAMILY

• Do I detect a not of impatience? Is she annoyed? Is she overtired? Should I have asked her? Does that slight inflection say, "What in the hell does he want from me now?" This is not completely a concoction of my imagination, for we have been married so long we are thoroughly familiar with each other's rich sub verbal vocabulary of tone, accent, stress, gesture, and facial expression. After all, we had learned in the Amazon to communicate in part sentences, half-words, and grunts. In my disabled mindset however, I pick up the right cues but I alter and magnify them, interpreting a small note of fatigue as a major resentment and reading rejection into a fleeting expression of annoyance. The anticipation of such responses, in turn, affects the way I phrase requests...[T]here is a heightened self awareness and guardedness in our relations that wasn't there before, and that has reduced openness and spontaneity. Our very attempts to avoid conflict through increased tact and delicacy have become part of the problem, not its solution. (214)
• effects on family
• effects on relationships

Groce: Everyone Here Speaks Sign Language

EVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE

Anthropology & The Disabled

·         Genetics of deafness

·         Sociolinguistics

·         Ethnography

·         oral & written history

·         ethnohistory of deafness

~traditionally, disabilities have been analyzed primarily in medical terms, or by social scientists in terms of deviance. (apart from the majority population) NOT NORMAL

DEAFNESS IS:

·    socially isolating (sign language is not known by hearing)

Handicap is defined by the community in which it appears. Here, deafness is NORMAL

DISABLED vs HANDICAPPED?

HISTORY OF MARTHA’S VINYARD

·    1644 first European settlement

·    Not easily accessible from the mainland so sparsely populated at first

·    1710 immigration ceased but birth rate was high and death rate low on the island, population increased

·    Subsistence is in fishing and farming and the island was largely self-sufficient

·    20th century: fishing industry is taken over by tourism

ORIGINS OF DEAFNESS ON THE VINYARD

·    Hereditary deafness

§  Normal except for their hearing (recessive)

§  Originated in Kent from where the immigrants came to Cape Cod

§  Must have been widespread throughout the Kent population

§  Intermarriage was common in Kent & Martha’s vineyard which spread the deaf mutation quickly (endogamy)

·         Concentrated settlement patterns encouraged this

·         High birth rate spread gene pool

·    Sign language was used in Kent and this transferred to the Vinyard. It was also learned by hearing individuals

·    Genetics of vineyard Deafness

§  Travel from the island was haphazard, especially in winter (isolation)

§  Residents rarely moved off-island (more to China than Boston in the 19th century)

§  Continued isolation well into the 20th century

§  Distinct dialect

·    Island as a genetic isolate

§  Up island and down island are two subcultures and marriage populations (a days travel before the car)

§  Travel between adjacent towns was even infrequent.

§  People most likely to marry someone from their own town or adjacent town

§  Inbreeding

·         First cousins were known as “own cousins” (no taboo) & 2nd& third cousins frequently married -96% married relatives through the 20th century

·    Distribution of Deafness

§  With the exception of Gay Head, whose population was Indian, there was a significant distribution of deafness throughout the island.

§  Deafness NOT a reason NOT to marry. Marriage occurred between hearing and deaf, and also between deaf with no stigma

§  Few people interviewed mentioned whether someone was deaf, unless asked specifically! Then sometimes they could not remember.

§  Knew that deafness ran in families, but not what specifically caused it, since deaf and hearing alike produced deaf children

·    The END of Island Deafness

§  established residential schools off-island for the deaf 1820’s to 1830’s

§  began marrying off-islanders

§  new groups of people also arriving on the island as it became a vacation spot

§  improved transportation within and around the island

§  RAPID DECLINE IN DEAF POPULATION ON THE ISLAND

The Deaf Community; Defining Deaf Culture

·    3 faces of stigma…(moral careers)

§  Deaf children born to deaf parents

§  Deaf children born to hearing parents

§  Deaf children of families where another member is deaf

·    Moral Career of deafness

§  Hearing lost early in childhood or before language

§  Acquired deafness in late childhood

§  Acquired deafness in adulthood

·         Stigma denial

·         Depression

·         Lack of cultural association

§  Elderly

·         Rejection of hearing aids

·         Depression, low self esteem

·         Adaptation to hearing loss and old age

·    Deaf do not view themselves as disabled or handicapped, but rather as a CULTURE

§  Membership in this culture must be earned

§  Membership is not solely on hearing loss (shared values)

§  Reject stigma symbols and designation

DEAF SUBCULTURES (diversity)

·    Prelinguistic deaf

·    Parents of deaf children

·    Cochlear implanted people

·    Post-linguistic deaf

·    Interpreters (& other wise practitioners)

·    Wise others

*Deaf organizations are seen as empowering

EMPOWERMENT & DEAF TERMINOLOGY

·    Power over: handicapped/disabled

·    Power for: increase decision making skills and access to resources

·    Power with: group membership and working towards a common cause

·    Power inside: respect for difference by non-deaf and within deaf population

HEARING  LOSS IS CLEARLY SEEN AS A SOCIAL ISSUE AMONG THE DEAF RATHER THAN A PATHOLOGY THAT MUST BE MEDICALIZED

·    Most deaf are healthy people

·    Deafness is not seen as a disadvantage but sometimes a CHOICE

·    Problem is inability to communicate between populations/cultures, NOT deafness

EVERYONE HERE SPOKE SIGN LANGUAGE

Chapter 5-

Handicapped individuals have always been required to adapt to the ways of the non-handicapped (cover). The extent to which they do however is tempered by the community.

Factors:

·   Acceptance of deafness (just happens)

·   Puzzled by outsider’s interest

·   Quotes p51

·   Had less than flattering stories about mentally handicapped or mentally ill, unlike their recounting of the deaf

·   Nuisance rather than an overwhelming problem

Sign language:

·   Spoken language & sign mingled in conversation (shifting & mixing)

·   Learned in childhood even earlier than speech

·   No formal teaching remembered (native)

·   No deaf could read lips less than 50% manual alphabet (stigma on REAL Sign-manual alphabet (reflects rejection)

·   Pidgin sign system, used unique system on island & manual sign off island-1817

·   Never excluded deaf in conversations/silence was common

·   Used in prayer meetings, church sermons

·   Used in the absence of deaf people…like whispering or when spoken language was taboo, at a distance, as a reflex, fishermen on boats

·   As in other BILINGUAL communities, the use of language was a way to delineate who was and who was not a member of the community. Island people frequently maintained social distance from off-island by exchanging comments about them in sign (code switching)

·   British plus ASL in origin (creolized)

Development of Sign Language

·   Spontaneously created by isolated deaf individuals. Communication usually limited to family & friends

·   Systematized when deafness appears regularly, & will become more complex

Growing Up Deaf in the Vineyard

·   no language barrier and therefore no social barriers (or visa versa).

·   Parents acceptance & knowledge of sign

·   Role models

·   Support of the surrounding deaf community

·   Society functioned as an extended “deaf family”

·   CHILDHOOD

§  Went to deaf school in Hartford for 5 years, leaving the island, so many deaf ended up more highly educated than their hearing family & neighbors when they returned

§  Poor island, deaf students spent more time in school with state scholarships

·   Marriage

§  Unregulated

·   No apparent differences in marriage, family or occupational patterns between hearing and deaf

·   Fishing and farming: deaf did not do whaling

·   No difference in financial success, militia service , town affairs, legal responsibilities or social life

·   Subjects of practical jokes like hearing

·   NO DEAF SPECIAL ASSOCIATIONS OR ACTIVITIES or participate in state or national organizations for the deaf

New Attitudes with New Neighbors:

·   Deafness stigmatized by tourists and vacation home owners

·   Seen as evidence of inbreeding and “incestuous primitives”

·   Became objects of scientific inquiry by outsiders

·   Hated SUMMER PEOPLE (shoobees)

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DEAFNESS

·   Deafness seem as “practical ignorance”

·   Not afforded rights of the hearing adult citizens

·   Deaf included as “defectives” in the census until1964

·   Isolated from the larger society

·   Religious sanction (Judeo-Christian), Aristotle-Speech is the vehicle for thought and education. Saint Augustine, deafness from birth makes faith impossible.

·   17th century: the deaf are capable of learning

·   18th century: deaf education---before this they were thought to rely solely on their “animal passions”  or “tabula rasa” (perfect blank) pp102-104

·   1870 Gallaudet College founded

·   Modern: attempts to mainstream the deaf in education

Handicapped???—arbitrary social category

·   Why were they not stigmatized?

§  Trait for deafness was carried by a group of colonists rather than by an individual or isolated family

§  Deafness was widespread and seemingly random

§  Use of sign language by the community

§  Subsistence was not prohibitive to the deaf (small scale societies often provide more participation and protection to the disabled, especially when they are egalitarian and group cooperation takes precedence over competition and productivity is much the same for all members).

§  Society adjusted to the deaf instead of the other way around

§  NO ONE perceived their deafness as a handicap

PERCEIVED CAUSES OF DEAFNESS

·   Maternal fright (anxiety &  upset nervous system)*

·   Environment (cold salty air)*

·   Will of god (retribution)

·   Contagious*

*Vinyard folks believed these along with hereditary causes in many cases

READ: Article on Deaf Culture (2/6)

Deafness as Culture: A Psychosocial Perspective Megan A. Jones, Ph.D. Center on Disability Studies University of Hawaii at Manoa

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to use psychosocial theories of stigma, language and prejudice to discuss the factors that contribute to the transformation of deafness from a stigma to a cultural identity. This paper is not intended to support or deny the existence and importance of a Deaf culture. Rather, it seeks to examine the question: How does deafness, which has historically been labeled as a disability, become the basis for cultural identification? The literature on deafness as disabling, versus as signifying culture, will be summarized. Psychosocial theories about the role of stigma, language and prejudice in the formation and maintenance of personal and group identity will then be explored. These theories will be applied to the controversy on deafness as culture: the role of the stigma of disability, the use of sign-language, and prejudice against non- group members in the preservation of the Deaf culture. The Deaf Culture Debate The question of whether or not deafness constitutes the basis of a culture is an emotionally charged debate. On the one hand, deafness has historically been viewed as a physical impairment associated with such disabilities as blindness, cognitive, and motor impairments. On the other hand, views on deafness as a culture have recently emerged that consider deafness as a trait, not as a disability.  Deafness As An Impairment Deafness as a disability has been the underlying premise of the education and rehabilitation of the deaf for decades (Butler, Skelton & Valentine, 2001; Lane, 1997). From the perspective that deafness is an impairment, the inability to hear interferes with a person's ability to respond to environmental cues, to communicate, and to enjoy aspects of mainstream culture such as music. The "debilitating" effects of deafness can be lessened through the use of technology such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, assistive listening devices, and through the use of oralism, being able to speak and visually read others' speech (Higgins, 1990; Kronick, 1990). The individual is a member of a familial and societal heritage that does not consider the inability to hear an integral part of its day-to-day functioning. For example, one parent describes what motivated her to have her daughter receive a cochlear implant, a prosthetic device that is placed in the inner ear to allow some profoundly deaf persons to hear: "We do not live in a deaf community. We live in a high- rise apartment complex " (James, 1991). In fact, there are those who argue that the very concept of "culture" is amorphous, that each of us lives in a number of communities within which we must maneuver (Turner, 1994). Therefore the individual who is deaf must learn to function as a member of a family and a community, in which deafness is a pathology in order to belong and contribute to these groups (Higgins, 1990; James; Turner). Deafness As A Culture Particularly within the past few decades, proponents of deafness as a culture have asserted that deafness is not a pathology and therefore does not need to be "fixed" (Butler, Skelton & Valentine, 2001; Dolnick, 1993; Lane, 1992, 1997; Padden & Humphries, 1988; Wilcox 1989). Advocates of deafness as a culture distinguish culture by using the capital "D" whereas the lower case "d" signifies deafness as a pathology (Dolnick, 1993). From this perspective, an individual who cannot hear is potentially a member of a rich cultural heritage that separates the individual from any non-Deaf members of their family or community.Dolnick's article, "Deafness As Culture," presents an excellent summary of the Deaf culture debate. "Parent and child belong to different cultures, as they would in an adoption along racial lines," says Dolnick, "And deaf children acquire a sense of cultural identity from their peers rather than their parents" (p. 38). Padden & Humphries (1988) describes culture as "a set of learned behaviors of a group of people who have their own language, values, rules for behaviors, and traditions" (p.4). They apply this definition to Deaf culture stating that Deaf people behave similarly, use the same language, and share the same beliefs. The view of deafness as culture holds that children and adults who cannot hear are isolated from the mainstream because communication with hearing individuals will always be laborious (Butler, Skelton & Valentine, 2001; Dolnick, 1993; Fletcher, 1988; Foster, 1988; Marschark, 1993; Padden & Humphries, 1988; Wilcox, 1989). For example, Foster's study examined the experiences of Deaf students in the mainstream and found that their interaction with non-Deaf students was severely curtailed due to communication barriers. The study also found that Deaf students tended for the most part to socialize with each other rather than with non-Deaf students and this was attributed to shared language and experiences. Psychosocial Theories of Group Dynamics In order to discuss the Deaf culture debate from a psychosocial perspective it is necessary to explore the current thought concerning in-group and out-group dynamics. The next section surveys some of the psychosocial theories that examine the role of stigma, language, and prejudice in the process of group identification. Stigma A person becomes stigmatized "[when they are] reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one" (Goffman, 1997). Thus, a stigma is essentially an attribute that is discredited by others. Stigma appears to play a role in-group formation, particularly in minority group formation. Individuals who are stigmatized by society, for example certain racial and religious minorities, gays, women, persons with disabilities, etc., have been known to transform their stigmas into the basis for group identification (Brewer, 1991; Brewer, 1995; Coates, 1988; Crocker, 1989). One explanation for this phenomena is based on the assumption that each individual desires to have positive self-esteem (Crocker). Since the concept of stigma can be negative, because it separates the individual from the norm, an individual must re-define the stigma in order to maintain positive self-esteem.Brewer writes: having any salient feature that distinguishes oneself from everyone else in a social context...is at least uncomfortable and at worst devastating to self-esteem. One way to combat the non-optimality of stigmatization is to convert the stigma from a feature of personal identity to a basis of social identity. (p. 481) An extension of this view is that people who are stigmatized, as with most people, tend to identify with similar people. It has been suggested that people do this in order to be "normal." In other words, a stigma can become the norm within the stigmatized population (Crocker, 1989). Not all stigmatized people chose to identify themselves with other similarly stigmatized people. Some theorists propose that an important factor that contributes to whether or not people will form groups, or choose to be members of already formed groups, is whether or not membership to the majority group is feasible (Crocker & Major 1989; Wright, Taylor & Moghaddam, 1990). For example, Wright, Taylor and Moghaddam measured what motivated a person's desire to move from a low to a high status group and found that ...individual attempts at social mobility will be maintained as long as the advantaged group appears open and as long as entry is dependent solely on individual performance. However, when a disadvantaged-group member is prevented from gaining entry into the advantage group and perceives the system as closed, individual social mobility will be abandoned in favor of collective action. (p. 996) In other words, when it is possible for a stigmatized individual to "pass" in the majority group, that individual will likely seek to identify with the majority group. When membership to the majority group is completely closed to the stigmatized individual, that individual is likely to join forces with other stigmatized individuals and form a new group. Language Theories that examine language as the basis of cohesion and separation also factor into the dynamics of group formation (Bourhis & Giles, 1979; Giles, Bourhis & Taylor, 1977). Language has been shown to be an important tool that people use to express their identity and to make judgments about other people (Bourhis and Giles, 1979). Language can also be viewed as an inseparable dimension of culture and heritage. It has even been demonstrated that people identify more with people who speak the same language than with people who share the same familial background (Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor, 1977). Prejudice Where stigma is a label, prejudice is an attitude (Herek & Capitanio, 1999). Devine (1995) states that prejudice "...is commonly defined as negative feeling toward persons based solely on their group membership" (p. 486). Prejudice appears to underlie the separation of individuals into "in-groups" and "out- groups" (Brewer, Manzi & Shaw 1993; Crocker, Blaine & Luhtanen 1993; Mullen, Brown & Smith, 1992), separating "us" from "them." Prejudice against a certain group by others functions as an act of cohesion among persons who belong to that group. Any traits that group members share can be perceived by people in that group as positive (Crocker, Blaine & Luhtanen, 1993). Application of Psycho-Social Theories to Deaf Culture Disability and Stigma If deafness is viewed as a disability, then people who are deaf carry with them the stigma of "lacking" a typical human characteristic. As discussed earlier, a person who is stigmatized usually needs to see the stigma as positive in order to maintain high self-esteem. Therefore a person with a disability either needs to regard the disability as constituting a positive part of their identity or that the individual needs to disassociate themselves from the stigma of disability altogether (Barnes, Mercer & Shakespeare, 1999; Linton, 1998). It has been argued that when people with disabilities identify with other people who have disabilities they do not regard themselves as stigmatized, but as members of a select group (Calta, 1988; Foster & Brown, 1988; Kronick, Kronick & Irwin, 1990; Linton, 1998; Smith, 1994). People with disabilities, like all people, want to be worthwhile members of a group, to feel that other people share their life experiences, that they have other traits other than a disability, and that traits associated with a disability are positive (Linton, 1998). From this perspective, a person who is deaf might identify with other deaf people in order to maintain a sense of self worth. A person who is deaf will likely be comfortable with peers who are deaf because within the peer group being stigmatized as "deaf" is not a determinant of one's role within the group (Foster and Brown, 1988). In fact an important aspect of viewing deafness from the cultural model is the separation from the concept of non- normality and disability. Although proponents of Deaf culture say that they are bound together by the experience of deafness, they also say that deafness does not signify a loss, but a distinctive perspective of the world (Dolnick, 1993; Padden & Humphries, 1988; Lane, 1992; Wilcox, 1989). One way to answer the question of how this idea emerged is to apply the psycho-social theories that propose that when stigmatized individuals cannot "pass" in the majority group, they are most likely to seek collective action. Dolnick (1993) quotes two advocates for Deaf culture who say, "The term `disabled' describes those who are blind or physically handicapped, not Deaf people" (p. 37-38). Fletcher (1988) explores her experience raising a deaf child and her feelings of discomfort when her child is wearing hearing aids: "My eyes flick from the face to the hearing aids...I recognize in myself a deep feeling of pity...The term hearing impaired carries with it the constant reminder of a fault, something wrong, broken" (p. 42-43). One of the reasons given for this feeling of separation is that deaf people cannot be fully integrated into the mainstream (Lane, 1992; Padden & Humphries, 1988; Wilcox, 1989). This perceived closure of the hearing world to the world of the Deaf may be one reason why Deaf people have chosen to react against the values of much of the mainstream that labels deafness as disability. Padden writes (in Wilcox, 1989): "In speaking, the Deaf person feels she will always be at a disadvantage and can never become fully equal to hearing people: to communicate deeply and comfortably in their own language." She also writes: "Deaf people must live almost entirely within the world of others. This peculiar social condition leads to a longing of their own, a longing to live lives designed by themselves rather than those imposed by others." (Padden & Humphries, 1988)  Sign Language The use of sign language as a first language has been the foundation upon which much of the pro-Deaf culture advocacy has been based. Many people who use sign language even make a distinction between the sign language used by persons who acquire the language before the age of six, those who use 'pure sign,' and persons who acquire the language after early childhood (Wilcox, 1989). Pure signers say that they can recognize the approximate age at which a person acquired sign language by the way they use facial expressions. The use of sign language is so important to the Deaf culture that any perceived threat to the use of sign language is seen as a threat to the efficacy of Deaf culture. For example, the use of cochlear implants has been criticized by members of the Deaf culture. In 1990 the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) published a position paper implying that cochlear implants steer deaf children and their parents away from the Deaf culture altogether. Lane (1992) states that children who receive cochlear implants experience a delay in acquiring sign language skills and in developing an identity as a deaf person and that children who are raised orally experience "cultural homelessness" (p. 226-228). Carr (1993) advocates the use of cochlear implants, however, she delivers a poignant quote from an otolaryngologist who states that, "Some deaf people have accused cochlear implant surgeons of committing cultural genocide...that if you eliminate all profound deafness at an early age, there will be no more deaf culture" (p. 65). For those who use sign language as a first language, and who believe that they constitute a linguistic minority, sign language signifies group membership. Sign language is seen as an expression of values that are carried across generations (Dolnick, 1993; Padden & Humphries 1988; Wilcox, 1989). Therefore, sign language represents a common heritage, and thus a cultural identity: "...Many deaf people now proclaim they are a subculture like any other...a linguistic minority (speaking American Sign Language)...no more in a need for a cure for their condition than Haitians or Hispanics" (Dolnick, 1993, p. 37). One consequence of viewing sign language as a signifier of group membership is that a person's inability to sign, or even the age of acquisition of sign language, can exclude a person from membership to the Deaf culture. Those who use sign language, especially as a first language, are viewed as members of a tightly knit in-group, or "Deaf culture," while those who are not "pure" signers are viewed as members of the out-group, or "hearing world." Even people who by medical definition are deaf are considered "hearing" by the Deaf culture if they do not communicate using pure sign. "Not all hearing impaired individuals belong to the Deaf community," writes Wilcox (1989), "...Attitudinal Deafness...appears to be the most basic factor determining membership in the Deaf community...Attitudinal Deafness is always paralleled by proper language use [ASL]" (p. 164-165). The argument from the Deaf culture perspective is that only those who acquired the use of sign language early in life and who use sign as their first language have an understanding of Deaf cultural norms (Padden & Humphries, 1988). This perception can limit access to the culture by persons who desire to enter the culture after childhood, for example people who lose their hearing in adolescence or adulthood, or who were raised with English as their first language, but who wish to learn sign language later in life. Prejudice Against the Hearing The insistence of some advocates of Deaf culture upon excluding anyone who is perceived as "hearing" is a central issue because it may explain why many people labeled as "hearing" object to the Deaf culture model. For example, "hearing" has a negative connotation as used by members of the Deaf culture (James & Parton, 1991). This projection of negative attributes onto anyone outside of the culture could be said to constitute prejudice. There are a number of articles written by members of the Deaf culture and members of the hearing world alike that cite examples of prejudice against deaf persons who were trained primarily in oral methods of communication (Wilcox, 1989), against deaf persons who wear cochlear implants (Mascia & Smithdas, 1994; Eggert, 1994), and against hearing professionals who work in the area of deafness (Lane, 1992). There also appears to be prejudice against hearing society in a broad sense as well. For example, some proponents of Deaf culture suggest that Deaf people have stronger ties with the Deaf culture than they do with their families, their neighbors, their co-workers, etc. (Dolnick, 1993). There are even those who profess that they feel parental responsibility for Deaf children, especially those that are born to hearing parents, that somehow the Deaf culture is more of a parent to a Deaf child than the child's hearing family: "[Hearing parents] have to accept that the [Deaf] child can never be one hundred percent theirs" (Dolnick, 1993, p. 51). So why is there such a strong reaction within the Deaf community against the hearing world? Considering that deafness is regarded by society as a stigma and that people who cannot hear find it difficult to communicate and fully integrate with the mainstream, the exclusion of the "hearing" from Deaf culture increases the value of membership to the Deaf culture. Applying psycho-social theories to this phenomena, the more closed the group is to infiltration by non-group members, the higher the self-esteem of the group as a whole. To see similarities with the hearing world and lessen prejudice against hearing people would increase the permeability of the culture and weaken its distinctiveness and status. The more well-defined the lines between "out" and "in," the greater the esteem and power of the group.  One could go so far as to say that some degree of prejudice is necessary in order to establish and maintain the legitimacy of the Deaf culture. Such a statement is ironic when one considers that the idea of Deaf culture evolved in part because of the perceptions projected upon deafness by society. Past discrimination against deaf people constitutes a link between the members of Deaf culture (Padden & Humphries, 1988). This is not to say that prejudices that foster exclusion and incite conflict are just or well deserved. However, it appears that establishing an "out-group" is a natural consequence of establishing an "in- group." For instance, Padden also states that although there are many positive values that unite the Deaf community, "...Values can also be negative: Members of a cultural group may reject or be suspicious of certain attitudes and behaviors which they consider to be in conflict with their beliefs" (Padden & Humphries, 1988, p.7). Summary It is evident that the concept of Deaf culture and its antitheses can be explained in part using psycho-social theories that examine the nature of stigma, language and prejudice. Stigma, language and prejudice have contributed to the formation of the Deaf as a minority group. The disassociation from the majority group that inevitably resulted from this formation has fueled the discussion of whether or not deafness constitutes the basis for a culture. The stigma of disability can be equated with other stigmatizing labels that lead people to form groups composed of people like themselves. Such groups reflect a basic need to normalize stigma in order to maintain a high self-esteem. In the case of Deaf culture, Deaf people seek to separate themselves from the societal concept of disability altogether thereby removing the stigmatizing label. The use of sign language also separates members of the Deaf culture from the majority group. Advocates of Deaf culture believe that sign language can be equated with other languages that are important to group identification and the preservation of heritage. The emphasis on the importance of sign language has resulted in the failure of some Deaf people to accept persons who are not "pure" users of the language into the culture. This lack of acceptance of and the perception of "hearing" people as outsiders demonstrates how prejudice against people who are not members of the Deaf culture can increase the value of membership to the culture. Bibliography Barnes, C.; Mercer, G.; & Shakespeare, T. (1999). Exploring disability: A sociological introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourhis, R.Y. & Giles, H. (1979). Language and social psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Brewer, M.B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475-482. Brewer, M.B. & Brown, R. (1998). Intergroup relations. In D. 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