"Why is Ragged Edge against cure?" a reader wrote us awhile back. It was after we'd run a National Multiple Sclerosis Society ad in our "We wish we wouldn't see . . . " Department. We've featured that group more than once on our page of ads we wish we wouldn't see. They're not the only cure group that we so honor. Spinal cord injury cure groups have come under fire from us a lot in the past, too. In this issue, the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis has the dubious honor of making the "We wish..." page.
So? Are we anti-cure? No. What we're against is the way these groups choose to raise funds. These marketing campaigns do far more harm than good. It frustrates us that the leadership of these groups either can't understand this, or simply don't care, because they've found a shtick that works, that brings in money.
You could call it a case of the ends justifying the means.
Over the years, we've never been able to decide which is more frustrating: People in the cure dodge who understand the problem but refuse to change their fundraising tactics, or the cure charity execs who are simply so obtuse that they cannot understand how their ads might make things worse for disabled people as a group, in terms of public attitudes.
So what's wrong with an ad that shows an empty wheelchair and reads, "When he's in bed, he dreams that he's walking, running, and making love to his wife. But how long can he sleep?" Turn to page 27 and take a good look at the ad, and follow along with us as we poke at this thing a little.
"It's true; people who are paralyzed do lie in bed and think that," say our critics. Well, maybe. It's been our observation, from hearing from hundreds (no, over the years it's probably been thousands) of crips who say that they don't lie around dreaming of walking, running and making love to their wives. The vast majority of the ones we know who are married are making love to their wives. Maybe not in the missionary position, but only a blockhead thinks that's all there is to lovemaking.
But the issue isn't really whether this is a real depiction of the thoughts of a real paralyzed person. We can argue that one back and forth till the cows come home, and the answer isn't really germane anyway.
The issue is how this idea is being used; the issue is the Intended Effect. The Intended Effect is horror at disability.
The ad wants you to feel bad, real bad, about being paralyzed -- or, more accurately, about the idea of being paralyzed, for this ad isn't really talking to paralyzed people; its audience, like the Christopher Reeve walking ad (see "The Media Edge," March /April) for Nuveen Investments, is nondisabled people -- make that nondisabled rich people. The ad is only using paralyzed people: as the monster in the box, the big bad bogeyman that everyone fears: P A R A L Y S I S, which serves, really, as a stand-in for the Big D: Disability in general. The Worst That Can Happen. The Fate Worse Than Death. And it's doing it so people will give money so that We Won't Get It.
If being disabled isn't all that bad, goes the thinking, then we won't care whether we cure it or not. We won't care if there's a cure for paralysis unless paralysis scares the bejeezus out of us.
I wonder. I've heard this argument all the time I've been in disability rights -- over 20 years now. I have never really believed it. What I've believed is that no clever marketing bigwigs have ever torqued their brains to come up with a new approach, because they've never been forced to. Old tried-and-true works: it brings in the dough. What I believe is that if there were enough real pressure on the cure charities to come up with new approaches, they'd do it. I don't think they care to change.
Which brings us to the second issue: the Ripple Effect. The Ripple Effect is the thing the bigwig execs always disavow: they say they don't believe this approach has any effect on the climate of opinion about disability in general, or disability rights in particular. But they dissemble: If they didn't think their ads were effective, that is, if they didn't think they were influencing people, then they wouldn't use them, would they?
If you try hard enough to create a climate of opinion in which disability continues to be feared, in which it continues to seem a Fate Worse Than Death, and you succeed, you end up with a climate of opinion in which disabled people are seen as only sick people waiting for cure, not vibrant individuals who have a right to get on with their lives.
After nearly 30 years of a disability rights movement, when people wonder why laws are still ignored, why disabled people are still seen as needing help, not rights, it isn't too hard to see that the problem is the climate of opinion, which has been shaped, in large part, by these cure campaigns.
That's why we're against so many cure ads.
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