TL;DRAbstract
American discourse about disability and impairment is based on assumptions of what disability is. Challenging these assumptions is among the goals of disability studies. This thesis first explores the construction of presumed defect in images of disability in the 2009 sci-fi fantasy Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron. In the narrative, Jake Sully chooses to abandon his human paraplegic body to become an able-bodied Na’vi. This erasure of disability is what Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell theorize as narrative prosthesis. Thus, Pandora’s box is opened to a problematic strategy of eliminating presumed defect rather than undermining the presumption.
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American discourse about disability and impairment is based on assumptions of what disability is. Challenging these assumptions is among the goals of disability studies. This thesis first explores the construction of presumed defect in images of disability in the 2009 sci-fi fantasy Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron. In the narrative, Jake Sully chooses to abandon his human paraplegic body to become an able-bodied Na’vi. This erasure of disability is what Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell theorize as narrative prosthesis. Thus, Pandora’s box is opened to a problematic strategy of eliminating presumed defect rather than undermining the presumption.
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