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Re: More on Humor and More on Multicultural Literature
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From: Lyn Miller-Lachmann <lynml_at_me.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:56:56 -0500
If we define multicultural literature broadly to include stories about characters with disabilities, humor often plays a central role in these stories. In my Vermont College MFA graduation lecture I touched on humor as a means of creating a likable character who happens to have a disability. Humor helps to avoid self-pity--never a generator of sympathy for a character but a particular temptation for a character with a disability who cannot take part in activities enjoyed by peers, who may experience bullying and exclusion for being different, or who may be in acute physical or emotional pain. In addition, people who don't have disabilities are often uncomfortable when shown the realities of illness and disability, and humor helps to defuse that.
One of the best illustrations of the effective use of humor in portraying characters with disabilities is Jordan Sonnenblick's Schneider Family Award winning middle grade novel AFTER EVER AFTER. Sonnenblick presents two very funny characters who are both cancer survivors with lingering physical and neurological impairments, and their senses of humor are very different. Protagonist Jeffrey uses self-deprecating humor to endear himself to peers and readers, while best friend Tad's humor is at the expense of non-disabled peers who just don't get it. We love Tad--as Jeffery does--because he says the things we wish we could say. In any case, the two types of humor and the two characters complement each other perfectly.
That said, I've noticed two "traps" in presenting humor in fiction featuring characters with disabilities. (I'm not talking about Sonnenblick's book here, because he definitely avoids one of them and I believe he avoids the other, though some may argue with me.) The first is exaggerating the "difference" to such an extent that the author appears to be making fun of the character. As someone with Asperger's, one of my pet peeves is authors who constantly get laughs out of an Aspie taking idiomatic expressions literally. Folks, it's not funny to be constantly laughed at, and when a character with Asperger's gets into ever more outrageous predicaments due to taking expressions literally or believing everything someone says on, like, every other page, it feels like the author is making a joke out of us.
The second trap is feeding into the common stereotype in classic literature of a character with disabilities who accepts his or her fate cheerfully, as if positive attitude is considered key to health and even survival, and those who are not cured or who do not survive are believed to lack the right personality.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013)
Received on Thu 21 Feb 2013 12:56:56 PM CST
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:56:56 -0500
If we define multicultural literature broadly to include stories about characters with disabilities, humor often plays a central role in these stories. In my Vermont College MFA graduation lecture I touched on humor as a means of creating a likable character who happens to have a disability. Humor helps to avoid self-pity--never a generator of sympathy for a character but a particular temptation for a character with a disability who cannot take part in activities enjoyed by peers, who may experience bullying and exclusion for being different, or who may be in acute physical or emotional pain. In addition, people who don't have disabilities are often uncomfortable when shown the realities of illness and disability, and humor helps to defuse that.
One of the best illustrations of the effective use of humor in portraying characters with disabilities is Jordan Sonnenblick's Schneider Family Award winning middle grade novel AFTER EVER AFTER. Sonnenblick presents two very funny characters who are both cancer survivors with lingering physical and neurological impairments, and their senses of humor are very different. Protagonist Jeffrey uses self-deprecating humor to endear himself to peers and readers, while best friend Tad's humor is at the expense of non-disabled peers who just don't get it. We love Tad--as Jeffery does--because he says the things we wish we could say. In any case, the two types of humor and the two characters complement each other perfectly.
That said, I've noticed two "traps" in presenting humor in fiction featuring characters with disabilities. (I'm not talking about Sonnenblick's book here, because he definitely avoids one of them and I believe he avoids the other, though some may argue with me.) The first is exaggerating the "difference" to such an extent that the author appears to be making fun of the character. As someone with Asperger's, one of my pet peeves is authors who constantly get laughs out of an Aspie taking idiomatic expressions literally. Folks, it's not funny to be constantly laughed at, and when a character with Asperger's gets into ever more outrageous predicaments due to taking expressions literally or believing everything someone says on, like, every other page, it feels like the author is making a joke out of us.
The second trap is feeding into the common stereotype in classic literature of a character with disabilities who accepts his or her fate cheerfully, as if positive attitude is considered key to health and even survival, and those who are not cured or who do not survive are believed to lack the right personality.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009) Rogue (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin, 2013)
Received on Thu 21 Feb 2013 12:56:56 PM CST
