Yeah. I did. You provided zero context, which is important. Sawyer, for example, is pretty much a prick. So, it makes sense that he would be insensitive.

(Do you care about the self-esteem of disabled children and teenagers, some of whom are watching with their friends?)
Actually, you are the first person with a disability I have encountered who actually had a problem with this aspect of Lost.

Presenting a narrative in which a wheelchair (((gasp))) is a fate worse than death (literally) is not something I need in my life.

And that’s fine. I did not say you were under any obligation to watch the show. Your discomfort does not mean the show is spreading “hate for the disabled”. You should not watch the show if you are not enjoying it.

I don’t like being used or exploited in that way, or treated like the boogeyman. Do you?

As an overweight person, I find we are often used mainly for entertainment value and laughs. But truth be told, it doesn’t bother me all that much. But I can be pretty jaded.

And I definitely agree with you that Sawyer is a sympathetic character, and not just because he’s a hottie. He’s not really an a-hole so much as he is the cliched bad boy, though a little nastier than the cliche, who actually has a heart of gold (e.g., when he got shot trying to protect Walt). Part of the reason I stopped watching the show is the central dramatic conflict shifted from Locke and Jack to bad boy vs. emo Jack, with the prize being Kate, who, as we found out when she and Sawyer went swimming, is marching around the island in a black thong.

I am just saying, that if people are worried about what is flying out of the mouth of the character that is supposed to be an A***ole, they are looking at it the wrong way. Sawyer’s the negative example…he’s Cartman, you aren’t supposed to take positive social cues from him.

Cartman is not an attractive, masculine man that women like. His photo is nowhere in this thread. He isn’t on the cover of MEN’S HEALTH. Besides which, he is a cartoon character, and damned FUNNY. He is a deliberately satirical character and intended to be FUNNY. Sawyer isn’t.

I understand symbolism–I am not stupid. I am simply saying that at 50 years old, I am way-tired of being used as a symbol. I am a real person, and their symbolism impacts my real life. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were “symbolic” too, but feminists have strongly criticized that symbolism, and what those characters teach little girls about their social role. I am doing the exact same thing.

I don’t exist as a “symbol” of faith vs reason, and I find the idea that I am not supposed to criticize that (or that I am too dumb to get it in the first place), pretty reactionary arguments to encounter on a progressive board.

Thank you, piny. Eloquent, as always.

Well, they killed off a white guy tonight, so that should make everyone happy, I guess. I guess that will be the end of the “cripple” jokes too.

Jeff, they N word is obviously kryptonite, but Sawyer has been ethnically insulting to both Jin and Sayid. Not to mention the fat insults at Hurley’s expense.

I am just saying, that if people are worried about what is flying out of the mouth of the character that is supposed to be an A***ole, they are looking at it the wrong way. Sawyer’s the negative example…he’s Cartman, you aren’t supposed to take positive social cues from him.

And you are right, early on Locke and Jack represented faith vs. reason. Locke lost his faith late in season 2 after watching some film in a different hatch. And his disability being healed was what gave him his faith. It was all about the symbolism

I don’t know that this makes the storyline any better in terms of how it presents disability, but the Locke-wheelchair thing was originally much more symbolical or metaphorical. He had somehow ended up in this wheelchair, and was trying to compensate for it by going on this outdoor nature trek, and although he was always a melancholy character, there was this obvious sense in which he was trying to prove his masculinity and show that he could control or overcome his disability (at least this is how I remember it, but it was a while ago, and I could be blurring things in my mind). Then when they got to the island, he became very intuitive and almost mystical. He was initially contrasted wtih jack, who was a doctor and the essential control freak, constantly trying to control everyone and everything on the island, and trying to “protect” people that way. It was an interesting conflict, but then the writers decided to pull an X-Files.

The fat guy not getting skinnier…. well they have only been there 70 or so days, and they have plenty of food.

If they’ve been ‘lost’ for x amount of years, how come the fat guy never gets any skinnier?

Just askin’.

I am with Jill in that Locke has been portrayed as fucked up before he was in the wheelchair, which didn’t seem to make him much worse off. I mean, he was on disability before being thrown out of a window, while after that, he got a job and tried to go on a trek. Of course, then he got in a plane crash, got out of the wheelchair, and became even better.

How do you think Lost could have been more disability friendly? It is weird about psychiatric disabilities, but not terrible (yet), as far as I can recall the Hugo/Libby storylines.

Presenting a narrative in which a wheelchair (((gasp))) is a fate worse than death (literally) is not something I need in my life. I also don’t like one aspect of my identity exploited for the purposes of simply raising the stakes of a TV drama. It negatively influences the way people treat me the next day (for one thing, I am asked what I think about it all the time, in a way I doubt you are). I don’t like being used or exploited in that way, or treated like the boogeyman. Do you?

To add to what Mr Soul said: “Cripple” is an epithet in part because of what it connotes. When you present someone’s life as not worth living, as essentially damaged, all sorts of horrible conclusions follow: potential happiness, potential worth, potential autonomy. This is true even if you’re basing your conclusions on what feels like empathy. This is perhaps not hateful in the narrow sense you seem to mean, Thom, but it’s prejudice and it’s inaccurate and damaging. It’s the foundation of hatred.

Are there any characters on LOST who do live with disabilities, or who suffer an injury and then manage to get past the point of reaction to catastrophe? Blue has written about the tendency to either end the life or end the disability, rather than show life with a disability.