06. On Fairy Tales & Disability: Discussing ‘Disfigured’ with Amanda Leduc
What do fairy tales tell us about disability, difference and the bodies we are taught to fear?
For this episode of Cripademia, we’re joined by Amanda Leduc, author of Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space. And the book we chose for our summer book club.
Part memoir, part literary history and part disability critique, Disfigured explores the ways fairy tales have shaped our ideas about beauty, difference, transformation and what it means to have a “happy ending”. From the darker origins of familiar stories to their Disney-fied versions, Amanda examines what happens when disabled bodies become symbols of suffering, villainy, or something that must ultimately be transformed or fixed.
We talk about disability and representation in fairy tales, the stories we inherit about our bodies, the complicated relationship between suffering and transformation, and what might happen if we stopped assuming that difference needs a cure or a neat resolution.
Because perhaps the most interesting question fairy tales can ask is not how do we fix the body? But what if the problem was never the body?
🎙️ Cripademia is the chronic illness and disability book club and podcast from Long Covid Advocacy, exploring books, culture, medicine, representation and the stories we tell about illness and disability. We are on Fable or follow the #cripademia hashtag for extracts and insights on social media.
📚 Read along with us for our Autumn Book: Nobody’s Empire by Stuart Murdoch -featuring ME representation from the Belle & Sebastian singer.
For accessibility, the chapter timestamps and transcript are included below.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction 0:39 What inspired Disfigured? 5:33 Fairy tales and disability 9:10 Why are transformations so central to fairy tales? 11:08 Can fairy tales have happy endings without transformation? 14:40 How fairy tales shape attitudes towards disabled bodies 18:09 The “nerd transformation” and beauty conventions 20:36 Disney, fairy tales and what we lose 25:30 Disney as a capitalist empire 29:16 Stories of collective transformation 37:37 Complex embodiment and Long Covid 39:00 The medical model, social model and complex embodiment 43:34 Disability is dynamic 45:22 Surgery, transformation and making space 50:44 Listening rather than measuring 53:52 Who is writing better stories about disability? 56:49 Disability in Star Trek, Pixar and Inside Out 58:41 Can changing stories change culture? 1:01:01 Disability representation and social change 1:01:39 What’s next for Amanda Leduc?1:02:45 Goodbye
Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work
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