When I was a kid, I loved the movie Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels. I thought Steve Martin was hilarious. If
you haven’t seen it, or to refresh your memory, as a part of a scam, Steve
Martin pretended to be a man with mental disabilities. (Just to be clear–he wasn’t
actually playing a character with disabilities. Even in the movie, he was just
pretending, and the audience was in on the pretense.) He talked with a bit of a
slur to his words. When he ate, his food didn’t all stay in his mouth. And he
did other silly things along the way. I thought it was great.

But I also remember my mother musing out loud, “I wonder how
I would feel about this movie if I had someone in my family with disabilities.”

At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. I didn’t
understand that Steve Martin wasn’t just being funny. He was using a
stereotypical image of people with disabilities to get me to laugh. It worked.

I don’t think I would laugh at Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels anymore. It’s not that Steve Martin was
creating a thoroughly erroneous impression of how some individuals with
disabilities talk and eat and relate to other people.

Penny still drools sometimes. The picture above is no longer a norm (it was taken years ago), but food often spills out of her mouth. Her speech is getting easier to understand, but it takes an effort for her to talk with clarity. None of these things makes me uncomfortable, and certainly none of them prompt laughter. Rather, now that I understand that she has low-muscle tone–which makes it harder to keep her mouth shut and coordinate the muscles within– and hyposensitivity, which makes it harder to feel when there is food on her face, I marvel at her perseverance. Every meal is an effort, as is every sentence. So I am amazed that she can communicate as clearly as she can, and that she enjoys singing songs and reading out loud. I swell with pride when she asks me to “say long words.” I supply as many 3 and 4 syllable words as I can, and she repeats them back to me, clapping through each syllable, working on her articulation.

Now that I understand some of the challenges that come with aspects of having a disability, I don’t find them laughable. I find them commendable.