“So why the hell are there so many staircases in space?”
July 31, 2018 7:04 PM Subscribe
Staircases in Space: Why Are Places in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible? [io9] “Once you start realizing how many stairs there are stopping you in real life, it becomes impossible not to notice them existing in the sci-fi you adore. Turns out they’re everywhere, in all of our sci-fi. Whether it’s decades-old or shiny and brand-new, our sci-fi imitates a real-world reliance on steps and stairs in our architecture.”
The reason there's no ramps in the TARDIS is that the stairs serve as a defense mechanism against Dalek invasion.
posted by SansPoint at 7:15 PM on July 31, 2018 [36 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 7:15 PM on July 31, 2018 [36 favorites]
FTA:
Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included.
QED
posted by nikaspark at 7:24 PM on July 31, 2018 [24 favorites]
Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included.
QED
posted by nikaspark at 7:24 PM on July 31, 2018 [24 favorites]
Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?
posted by aubilenon at 7:27 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 7:27 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
I've been designing ADA ramps for work lately and so I am noticing accessibility issues all the time now. It's amazing how many sections of the city are just straight-up impossible for someone in a wheelchair to navigate, never mind the poorly-designed ramps, or the construction sites that just decide to close down an intersection with no real way for someone who can't walk easily to get around. And cities/states are now getting their shit together due to lawsuits, and it's tough to imagine a future where this isn't taken into consideration.
You can even put aside the "is disability a thing to be fixed, or not" issue -- in a lot of sci-fi, at least, there'd certainly be species that would have a challenge with stairs. This doesn't even consider all the sci-fi that doesn't have magical healing/cyborg replacement parts in the first place.
posted by curious nu at 7:37 PM on July 31, 2018 [18 favorites]
You can even put aside the "is disability a thing to be fixed, or not" issue -- in a lot of sci-fi, at least, there'd certainly be species that would have a challenge with stairs. This doesn't even consider all the sci-fi that doesn't have magical healing/cyborg replacement parts in the first place.
posted by curious nu at 7:37 PM on July 31, 2018 [18 favorites]
It didn't used to be that way! A Princess of Mars was written in 1912 and I'm sure we all remember that the architects of Barsoom build with ramps, not stairs. In fact, when John Carter tried introducing stairs the Martians kept tripping and injuring themselves.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:41 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:41 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
On the fantasy side, were there any wheel chair users in the Harry Potter movies? All of those magic staircases in Hogwarts would be a total pain to navigate!
posted by monotreme at 7:41 PM on July 31, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by monotreme at 7:41 PM on July 31, 2018 [7 favorites]
See also: that episode of Deep Space 9 where exactly this was the B plot, justified by blaming the architectural problems on the Cardassians.
(For that matter, two episodes of The Next Generation where recognizing disability as variance were part of the Lesson Of the Day.)
posted by traveler_ at 7:43 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
(For that matter, two episodes of The Next Generation where recognizing disability as variance were part of the Lesson Of the Day.)
posted by traveler_ at 7:43 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Folks maybe if you've just come to rag on the article, this thread isn't for you?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:51 PM on July 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:51 PM on July 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?
I mean, we can but as with other issues with representation sometimes these thing really have to be explicit or else they’re really erasing.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:56 PM on July 31, 2018 [26 favorites]
I mean, we can but as with other issues with representation sometimes these thing really have to be explicit or else they’re really erasing.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:56 PM on July 31, 2018 [26 favorites]
My pet peeve: people who set out to address sci-fi as a genre, and then talk about just tv and movies.
posted by signal at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by signal at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]
Memo to self: when drawing stairs in my SF comics, include the occasional person in a Cool Space Wheelchair That Can Climb Stairs. Or maybe just someone with obvious prosthetic legs? Is that ableist/erasing a proudly-handicapped culture I’m not aware of/otherwise terrible? I really have no idea, I’m an able-bodied person who hasn’t thought about this very much.
I mean I’m a transhumanist at heart. If I lived in a future with nerve-linked prosthetics and something screwed up part of my body, heck yeah I’d replace it with a cyberlimb.
posted by egypturnash at 8:03 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
I mean I’m a transhumanist at heart. If I lived in a future with nerve-linked prosthetics and something screwed up part of my body, heck yeah I’d replace it with a cyberlimb.
posted by egypturnash at 8:03 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
“If we don’t see ourselves in the writing, then it’s not inviting to us,” explained Rambo. They paused, shrugging. “Stories teach us empathy. A diverse cast of characters makes for more interesting reading. There’s a limited range of stories that grow out of the classic lego set of people.”
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2018 [7 favorites]
I can understand junkers like the Millenium Falcon or Serenity, where space is at a premium, and they're tailored to the crew. But the author's absolutely right that there's not much of an excuse for a ship in a Star Trek show or movie.
posted by explosion at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by explosion at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Interesting, because so many portals are automatic or activated by beam/voice commands.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:27 PM on July 31, 2018
posted by BlueHorse at 8:27 PM on July 31, 2018
Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?
I think that isn't quite dealing with how the concept of disability may play out in a science fictional setting. I mean for a start, you're assuming you wouldn't be considered disabled.
"I don't see why you humans require everything to be in your "Visible" spectrum. Why can't you just fix your eyes to see in ultraviolet like normal sophants can?"
"Arrgh, your insistence that corridors and rooms be at least 2.5 meters high is incredibly wasteful of space. I've seen you crawl, can't you do that? Or just do something surgical about your overlong limbs?"
"MOST sophants don't need these "chairs". we can reach controls by simply curling up our lower segments. Why should we accommodate your handicap?"
"Yes of course controls are designed to be used with six limbs. Why should we have to go to the trouble of adapting our systems to your deficit? Go get some additional limbs grafted on."
"Our communication systems have always been designed for telepathy. Why should we change things just because YOU can't manage that? Maybe you can hire someone to telepathize for you."
"Stairs? Ladders? Look, normal sophants can cling to walls and ceilings." *sigh* "Maybe we can get someone to carry you."
posted by happyroach at 8:39 PM on July 31, 2018 [124 favorites]
I think that isn't quite dealing with how the concept of disability may play out in a science fictional setting. I mean for a start, you're assuming you wouldn't be considered disabled.
"I don't see why you humans require everything to be in your "Visible" spectrum. Why can't you just fix your eyes to see in ultraviolet like normal sophants can?"
"Arrgh, your insistence that corridors and rooms be at least 2.5 meters high is incredibly wasteful of space. I've seen you crawl, can't you do that? Or just do something surgical about your overlong limbs?"
"MOST sophants don't need these "chairs". we can reach controls by simply curling up our lower segments. Why should we accommodate your handicap?"
"Yes of course controls are designed to be used with six limbs. Why should we have to go to the trouble of adapting our systems to your deficit? Go get some additional limbs grafted on."
"Our communication systems have always been designed for telepathy. Why should we change things just because YOU can't manage that? Maybe you can hire someone to telepathize for you."
"Stairs? Ladders? Look, normal sophants can cling to walls and ceilings." *sigh* "Maybe we can get someone to carry you."
posted by happyroach at 8:39 PM on July 31, 2018 [124 favorites]
This article puts me in mind of the DS9 episode Melora, which has aged pretty well. The title character is from a planet with different gravity and uses a wheelchair and braces on the station. It’s a good explanation of the societal model of disability and I like the ending where she decides not to “cure” herself, and it’s hwr own decision. It also feature zero gravity sex with Dr. Bashir, which is all I remembered of this episode as an adolescent. It appears that a writer who used a wheelchair wrote this episode too.
But the article makes an excellent point that she’s still not a disabled character (just an alien) and that experience is missing from the show.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 8:40 PM on July 31, 2018 [10 favorites]
But the article makes an excellent point that she’s still not a disabled character (just an alien) and that experience is missing from the show.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 8:40 PM on July 31, 2018 [10 favorites]
humans who live in the dominant defaults of the human experience are biased towards believing that their experience is a biological universal truth that everyone else must want, that our SF utopias express that bias is hardly surprising and absolutely worthy of an oppositional gaze.
posted by nikaspark at 8:47 PM on July 31, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by nikaspark at 8:47 PM on July 31, 2018 [6 favorites]
> This article puts me in mind of the DS9 episode Melora, which has aged pretty well. The title character is from a planet with different gravity and uses a wheelchair and braces on the station. It’s a good explanation of the societal model of disability
Reading the Wiki on the character brings to light that they were originally meant to be a recurring character, but proved to be too costly from a logistics standpoint so it became a single episode. So even at the meta level it's accurate about inclusive accommodations (no one does it because they claim it costs too much).
posted by mrzarquon at 8:49 PM on July 31, 2018 [26 favorites]
Reading the Wiki on the character brings to light that they were originally meant to be a recurring character, but proved to be too costly from a logistics standpoint so it became a single episode. So even at the meta level it's accurate about inclusive accommodations (no one does it because they claim it costs too much).
posted by mrzarquon at 8:49 PM on July 31, 2018 [26 favorites]
*As pointed out above, citing only TV and movies does not really cover all of sci-fi, but then again including books doesn't really weaknen the author's case.
This is scattered, sorry.
I think sci-fi stories are/were uniquely bad at being brain dumps for world building or the one big what if variable tweak that serves as the germ for the plot. It's been my experience that characterization was never great as long as it served the plot/presuppositions of the world.
Obviously sci-fi has come a long way from the stereotypical Heinlein-inspired stuff that many people still assume is the only kind of sci-fi. Maybe the genre is too big, but a lot of sci-fi really does serve military, fantasy, messianic wish fulfillment for a certain subset of readers. If disability it addressed, it's often waved away by tech magic prosthesis. I mean I guess someone like Cable or Winter soldier would both be amputees. More than a few paralyzed superheroes have worn cybernetic armor. Warhammer would just drop an injured space marine into a Dreadnought. The Adeptus Mechanicus fetishize prosthesis in a typically grimdark Warhammer way.
Anyway, I always read sci-fi with the assumption that even the "good" post scarcity societies are hiding some seriously messed up, eugenic, space fascist skeletons in their history. In the case of an organization like Weyland Yutani or the Empire, you'd expect some pretty messed up human resource hiring practices; that being said Aliens III did have Dom Vriess as a character and his wheelchair was a plotpoint.
The author does mention Starwars and again, we see the the plot route. Darth Vader and many other Sith seem to go the mechanical suit/prosthetic route. I don't recall seeing a hover chair. It is interesting that the Starwars design is so human-centric. It assumes two, relatively long legs and two dextrous hands. With all the variety of alien life, humans still appear to be the default assumption.
Anyway, I think the problem is that creators disagree with the author's main statement. They do assume in that in a sufficiently advanced society, people will opt to use tech to somehow "fix" a disability. I'm not surprised that Tatooine isn't wheelchair accessible, I can't imagine Greedo and the gang taking a day off pillaging to help build a well-designed ramp.
I guess that's the crux of it. A lot of sci-fi imagines shitty, frontier towns or dystopian evil empires. Most mefites live in nice countries in a very inclusive time to be alive. Living in low and middle income countries, the heirarchy of developmental projects is not inclusive. Most of the cities in South/South East Asia don't even have functioning sidewalks for pedestrians. There's no urban planning to speak of. This is more in line with the setting of many grittier sci-fi series.
A lot of sci-fi plots hinge on something going wrong. Even the ridiculous engine room designs presupposes that the heroes will be jumping in between crystal generators and timing their ascents in between [tech] pulses. As most boring movie sci-fi is really just tired action movies with lasers, people expect to see a protagonist displaying physicality.
Utopian sci-fi imagines than all physical limitations can be brushed away, while dystopian sci-fi only seems to have room for traditional action heroes.
posted by Telf at 8:53 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
This is scattered, sorry.
I think sci-fi stories are/were uniquely bad at being brain dumps for world building or the one big what if variable tweak that serves as the germ for the plot. It's been my experience that characterization was never great as long as it served the plot/presuppositions of the world.
Obviously sci-fi has come a long way from the stereotypical Heinlein-inspired stuff that many people still assume is the only kind of sci-fi. Maybe the genre is too big, but a lot of sci-fi really does serve military, fantasy, messianic wish fulfillment for a certain subset of readers. If disability it addressed, it's often waved away by tech magic prosthesis. I mean I guess someone like Cable or Winter soldier would both be amputees. More than a few paralyzed superheroes have worn cybernetic armor. Warhammer would just drop an injured space marine into a Dreadnought. The Adeptus Mechanicus fetishize prosthesis in a typically grimdark Warhammer way.
Anyway, I always read sci-fi with the assumption that even the "good" post scarcity societies are hiding some seriously messed up, eugenic, space fascist skeletons in their history. In the case of an organization like Weyland Yutani or the Empire, you'd expect some pretty messed up human resource hiring practices; that being said Aliens III did have Dom Vriess as a character and his wheelchair was a plotpoint.
The author does mention Starwars and again, we see the the plot route. Darth Vader and many other Sith seem to go the mechanical suit/prosthetic route. I don't recall seeing a hover chair. It is interesting that the Starwars design is so human-centric. It assumes two, relatively long legs and two dextrous hands. With all the variety of alien life, humans still appear to be the default assumption.
Anyway, I think the problem is that creators disagree with the author's main statement. They do assume in that in a sufficiently advanced society, people will opt to use tech to somehow "fix" a disability. I'm not surprised that Tatooine isn't wheelchair accessible, I can't imagine Greedo and the gang taking a day off pillaging to help build a well-designed ramp.
I guess that's the crux of it. A lot of sci-fi imagines shitty, frontier towns or dystopian evil empires. Most mefites live in nice countries in a very inclusive time to be alive. Living in low and middle income countries, the heirarchy of developmental projects is not inclusive. Most of the cities in South/South East Asia don't even have functioning sidewalks for pedestrians. There's no urban planning to speak of. This is more in line with the setting of many grittier sci-fi series.
A lot of sci-fi plots hinge on something going wrong. Even the ridiculous engine room designs presupposes that the heroes will be jumping in between crystal generators and timing their ascents in between [tech] pulses. As most boring movie sci-fi is really just tired action movies with lasers, people expect to see a protagonist displaying physicality.
Utopian sci-fi imagines than all physical limitations can be brushed away, while dystopian sci-fi only seems to have room for traditional action heroes.
posted by Telf at 8:53 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
This article puts me in mind of the DS9 episode Melora, which has aged pretty well.
Or not. Please note the lengthy Memory Alpha excerpt regarding the episode's original writer, who uses a wheelchair, and how he disagreed with some of the changes made that ended up in the final shooting script. I wasn't part of the rewatch at that point, and so I'd make the point now that the station was designed and built by Cardassians, so it's not necessarily the Federation's fault, although that points out another problem with the franchise in general: pawning off humanity's faults onto other species. Of course, Dr. Bashir, the human physician who falls in love with the "disabled" alien (she's only disabled because she's from a low-gravity planet and needs assistance in human-normal gravity) has his own problem: the tendency to throw medical ethics to the wind when he gets a crush on a patient.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:18 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
Or not. Please note the lengthy Memory Alpha excerpt regarding the episode's original writer, who uses a wheelchair, and how he disagreed with some of the changes made that ended up in the final shooting script. I wasn't part of the rewatch at that point, and so I'd make the point now that the station was designed and built by Cardassians, so it's not necessarily the Federation's fault, although that points out another problem with the franchise in general: pawning off humanity's faults onto other species. Of course, Dr. Bashir, the human physician who falls in love with the "disabled" alien (she's only disabled because she's from a low-gravity planet and needs assistance in human-normal gravity) has his own problem: the tendency to throw medical ethics to the wind when he gets a crush on a patient.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:18 PM on July 31, 2018 [5 favorites]
I don't recall seeing a hover chair.
Yoda had one in the prequels.
They're called "power chairs".
posted by FJT at 9:23 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yoda had one in the prequels.
They're called "power chairs".
posted by FJT at 9:23 PM on July 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Skroderriders unite! No, wait...
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:26 PM on July 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:26 PM on July 31, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think the real reason why places in science fiction are not wheelchair-accessible is because most of the people who write/make these works do not have to use wheelchairs, and cannot write something that is not part of their experience. They may have broken a leg or sprained an ankle or wrist at some point, in a way that underscores the disabled: the default is able to do things like walk up stairs, the abnormality is not being able to. Just as people who have temporarily injured themselves can look forward to resuming their normal activities, a utopian world would restore "normal" activity to those who would otherwise be permanently "doomed" to live differently. Utopia is not where differences are irrelevant in terms of what you can and can't do, Utopia is where everyone is the same. At least within certain parameters. We've seen that speculative-fictional idea of utopia broaden to include folks of different races, non-humanoids (as long as they can do stairs), people of different sexualities - why can't we redefine what normal is with relation to physical ability?
Or what happyroach said.
posted by Athanassiel at 9:31 PM on July 31, 2018 [8 favorites]
Or what happyroach said.
posted by Athanassiel at 9:31 PM on July 31, 2018 [8 favorites]
Holy Cow, happyroach that is fantastic. It reminds me of one of the things I liked about Larry Niven’s (I know!) Known Universe and that was that each of the, er, universal races came up short in different ways relative to one another, but still mostly found ways to accommodate one another.
posted by notyou at 9:46 PM on July 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by notyou at 9:46 PM on July 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
Most depictions of the X-Men have failed to show any accessibility means for Professor Xavier in his own god damn house.
I will admit as a sci-fi writer I have failed on this account myself. My future setting has pretty solidly established that medical tech is sufficiently advanced to repair or replace just about anything short of death. But this: Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included. ...is a great point, and a thing I'm going to have to ponder a lot going forward.
There is every reason for people to keep writing and sharing articles like this.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:11 PM on July 31, 2018 [17 favorites]
I will admit as a sci-fi writer I have failed on this account myself. My future setting has pretty solidly established that medical tech is sufficiently advanced to repair or replace just about anything short of death. But this: Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included. ...is a great point, and a thing I'm going to have to ponder a lot going forward.
There is every reason for people to keep writing and sharing articles like this.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:11 PM on July 31, 2018 [17 favorites]
For another look at disability in science fiction, I strongly recommend the webcomic Always Human. The co-protagonist Austen, is by 21st century standards, a healthy, intelligent active woman. But she has a genetic allergy to the ubiquitous nanotech "mods". So she doesn't have ready fixes for everything from improving memory for tests, to hay fever immunity. She can't even change her appearance on a whim. The frustrations and miscommunications around her handicap and how that impacts the romance in the comic feel very real. I also guarantee the line "You're so brave" will make you since after this.
posted by happyroach at 10:24 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 10:24 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
On the fantasy side, were there any wheel chair users in the Harry Potter movies? All of those magic staircases in Hogwarts would be a total pain to navigate!
Ferula variations?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:37 PM on July 31, 2018
Ferula variations?
posted by Barack Spinoza at 10:37 PM on July 31, 2018
aubilenon: "Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?"
Lots of people with mobility issues below the level of needing a wheelchair are impeded by stairs.
posted by Mitheral at 10:55 PM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]
Lots of people with mobility issues below the level of needing a wheelchair are impeded by stairs.
posted by Mitheral at 10:55 PM on July 31, 2018 [14 favorites]
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard and the Ballad of Lost C'mell by Cordwainer Smith are essentially based on stairs
posted by infini at 11:11 PM on July 31, 2018
posted by infini at 11:11 PM on July 31, 2018
It's a really good question I admit to not having thought about much myself, which makes me appreciate it even more. I have to say I'm disappointed by a lot of the initial replies which, essentially, sound like they're saying to disabled people, "Hey, in the future people like you won't exist. Be happy!" which is creepy as hell.
The lie of science fiction somehow just covering for disability by fancy high tech fixes that don't need special explanation is shown by how heavily most sci-fi relies on current ideals of human "normalcy" as their base. Actions are based on certain expectations of physical ability that able human have which require no modification. People run, jump, swing fancy laser swords, shoot, fight and on and on, without modification since they're, you know, normal, and therefore have no reason to be modified even as that could be of great advantage to them. It shows the idea of modification is itself something "off" that only those who aren't "normal" would need. The social expectation is still of a robust human fitness overall. Everyone defaults to 20 year old males without impairment basically. It really isn't that far removed from the idea of saying racism is fixed in the future by some technological possibility for making everyone white.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:43 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
The lie of science fiction somehow just covering for disability by fancy high tech fixes that don't need special explanation is shown by how heavily most sci-fi relies on current ideals of human "normalcy" as their base. Actions are based on certain expectations of physical ability that able human have which require no modification. People run, jump, swing fancy laser swords, shoot, fight and on and on, without modification since they're, you know, normal, and therefore have no reason to be modified even as that could be of great advantage to them. It shows the idea of modification is itself something "off" that only those who aren't "normal" would need. The social expectation is still of a robust human fitness overall. Everyone defaults to 20 year old males without impairment basically. It really isn't that far removed from the idea of saying racism is fixed in the future by some technological possibility for making everyone white.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:43 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]
I should say though that it indeed isn't a universal thing in sci-fi, with some works at least thinking through more of the issues involved, even if they don't address disability in current day directly. The Ghost in the Shell series, for example, does explore some of the ramifications of body augmentation/modification in ways that point towards how we think about our embodied selves and what that might mean. I'm sure there are many other examples in sci-fi literature too, but that isn't my area of expertise.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:59 PM on July 31, 2018
posted by gusottertrout at 11:59 PM on July 31, 2018
"Most depictions of the X-Men have failed to show any accessibility means for Professor Xavier in his own god damn house."
Telekinesis ex machina.
But I think he falls into the Daredevil category of disabled superheroes, the ones whose disability is effectively a cover or negated by their heroic deeds. As opposed to the Oracle category, which has its own problems but she seemed constrained by her paralysis a lot more.
posted by klangklangston at 1:57 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Telekinesis ex machina.
But I think he falls into the Daredevil category of disabled superheroes, the ones whose disability is effectively a cover or negated by their heroic deeds. As opposed to the Oracle category, which has its own problems but she seemed constrained by her paralysis a lot more.
posted by klangklangston at 1:57 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Stair-climbing wheelchairs already exist. Combine that with the features of a sit-stand wheelchair and I imagine you've got a pretty good approximation of what future wheelchairs will likely look like.
Now if we're talking about a sci-fi universe in which artificial gravity is an established technology then obviously a hoverchair is the way to go.
It would be nice if more sci-fi shows and movies explicitly showed such things, though. One of the things that was so refreshing about Fury Road is that Furiosa had a visible "disability" -- in quotes because she turned it to her advantage by strapping mods to her stub.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:46 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Now if we're talking about a sci-fi universe in which artificial gravity is an established technology then obviously a hoverchair is the way to go.
It would be nice if more sci-fi shows and movies explicitly showed such things, though. One of the things that was so refreshing about Fury Road is that Furiosa had a visible "disability" -- in quotes because she turned it to her advantage by strapping mods to her stub.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:46 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Didn't Rygel in Farscape ride a hoverchair? Not because he was paraplegic but because he was so short and stubby compared to everyone else that he would have still had relative difficulties walking around human-sized architecture.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:50 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 2:50 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've been designing ADA ramps for work lately and so I am noticing accessibility issues all the time now. It's amazing how many sections of the city are just straight-up impossible for someone in a wheelchair to navigate
Back when I organized science fiction conventions, I'd make someone push me all around our planned layout in a wheeled office chair. If we hit snags we'd either change the layout or make sure we put up good signage directing people to the wheelchair-friendly alternative route.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:54 AM on August 1, 2018 [28 favorites]
Back when I organized science fiction conventions, I'd make someone push me all around our planned layout in a wheeled office chair. If we hit snags we'd either change the layout or make sure we put up good signage directing people to the wheelchair-friendly alternative route.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:54 AM on August 1, 2018 [28 favorites]
Star Wars was 'interesting' in terms of spaceship accessibility. Virtually every ship seems designed for R2D2 to trundle around in with flat decks, automatic doors, vital controls placed at an accessible height and lifts where necessary. It's funny how accessibility becomes obvious when you think in terms of cute robots.
Those places which were dangerous, like catwalks hanging over abysses with no handrails, were refreshingly equal opportunity hazards.
posted by Eleven at 2:55 AM on August 1, 2018 [14 favorites]
Those places which were dangerous, like catwalks hanging over abysses with no handrails, were refreshingly equal opportunity hazards.
posted by Eleven at 2:55 AM on August 1, 2018 [14 favorites]
There are, IIRC, a few places where R2-D2 mysteriously traverses stairs (out of shot). I think one is just before that scene that was added to A New Hope in the special edition where they talk to Jabba the Hutt. This is largely irrelevant--I was just shocked that my brain immediately supplied what I believe to be an example 20 years later (I could be totally wrong), though I suppose it goes to show that, rather than deal with the issue, people will cheat.
posted by hoyland at 3:26 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hoyland at 3:26 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh my God, it's full of stairs...
posted by Devonian at 3:48 AM on August 1, 2018 [20 favorites]
posted by Devonian at 3:48 AM on August 1, 2018 [20 favorites]
There are, IIRC, a few places where R2-D2 mysteriously traverses stairs (out of shot).
They retconned him a little by giving him boosters and the ability to hover/fly. This ability seems to only be limited to the prequels/clone wars/rebels though.
Which actually tracks very similar to how people age and how their impacts their mobility and physical strength.
posted by Fizz at 4:18 AM on August 1, 2018
They retconned him a little by giving him boosters and the ability to hover/fly. This ability seems to only be limited to the prequels/clone wars/rebels though.
Which actually tracks very similar to how people age and how their impacts their mobility and physical strength.
posted by Fizz at 4:18 AM on August 1, 2018
Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?If we are going to maintain Roddenberry's dream that Star Trek be both a Utopia and a place where mankind's problems have all been solved, it would necessarily not be a place where the bodies of disabled people are still thought to be the problem that needs solving. It would be a place where a society included disabled people in the Alpha-quadrant-wide conversation enough to make star ships as universally accessible as possible by design.
posted by Blasdelb at 4:32 AM on August 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
Oh, in Star Wars and Dr. Who, gotcha.
I was ready with a number of rejoinders, but this is definitely a thing. I'd argue that I've never seen a TV show set in space that doesn't handwave away any number of other pretty giant questions (gravity, warp speed).
I think if we expand to the printed word there is far less of a tendency to dodge this, even (especially?) from problematic authors like Heinlein or Stephen Donaldson.
Arthur Clarke was in a chair for most of his later life; anyone know if he ever incorporated it into fiction?
posted by aspersioncast at 5:08 AM on August 1, 2018
I was ready with a number of rejoinders, but this is definitely a thing. I'd argue that I've never seen a TV show set in space that doesn't handwave away any number of other pretty giant questions (gravity, warp speed).
I think if we expand to the printed word there is far less of a tendency to dodge this, even (especially?) from problematic authors like Heinlein or Stephen Donaldson.
Arthur Clarke was in a chair for most of his later life; anyone know if he ever incorporated it into fiction?
posted by aspersioncast at 5:08 AM on August 1, 2018
Stories about the future are really about the present.
posted by Segundus at 5:25 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 5:25 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Lots of people with mobility issues below the level of needing a wheelchair are impeded by stairs.
Yes, very much this. And some of us don't cope that well with ramps either. For my dodgy knees, walking down a ramp feels unstable and precarious in addition to being painful. Plus, ramps are nearly always constructed to require two or three times as much walking as the stairs. I have the luxury of being able to choose between a few painful stairs vs a long, painful ramp. I admit that although I live with this every day, it is hard for me to imagine architecture that works with my particular issues, so I guess I can't really blame authors for not being able to either. But I sure wish someone could.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:43 AM on August 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes, very much this. And some of us don't cope that well with ramps either. For my dodgy knees, walking down a ramp feels unstable and precarious in addition to being painful. Plus, ramps are nearly always constructed to require two or three times as much walking as the stairs. I have the luxury of being able to choose between a few painful stairs vs a long, painful ramp. I admit that although I live with this every day, it is hard for me to imagine architecture that works with my particular issues, so I guess I can't really blame authors for not being able to either. But I sure wish someone could.
posted by Athanassiel at 5:43 AM on August 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
Melora Pazlar returns as a main character in the Star Trek: Titan line of books, which (at least at the start) had an explicit goal of presenting a more inclusive Starfleet vessel, with many species living side-by-side. Melora is a fully realized character, but she does have sub-plots involving different accessibility technologies and how they do and don't work for her. The first book, Taking Wing, is worth checking out.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:49 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:49 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
We have a older house that is not accessible (stairs at all entrances, narrow doorways, etc) and would be prohibitively expensive to retrofit for accessibility. We'll probably sell it and move at some point largely because of this, even though we like the house otherwise, since it is increasingly embarrassing each time someone comes over and it has to become a big production of helping or carrying the guest and chair into and out of the house rather than just saying "come on in."
My ideal house is welcoming to everyone; I feel the same way about my society. A future society that has solved faster than light travel, teleportation, and/or AI-enhanced brain nanobot connectivity should also be a society that supports, welcomes, and includes people with physical and cognitive differences. Some of that might be technological fixes (eg, artificial or grafted limbs that connect directly to the nervous system) but it should also mean including people who can't or won't "fix" those differences.
That's more the utopian vision, but I'd also like to see more representation of diversity in dystopias, not just watching healthy 25-year olds.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
My ideal house is welcoming to everyone; I feel the same way about my society. A future society that has solved faster than light travel, teleportation, and/or AI-enhanced brain nanobot connectivity should also be a society that supports, welcomes, and includes people with physical and cognitive differences. Some of that might be technological fixes (eg, artificial or grafted limbs that connect directly to the nervous system) but it should also mean including people who can't or won't "fix" those differences.
That's more the utopian vision, but I'd also like to see more representation of diversity in dystopias, not just watching healthy 25-year olds.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Many times the best design for handicapped accessibility is an alternate route for the handicapped, usually that's not experienced by everyone. For instance, it wouldn't make sense for everyone to browse websites in the large fonts and color contrasts more easily scanned by those with vision issues, it would seriously slow the flow of traffic to the subway if everyone used an elevator, if ramps replaced all stairs it would take a lot more effort for those not disabled to enter and exit all buildings. Most public buildings have easily accessible alternative entries and exits for the handicapped, but they're not something one would notice unless one looks for them.
posted by xammerboy at 6:42 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by xammerboy at 6:42 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
As opposed to the Oracle category, which has its own problems but she seemed constrained by her paralysis a lot more.
Not constrained, but not handwaved away either.
After suffering a spinal cord injury, Batgirl Barbara Gordon rehabilitated by learning a new fighting style that works in a wheelchair (escrima) and reinvented herself as a telecommuting detective/mastermind. In her long run as Oracle I'd say she was the best example of representation in genre fiction.
(The sexism of how she was injured and the absurdity of her magic recovery is why we can't have nice things)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:50 AM on August 1, 2018 [11 favorites]
Not constrained, but not handwaved away either.
After suffering a spinal cord injury, Batgirl Barbara Gordon rehabilitated by learning a new fighting style that works in a wheelchair (escrima) and reinvented herself as a telecommuting detective/mastermind. In her long run as Oracle I'd say she was the best example of representation in genre fiction.
(The sexism of how she was injured and the absurdity of her magic recovery is why we can't have nice things)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:50 AM on August 1, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'd argue that I've never seen a TV show set in space that doesn't handwave away any number of other pretty giant questions (gravity, warp speed).
I think there's a big difference here, and it's that being handwavey on things like gravity and breaking the rules of physics have to do with the setting, whereas not showing disabled/handicapped people moves more into the questions of character and representation. And I'd like to think we're at a point now where most of us are able to see that having characters who represent diversity is a really important thing for a lot of reasons. What I guess I would say is that I'm hearing that people with disabilities have the same ability to suspend disbelief around the ideas of faster-than-light travel as I (as an able-bodied person), but that suspension of disbelief suffers when they don't see that the world is one that would include them. Which I think is a really valid, important point.
I don't think we're really in disagreement on the core issue here, I just felt it was important to point out that from my perspective, this question is a fundamentally different one from the question of how the setting deals with physics-breaking plot devices versus character limiting choices; if that makes any sense. I need more coffee maybe.
Anyways, I do think print SF has been somewhat better at this, but yeah. It's a good point.
posted by nubs at 9:07 AM on August 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
I think there's a big difference here, and it's that being handwavey on things like gravity and breaking the rules of physics have to do with the setting, whereas not showing disabled/handicapped people moves more into the questions of character and representation. And I'd like to think we're at a point now where most of us are able to see that having characters who represent diversity is a really important thing for a lot of reasons. What I guess I would say is that I'm hearing that people with disabilities have the same ability to suspend disbelief around the ideas of faster-than-light travel as I (as an able-bodied person), but that suspension of disbelief suffers when they don't see that the world is one that would include them. Which I think is a really valid, important point.
I don't think we're really in disagreement on the core issue here, I just felt it was important to point out that from my perspective, this question is a fundamentally different one from the question of how the setting deals with physics-breaking plot devices versus character limiting choices; if that makes any sense. I need more coffee maybe.
Anyways, I do think print SF has been somewhat better at this, but yeah. It's a good point.
posted by nubs at 9:07 AM on August 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
But the author's absolutely right that there's not much of an excuse for a ship in a Star Trek show or movie.
He's a billion percent right about the representation of people with disabilities on sf tv.
But, surely the overwhelming reason that SF tv has so many stairs is that, well, they're sets. And entirely fictional sets as opposed to sets of real-world locations, so they're free to do a bunch of stuff that would be weapons-grade stupid in a real version of whatever it's a set of so long as it looks dramatic and helps the director stage visually interesting shots. A bridge/CIC set where the only way to get to the engineering console is to either be lowered by a crane or to go underneath the set and crawl out through a removed panel would be fine as long as, in the end result, it looks cool.
TOS Enterprise set with it's big pit and multiple levels is, in addition to being non-accessible, silly. It's also a tremendous waste of space for so few people to be operating in. It's also one thousand percent stupid for it to be at the top of the saucer instead of a CIC in the bowels of the ship. It's also completely stupid that they continually send the primary command structure away on missions instead of having them run the ship while specialists do their thing. It's also over the top dumbass that, AFAICT, their uniforms don't have pockets.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:39 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
He's a billion percent right about the representation of people with disabilities on sf tv.
But, surely the overwhelming reason that SF tv has so many stairs is that, well, they're sets. And entirely fictional sets as opposed to sets of real-world locations, so they're free to do a bunch of stuff that would be weapons-grade stupid in a real version of whatever it's a set of so long as it looks dramatic and helps the director stage visually interesting shots. A bridge/CIC set where the only way to get to the engineering console is to either be lowered by a crane or to go underneath the set and crawl out through a removed panel would be fine as long as, in the end result, it looks cool.
TOS Enterprise set with it's big pit and multiple levels is, in addition to being non-accessible, silly. It's also a tremendous waste of space for so few people to be operating in. It's also one thousand percent stupid for it to be at the top of the saucer instead of a CIC in the bowels of the ship. It's also completely stupid that they continually send the primary command structure away on missions instead of having them run the ship while specialists do their thing. It's also over the top dumbass that, AFAICT, their uniforms don't have pockets.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:39 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Clearly the fact that in most visual media everything is designed for humanoid life is due to budget constraints. Starfish Aliens are expensive as hell to include in a movie, and prohibitively expensive in most TV shows, so we wind up with a lot of Rubber Forehead Aliens.
However, I'm iffier on this: "Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included."
I get inclusion, and I get disabled people IRL wanting representation and I agree 100% it's ablist and lazy not to include disabled characters in a lot of SF.
But I'm having a difficult time envisioning a high tech utopia future where parents say to themselves "yes, let's have a child unable to use their legs instead of correcting that in utero [or genetically or whatever]". Hell, I'm unable to imagine a future where that wouldn't be child abuse, on par with surgically removing a child's legs after birth because you want "variance".
Yes, it does mean a future without people in wheelchairs. Just as today we have a world without people in iron lungs thanks to polio vaccinations. I'm not comprehending why an absence of iron lungs is good, but an absence of wheelchairs (due to advances in medical tech, not lazy writing in a near future setting or one where such medical advances don't exist) is bad.
It's right to imagine a future without cancer or the common cold, but wrong to imagine one without muscular dystrophy? I don't get it.
posted by sotonohito at 10:14 AM on August 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
However, I'm iffier on this: "Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included."
I get inclusion, and I get disabled people IRL wanting representation and I agree 100% it's ablist and lazy not to include disabled characters in a lot of SF.
But I'm having a difficult time envisioning a high tech utopia future where parents say to themselves "yes, let's have a child unable to use their legs instead of correcting that in utero [or genetically or whatever]". Hell, I'm unable to imagine a future where that wouldn't be child abuse, on par with surgically removing a child's legs after birth because you want "variance".
Yes, it does mean a future without people in wheelchairs. Just as today we have a world without people in iron lungs thanks to polio vaccinations. I'm not comprehending why an absence of iron lungs is good, but an absence of wheelchairs (due to advances in medical tech, not lazy writing in a near future setting or one where such medical advances don't exist) is bad.
It's right to imagine a future without cancer or the common cold, but wrong to imagine one without muscular dystrophy? I don't get it.
posted by sotonohito at 10:14 AM on August 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
The visibility issue is real and huge. The deep and specific concern with wheelchairs and the ramps for them is slightly odd.
Wheel chairs are not very much more than 200 years old (the Bath chair, an early from, dates from 1783) and they have only been common for around a hundred (something else I suspect we have the First World War to thank/blame for). Ramps are a much older technology, but they weren’t used as much in a world where traveling on wheels was not such an issue for personal mobility. It is perfectly reasonable to imagine a future/other world where assitive technology makes the needs of wheelchairs irrelevant, just as it is reasonable to imagine a future where the internal combustion engine is no longer used though some form oftransport will always be necessary.
The problem lies in imagining a world where there is no difference in abilities and no need for assistive technology.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 10:24 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wheel chairs are not very much more than 200 years old (the Bath chair, an early from, dates from 1783) and they have only been common for around a hundred (something else I suspect we have the First World War to thank/blame for). Ramps are a much older technology, but they weren’t used as much in a world where traveling on wheels was not such an issue for personal mobility. It is perfectly reasonable to imagine a future/other world where assitive technology makes the needs of wheelchairs irrelevant, just as it is reasonable to imagine a future where the internal combustion engine is no longer used though some form oftransport will always be necessary.
The problem lies in imagining a world where there is no difference in abilities and no need for assistive technology.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 10:24 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Conflating curing a disease with genocide seems like one hell of a reach to me. Again, by that standard we should be celebrating cancer as just part of human variation and decrying any attempt to "cure" it as genocide against Cancer Havers.
As for eugenics, it has a horrible history of racism and evil, but the theme of human improvement doesn't seem inherently wrong to me. Why shouldn't we want to transcend the current limits of humanity?
One of the common themes of anti-science science fiction is a horror of someone trying to make a "superman", and it is simply assumed that this is deeply wrong, or bad, but I've never understood why that would be the case.
I think there's a pretty big difference between celebrating diversity and declaring that curing certain diseases is genocide. Which diseases get the special treatment and which don't? Why is polio OK to cure, but muscular dystrophy isn't?
If you mean "people with disabilities have been historically marginalized, abused, and even outright killed and are far from included in modern society, so we're a mite nervous about things that seem to erase us" I can understand that. But you seem to be operating from the position that there is inherent value in leaving certain diseases uncured and thus producing a supply of people who need accommodations to get around and that I'm not following at all.
If, in a hypothetical Culture future where people can be whatever they want, some people chose to give up legs, or functional legs, and use wheelchairs, or hoverchairs, or what have you, then sure that's their choice and I say they should be accommodated. But it seems like the short of choice a person should make that's a) reversible if they decide they don't like it anymore, and b) a choice made as a consenting adult not one forced on someone by randomness or disease.
posted by sotonohito at 10:58 AM on August 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
As for eugenics, it has a horrible history of racism and evil, but the theme of human improvement doesn't seem inherently wrong to me. Why shouldn't we want to transcend the current limits of humanity?
One of the common themes of anti-science science fiction is a horror of someone trying to make a "superman", and it is simply assumed that this is deeply wrong, or bad, but I've never understood why that would be the case.
I think there's a pretty big difference between celebrating diversity and declaring that curing certain diseases is genocide. Which diseases get the special treatment and which don't? Why is polio OK to cure, but muscular dystrophy isn't?
If you mean "people with disabilities have been historically marginalized, abused, and even outright killed and are far from included in modern society, so we're a mite nervous about things that seem to erase us" I can understand that. But you seem to be operating from the position that there is inherent value in leaving certain diseases uncured and thus producing a supply of people who need accommodations to get around and that I'm not following at all.
If, in a hypothetical Culture future where people can be whatever they want, some people chose to give up legs, or functional legs, and use wheelchairs, or hoverchairs, or what have you, then sure that's their choice and I say they should be accommodated. But it seems like the short of choice a person should make that's a) reversible if they decide they don't like it anymore, and b) a choice made as a consenting adult not one forced on someone by randomness or disease.
posted by sotonohito at 10:58 AM on August 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'll watch the documentary when I get home and can do so. Thanks for the link.
posted by sotonohito at 11:00 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sotonohito at 11:00 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
He's a billion percent right about the representation of people with disabilities on sf tv.
(Note: the author is nonbinary . Fine with "he" as a pronoun, based on the bio I just linked, but I thought it worth mentioning since we're in a diversity discussion here.)
More directly on topic: I think in these discussions about how in the future we'll have just ~cured~ all disabilities so who needs accessibility, a thing that gets glanced over, and that I appreciated Ace addressing, is that "disabled/abled" isn't a binary where you are one way your whole life. Plenty of people who are mostly abled are going to have some sort of injury or illness that makes them temporarily disabled. Or will grow older and frailer and need more support of various sorts. A future where we can cure genetic disabilities, in addition to being a future that is deeply ethically questionable, is still a future that needs accessibility baked into it.
Unless your Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is going to immediately and free of charge fix all broken bones, sprained muscles, sore backs, etc., etc. in a way that will work instantly - and also will come to your bedside to fix it so you don't need to get your injured self to the doctor's office, and also no one is undocumented or has any fear of doctors or has to work and raise kids or for any other reason has barriers to summoning the teleporting magic free doctor - there is always going to be someone in the future with limited mobility who needs houses and shops and doctor's offices and spaceships to be accessible for them. That doesn't necessarily mean every spaceship scene needs a 2018-era wheelchair ramp in the year 3072, but SF is supposed to be creative. So get creative, writers and showrunners! Tell me what that looks like! I'd like to see it, and so would a lot of my disabled friends.
(All of THAT said, my fondest dream is to write a very long fanfic about Space OSHA bringing spaceships up to regulatory standards, which means I basically giggled with delight just at seeing the title of this article, so I may be a little biased here.)
posted by Stacey at 11:38 AM on August 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
(Note: the author is nonbinary . Fine with "he" as a pronoun, based on the bio I just linked, but I thought it worth mentioning since we're in a diversity discussion here.)
More directly on topic: I think in these discussions about how in the future we'll have just ~cured~ all disabilities so who needs accessibility, a thing that gets glanced over, and that I appreciated Ace addressing, is that "disabled/abled" isn't a binary where you are one way your whole life. Plenty of people who are mostly abled are going to have some sort of injury or illness that makes them temporarily disabled. Or will grow older and frailer and need more support of various sorts. A future where we can cure genetic disabilities, in addition to being a future that is deeply ethically questionable, is still a future that needs accessibility baked into it.
Unless your Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is going to immediately and free of charge fix all broken bones, sprained muscles, sore backs, etc., etc. in a way that will work instantly - and also will come to your bedside to fix it so you don't need to get your injured self to the doctor's office, and also no one is undocumented or has any fear of doctors or has to work and raise kids or for any other reason has barriers to summoning the teleporting magic free doctor - there is always going to be someone in the future with limited mobility who needs houses and shops and doctor's offices and spaceships to be accessible for them. That doesn't necessarily mean every spaceship scene needs a 2018-era wheelchair ramp in the year 3072, but SF is supposed to be creative. So get creative, writers and showrunners! Tell me what that looks like! I'd like to see it, and so would a lot of my disabled friends.
(All of THAT said, my fondest dream is to write a very long fanfic about Space OSHA bringing spaceships up to regulatory standards, which means I basically giggled with delight just at seeing the title of this article, so I may be a little biased here.)
posted by Stacey at 11:38 AM on August 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
There are Deaf people who worry that a universal cure for deafness would lead to a loss of Deaf culture and language. But that's easier for me to understand because it's tied to language. This is the first I've heard a similar concern applied to mobility impairment.
I'm more likely to take the attitude that medicine is complicated and we may make huge advancements but still not have 100% cured everything. As kalessin and Stacey note, there's a lot of reasons why someone might have limited mobility, and I think it's very likely to have a future where some of those reasons are gone, but not all.
posted by RobotHero at 11:44 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm more likely to take the attitude that medicine is complicated and we may make huge advancements but still not have 100% cured everything. As kalessin and Stacey note, there's a lot of reasons why someone might have limited mobility, and I think it's very likely to have a future where some of those reasons are gone, but not all.
posted by RobotHero at 11:44 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
But the author's absolutely right that there's not much of an excuse for a ... in a ... show or movie.
This is not just a problem in science-fiction - but in general fiction as well.
In 40 years of watching TV, personally - I can only think of two shows that demonstrate (on an on-going basis, not just "feel-good-one-off-learning-episode-of-the-week") the challenges of physical disabilities that cause mobility problems- both of which I highly recommend: "Speechless" and "Legit".
posted by jkaczor at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is not just a problem in science-fiction - but in general fiction as well.
In 40 years of watching TV, personally - I can only think of two shows that demonstrate (on an on-going basis, not just "feel-good-one-off-learning-episode-of-the-week") the challenges of physical disabilities that cause mobility problems- both of which I highly recommend: "Speechless" and "Legit".
posted by jkaczor at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
"But I'm having a difficult time envisioning a high tech utopia future where parents say to themselves "yes, let's have a child unable to use their legs instead of correcting that in utero [or genetically or whatever]". Hell, I'm unable to imagine a future where that wouldn't be child abuse, on par with surgically removing a child's legs after birth because you want "variance"."
Luckily, a comment in this very thread addressed that.
posted by klangklangston at 11:47 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Luckily, a comment in this very thread addressed that.
posted by klangklangston at 11:47 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Many times the best design for handicapped accessibility is an alternate route for the handicapped, usually that's not experienced by everyone.
The best design is usually universal design: something that is accessible to all. Alternate routes are sometimes the only practical option, especially in an existing structure, but they often suck. "Come in through the back way, up this service elevator, and through the kitchen" is preferable to not being able to get in at all, but it's sure as heck not the best design compared to "come into the restaurant the same way as everyone else."
And when universal design is done well, it often doesn't even register as being specifically accessible, it's just there. The elevator in an apartment building is there for wheelchairs, broken lags, heavy sofas, and bags of groceries alike. Closed captions on TV are good for the gym or the bar. Web browsers let you increase the font size so the page can be seen on a projector. The ubiquitous use of text messaging means you can send/receive messages whether your inability to hear or speak is physical or situational (noisy place, in danger, etc...) or just because you want to. A button that automatically opens the door is there for you if you have a stroller or a cart full of packages.
And since many disabilities are temporary or even situational, "alternate routes for the handicapped" aren't suitable in these cases. If a building has six steps, there may be a wheelchair lift next to them, but you're extremely unlikely to use it (and start the whole "I'll call security to help. Where's the key? I think it's broken. Nobody knows how to use this thing" conversation) if the stairs aren't great for you because you have a bad knee or a stroller or a cart full of toner refills. The lift may make the staircase legally accessible, but it's not actually accessible.
We can come up with handwavy explanations for why accessibility isn't a problem in-universe, but assuming there's an irritating ramp hidden behind some back corridors somewhere is to assume a future where, beyond the lack of representation, no progress has been made here: inaccessible spaces in the future are still considered fine as long as there's an alternate route hidden somewhere. And that's not a good thing.
posted by zachlipton at 1:14 PM on August 1, 2018 [14 favorites]
The best design is usually universal design: something that is accessible to all. Alternate routes are sometimes the only practical option, especially in an existing structure, but they often suck. "Come in through the back way, up this service elevator, and through the kitchen" is preferable to not being able to get in at all, but it's sure as heck not the best design compared to "come into the restaurant the same way as everyone else."
And when universal design is done well, it often doesn't even register as being specifically accessible, it's just there. The elevator in an apartment building is there for wheelchairs, broken lags, heavy sofas, and bags of groceries alike. Closed captions on TV are good for the gym or the bar. Web browsers let you increase the font size so the page can be seen on a projector. The ubiquitous use of text messaging means you can send/receive messages whether your inability to hear or speak is physical or situational (noisy place, in danger, etc...) or just because you want to. A button that automatically opens the door is there for you if you have a stroller or a cart full of packages.
And since many disabilities are temporary or even situational, "alternate routes for the handicapped" aren't suitable in these cases. If a building has six steps, there may be a wheelchair lift next to them, but you're extremely unlikely to use it (and start the whole "I'll call security to help. Where's the key? I think it's broken. Nobody knows how to use this thing" conversation) if the stairs aren't great for you because you have a bad knee or a stroller or a cart full of toner refills. The lift may make the staircase legally accessible, but it's not actually accessible.
We can come up with handwavy explanations for why accessibility isn't a problem in-universe, but assuming there's an irritating ramp hidden behind some back corridors somewhere is to assume a future where, beyond the lack of representation, no progress has been made here: inaccessible spaces in the future are still considered fine as long as there's an alternate route hidden somewhere. And that's not a good thing.
posted by zachlipton at 1:14 PM on August 1, 2018 [14 favorites]
Interesting juxtaposition - I was listening to this CBC radio segment on "inclusive design" a couple days ago - some things resonated with zachliptons' post - good design helps everybody and if done well is never even noticed (i.e. "curb-cuts" help mothers with strollers, people using grocery carts/trolly's, not just wheelchair users).
posted by jkaczor at 1:48 PM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jkaczor at 1:48 PM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
klangklangston: I don’t see that as addressing the point but rather illustrating that there isn’t a single point here but a couple of overlapping but distinct issues. I think sotonohito is right in observing that there are many conditions which would be widely avoided, and calling that genocide is unhelpful hyperbole, but kalessin is right to observe that it won’t be 100% except in societies which have magic tech and restrict personal choice sharply. I personally think that’d be a lot more interesting as far as stories go, too – the person who goes against mainstream choice or is left out of tech magic (religion, allergy, cost, who knows?) probably has a lot more to tell the reader than the one who stays on the easy path.
posted by adamsc at 2:16 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by adamsc at 2:16 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted; let's try to keep this on the rails and not drive off into attributing bad beliefs to others or asking antagonistic/accusatory questions; it just ends up increasing ill will without actually increasing clarity.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:43 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:43 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
> Can't we just pretend it's because someone invented wheelchair-analogues that can go up and down stairs?
If we are going to maintain Roddenberry's dream that Star Trek be both a Utopia and a place where mankind's problems have all been solved, it would necessarily not be a place where the bodies of disabled people are still thought to be the problem that needs solving. It would be a place where a society included disabled people in the Alpha-quadrant-wide conversation enough to make star ships as universally accessible as possible by design.
I don't understand this response at all. If better wheelchairs (legchairs?) make it practical for everyone to use stairs, why would it be necessary to accommodate people using old-style wheelchairs, rather than just making sure everyone gets a legchair? At that point, it seems like we've gone from respecting people with disabilities to fetishizing particular accessibility technologies even after they become obsolete.
posted by shponglespore at 3:26 PM on August 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
If we are going to maintain Roddenberry's dream that Star Trek be both a Utopia and a place where mankind's problems have all been solved, it would necessarily not be a place where the bodies of disabled people are still thought to be the problem that needs solving. It would be a place where a society included disabled people in the Alpha-quadrant-wide conversation enough to make star ships as universally accessible as possible by design.
I don't understand this response at all. If better wheelchairs (legchairs?) make it practical for everyone to use stairs, why would it be necessary to accommodate people using old-style wheelchairs, rather than just making sure everyone gets a legchair? At that point, it seems like we've gone from respecting people with disabilities to fetishizing particular accessibility technologies even after they become obsolete.
posted by shponglespore at 3:26 PM on August 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
fetishizing particular accessibility technologies even after they become obsolete.
Let's not kinkshame :)
posted by aspersioncast at 3:48 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Let's not kinkshame :)
posted by aspersioncast at 3:48 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
If better wheelchairs (legchairs?)
Legchairs are obviously worse than Pogostickchairs
posted by aubilenon at 4:46 PM on August 1, 2018
Legchairs are obviously worse than Pogostickchairs
posted by aubilenon at 4:46 PM on August 1, 2018
it does mean a future without people in wheelchairs
Wheelchairs may be replaced by cybernetic legs (complete, or external frames that can walk), or hoverchairs, or psionically-controlled magnetic clouds. However, no amount of disease cures will change the fact that people get injured, nor that congenital, rather than genetic, conditions can impair mobility. And there are people who will be able-bodied where they were born, and if they move to a different world, they're no longer in peak physical condition.
A lot of SF includes nonhumans and people adapted to other planetary living conditions: moon residents who can't walk in earth gravity; heavy-worlders who will accidentally break things unless they have adaptive tools to pick things up; people from sterile environments who wear bulky environmental suits; alien anatomy that can't make human-speech sounds; people adapted to water planets who will dry out and take damage; etc.
Humanity may remove muscular dystrophy - and be faced with a similar mobility problems, caused by visiting a heavy-gravity world or swinging too close to a white dwarf during pregnancy, which can affect bone growth. Maybe asthma is gone, but inhabitants of one planet aren't always comfortable in the air of another one, or maybe spaceships work with atmospheric pressure and composition that's mostly okay for everyone, but 5-10% of the crew is always going to have problems with it - so they have inhalers. (They may have pressurized bedrooms with the right atmosphere for them, and not need the device "at home.")
Expanding contact to other worlds should mean more diversity, not less. SF utopias should have a wide array of assistive technologies, enough that someone using a wheelchair (or the setting's equivalent thereof) should raise no eyebrows.
I'm not buying, "It's a perfect world! Nobody goes hungry! ...But all the cabinets are built with the assumption that residents are between 5'6" and 6'2" tall, and that they're never too tired or injured to climb a flight of stairs to go to bed."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:04 PM on August 1, 2018 [12 favorites]
Wheelchairs may be replaced by cybernetic legs (complete, or external frames that can walk), or hoverchairs, or psionically-controlled magnetic clouds. However, no amount of disease cures will change the fact that people get injured, nor that congenital, rather than genetic, conditions can impair mobility. And there are people who will be able-bodied where they were born, and if they move to a different world, they're no longer in peak physical condition.
A lot of SF includes nonhumans and people adapted to other planetary living conditions: moon residents who can't walk in earth gravity; heavy-worlders who will accidentally break things unless they have adaptive tools to pick things up; people from sterile environments who wear bulky environmental suits; alien anatomy that can't make human-speech sounds; people adapted to water planets who will dry out and take damage; etc.
Humanity may remove muscular dystrophy - and be faced with a similar mobility problems, caused by visiting a heavy-gravity world or swinging too close to a white dwarf during pregnancy, which can affect bone growth. Maybe asthma is gone, but inhabitants of one planet aren't always comfortable in the air of another one, or maybe spaceships work with atmospheric pressure and composition that's mostly okay for everyone, but 5-10% of the crew is always going to have problems with it - so they have inhalers. (They may have pressurized bedrooms with the right atmosphere for them, and not need the device "at home.")
Expanding contact to other worlds should mean more diversity, not less. SF utopias should have a wide array of assistive technologies, enough that someone using a wheelchair (or the setting's equivalent thereof) should raise no eyebrows.
I'm not buying, "It's a perfect world! Nobody goes hungry! ...But all the cabinets are built with the assumption that residents are between 5'6" and 6'2" tall, and that they're never too tired or injured to climb a flight of stairs to go to bed."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 8:04 PM on August 1, 2018 [12 favorites]
Yeah, it seems pretty clear to me that the narrow range of phenotypes in sci-fi is a product of authorial expedience. Like, everyone breathes the same gas mixture? And has compatible circadian rhythms? It's rubber forehead aliens writ large.
This is kind of terrible, but the most realistic depiction of accessibility I've ever seen in sci-fi is the Empire from Star Wars. Why don't they have not only ramps but eighteen different atmosphere mixes coming out of little hose barbs on the desk you can plug your respirator into? Because they're unabashed human supremacists. You breathe 21-70 or you don't breathe, you xeno scum.
I would love, love, love to read fanfic about the miracles the Alliance quartermaster corps must work daily to keep that heterogeneous a force supplied. "Hey, remember that medevac from Kashyyk where nobody bothered to send a triage report ahead? Well, they've got the triage now, and get this: they're all Mon Cal. Yeah, all the Wookiees diverted to Tango-Bravo and we're getting the Mon Cal. A thousand of them, tomorrow. Do your best."
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:53 PM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is kind of terrible, but the most realistic depiction of accessibility I've ever seen in sci-fi is the Empire from Star Wars. Why don't they have not only ramps but eighteen different atmosphere mixes coming out of little hose barbs on the desk you can plug your respirator into? Because they're unabashed human supremacists. You breathe 21-70 or you don't breathe, you xeno scum.
I would love, love, love to read fanfic about the miracles the Alliance quartermaster corps must work daily to keep that heterogeneous a force supplied. "Hey, remember that medevac from Kashyyk where nobody bothered to send a triage report ahead? Well, they've got the triage now, and get this: they're all Mon Cal. Yeah, all the Wookiees diverted to Tango-Bravo and we're getting the Mon Cal. A thousand of them, tomorrow. Do your best."
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:53 PM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
TV is currently (and even more so in the past where effects were all practical rather than CGI by the cost of showing radically different aliens. Farscape and to a lesser extent LEXX went the furthest down this road of the stuff I've watched and even there the characters getting the most screen time are humans, human analogues, and rubber forehead aliens.
Also in fairness to TOS, Starfleet is a military organization. Even today is there any Navy anywhere that has wheelchair users serving in/on front line ships? Or even front line infantry?
posted by Mitheral at 9:08 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also in fairness to TOS, Starfleet is a military organization. Even today is there any Navy anywhere that has wheelchair users serving in/on front line ships? Or even front line infantry?
posted by Mitheral at 9:08 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I prefer to think of it as pandering to the able-bodied. I mean, turn off the power drain that is a gravity generator, and people without the use of their legs can just as easily float around in zero-G. I'd be very surprised if moving around in zero-G isn't a lot more efficient, once you get used to it.
posted by Snowflake at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Snowflake at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
No doubt. But simulating zero gee on a TV show is very expensive. Either you ship your actors and crew to orbit or you use something like the vomit comment to simulate. Neither is very cost effective for a TV show for anything but the briefest of special scenes.
posted by Mitheral at 7:44 PM on August 2, 2018
posted by Mitheral at 7:44 PM on August 2, 2018
At least for humans, but probably all life that evolved in a gravity well, bad things happen after too long in microgravity. Plus lots of terrestrial physics just stop working, like buoyancy. Search "candle in microgravity" to see what kinds of things we wouldn't be able to take for granted any more. Artificial gravity seems pretty sensible, if you can get it.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:22 PM on August 2, 2018
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:22 PM on August 2, 2018
I can tell when a new x man movie comes out because people will start yelling hey professor at me on the street randomly. What is really confusing is that I teach college and have a horrible memory so I always assume it’s a student I don’t recognize and I say enthusiastically say heeeey back.
The relevant point is that I’m a woman and not bald and unfortunately don’t have Patrick Stewart’s facial structure. People see the wheelchair and its like HEY PROFESSOR XAVIER WHHOOOOO and because I’m confused I lose the opportunity to tell them that they’re being dumb motherfuckers
posted by angrycat at 7:23 AM on August 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
The relevant point is that I’m a woman and not bald and unfortunately don’t have Patrick Stewart’s facial structure. People see the wheelchair and its like HEY PROFESSOR XAVIER WHHOOOOO and because I’m confused I lose the opportunity to tell them that they’re being dumb motherfuckers
posted by angrycat at 7:23 AM on August 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Blasdelb: "If we are going to maintain Roddenberry's dream that Star Trek be both a Utopia and a place where mankind's problems have all been solved, it would necessarily not be a place where the bodies of disabled people are still thought to be the problem that needs solving. It would be a place where a society included disabled people in the Alpha-quadrant-wide conversation enough to make star ships as universally accessible as possible by design."Its a moot point since we never see those 'legchairs' anymore than we see ramps or other universal access features. If we were to, it'd be a great start to at least explicitly see mobility related adaptive equipment be designed to be as good as possible and to fit the needs of its user as well as possible, rather than to fit pathetically limited minimum standards like happens in the present day for all but the independently wealthy.
shponglespore: "I don't understand this response at all. If better wheelchairs (legchairs?) make it practical for everyone to use stairs, why would it be necessary to accommodate people using old-style wheelchairs, rather than just making sure everyone gets a legchair? At that point, it seems like we've gone from respecting people with disabilities to fetishizing particular accessibility technologies even after they become obsolete."
However, as great as the engineering projects you've probably seen in wildly over-sold facebook videos might be for some people with impairments and pocketbooks that fit them, we will never be able to adapt everyone to spaces designed exclusively for able bodies. Those projects will each only ever adapt some spaces for a minority of wheelchair users even if money for adaptive equipment were no object. It is also important to note that none of them make it practical, much less convenient, to use stairs; they only make it possible, for some, to use stairs. It will always make more sense to design spaces with the needs of the people using them rather than trying to adapt people to the needs of thoughtlessly designed spaces. There is a functionally infinite number of permutations of needs that human bodies can have, and we'll never be able to serve those needs without designing our spaces to help. A future utopia with unlimited resources and a mature approach to moral philosophy stubbornly sticking to inherently bad design choices like stairs fundamentally wouldn't make sense. Especially in the context of an exploratory starship seeking out new worlds and new ways of being, what possible reason could there be to not just make sure it could handle anything?
posted by Blasdelb at 8:29 AM on August 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, in most cases it's not really because the designer thought of leg chairs or whatever, it's because they didn't think about it at all.
How Does Charles Xavier Leave His Own House?
posted by RobotHero at 9:41 AM on August 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
How Does Charles Xavier Leave His Own House?
posted by RobotHero at 9:41 AM on August 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
I think I've usually assumed that there are so many varieties of ways of dealing with this in science fiction that we don't have to rely on old wheelchairs and ramps. Off the top of my head I can think of exoskeletons, those stairwalking chairs, the aforementioned hover/floater/power chairs (seriously, that just sounds awesome), possible cures like that "Starfish Girl" story on Slate a while back, living in zero gravity, or that guy in the Pegasus series by Anne McCaffrey who could just use telekinesis to walk himself around.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:31 PM on August 4, 2018
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:31 PM on August 4, 2018
There are Deaf people who worry that a universal cure for deafness would lead to a loss of Deaf culture and language. But that's easier for me to understand because it's tied to language. This is the first I've heard a similar concern applied to mobility impairment.
I would like to hope that sign language would live on because it's really useful to have a way to communicate that doesn't involve ears/mouth. (I tried to learn it for years but I suck at languages. Sigh.) I know the Liaden series features non-deaf characters who know a sign language and use it to secretly communicate.
I'm more likely to take the attitude that medicine is complicated and we may make huge advancements but still not have 100% cured everything. As kalessin and Stacey note, there's a lot of reasons why someone might have limited mobility, and I think it's very likely to have a future where some of those reasons are gone, but not all.
Seconded.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:35 PM on August 4, 2018
I would like to hope that sign language would live on because it's really useful to have a way to communicate that doesn't involve ears/mouth. (I tried to learn it for years but I suck at languages. Sigh.) I know the Liaden series features non-deaf characters who know a sign language and use it to secretly communicate.
I'm more likely to take the attitude that medicine is complicated and we may make huge advancements but still not have 100% cured everything. As kalessin and Stacey note, there's a lot of reasons why someone might have limited mobility, and I think it's very likely to have a future where some of those reasons are gone, but not all.
Seconded.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:35 PM on August 4, 2018
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Hoverchairs?
posted by sammyo at 7:10 PM on July 31, 2018 [11 favorites]