cool-schmool:

In watching The United States of Tara, my primary frustration with Diablo Cody is not her ever-ridiculed ‘quirky dialogue’ but how characters I would otherwise like are portrayed as ableist (with of course no critical commentary from the show’s point of view). Specifically Marshall’s incessant use of “retard” (which makes me want to force him to watch videos of severe psychiatric abuse of people with intellectual disability, just to hammer the point through his thick fucking skull that there is a massive fucking power imbalance and he is taking advantage of it, he is being horribly disrespectful to people who are often treated about as badly as humans can be treated, which probably makes me an asshole but whatever he started it*) and the way he reacts to Tara (who I would prefer over my actual mother. Multiple personalities, stressful, but taking care of it and a relatively good parent versus manipulative and sometimes outright psychologically abusive… yeah, I know who wins).

I understand that non-ableist non-disabled characters would be unrealistic (this just goes to show how pathetically fucked up and inhuman our society is), but I like watching shows that don’t show it explicitly so I can pretend the characters aren’t awful in that regard.

*Damn, that is so childish of me.

(Granted, Marshall is otherwise a dick sometimes. My point stands though.)

I don’t watch the show, so no comment there. I’m reblogging it for this part:

Specifically Marshall’s incessant use of “retard” (which makes me want to force him to watch videos of severe psychiatric abuse of people with intellectual disability, just to hammer the point through his thick fucking skull that there is a massive fucking power imbalance and he is taking advantage of it, he is being horribly disrespectful to people who are often treated about as badly as humans can be treated, which probably makes me an asshole but whatever he started it*)

Which is the most perfect description of how I feel about this that I have ever seen.

Seriously. Don’t be an asshole, guys. It’s not actually that hard. Kick someone everyone else isn’t already kicking.

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