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Crip Eye for the Normate Guy: Queer Theory and the Disciplining of Disability Studies

Author(s): Robert McRuer


Source: PMLA , Mar., 2005, Vol. 120, No. 2 (Mar., 2005), pp. 586-592
Published by: Modern Language Association

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25486189

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586 Conference on Disability Studies and the University PMLA

Subsequent church practice often lost Christian life. We must come to see disability
sight of this broader vision. Historically, neither as a symptom of sin nor as an opportu
church-based charities have provided humane nity for virtuous suffering or charitable action.
care, funds for medical research, and indis The Christian community as a whole must
pensable financial support. Yet this has often open itself to the gifts of persons with disabili
served only to segregate people with disabili ties, who, like other minority groups, call the
ties from the Christian community. While church to repentance and transformation.
engaging in individualistic charity and heal
ing, the Christian church has neglected the
social and political needs of people with dis
abilities, failing to place as central emphases
political engagement and social inclusion.
Note
Our task is not simply one of correcting A longer version of this essay appears in the Sept.-Oct.
some faulty texts or even of building greater 2002 issue of the Other Side (theotherside.org/archive/
architectural access. The Christian church sep-oct02/eiesland.html).

must develop a theology of disability, emerg


ing from the lives and even the bodies of those
with disabilities. Such a theology must be con Work Cited
strued not as a "special-interest" perspective American Lutheran Church. "Reports and Actions,
Part I." Action General Convention. 80.6.109.
but, rather, as an integral part of reflection on

Crip Eye for the N?rmate Guy:


Queer Theory and the
and distant?a freakish or perhaps transgres
Disciplining of Disability Studies s?e spectacle; and the realistic, which brings
disability close, potentially minimizing the
difference between viewer and viewed. In the
ROBERT McRUER
George Washington University essay, which first appeared in print in the im
portant disability studies anthology The New
Disability History, Garland-Thomson reiter
IN "SEEING THE DISABLED: VISUAL RHETORICS OF ates some of the central disability studies in
Disability in Popular Photography," Rose sights that have transformed scholarship in
marie Garland-Thomson argues that represen the humanities over the past decade. Simul
tations of disability in photography, over more taneously, she takes disability studies in new
than a century, have generally fallen into four directions, providing a critical taxonomy that
broad categories: the wondrous, which places those of us in the field can use as a foundation

the disabled subject on high and elicits awe for countless other projects.
from viewers because of the supposedly amaz Disability studies projects are every
ing achievement represented; the sentimental, where, it seems: classes and even programs are
which places the disabled subject in a dimin cropping up in several countries; hundreds of
ished, childlike, or custodial position, evoking scholars are linked to the Disability Studies
pity; the exotic, which makes disability strange in the Humanities e-mail list; and disability is

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i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 587

one of the most popular topics in the academic has ever made or ever will make in hopes he'll
publishing world. In 2002, the MLA published use some of them on the air" (Glitz 40).
the landmark anthology Disability Studies: The dish on Clinique groveling for some
Enabling the Humanities?meaning that a queer attention makes it clear why, in many
volume now exists bearing the imprimatur of ways, Queer Eye functions as an easy tar
the largest, most important professional or get for cultural theorists. In Subculture: The
ganization for those working in modern lan Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige famously
guages and literature (the volume includes a argues that dissident subcultures inevitably
shorter version of Garland-Thomsons "Seeing face two kinds of incorporation: commodi
the Disabled," titled "The Politics of Staring"). fication?evident in Queer Eye, which basi
"[S]omeday soon," Michael B?rub? writes in cally functions as a queer commercial for
the afterword to Disability Studies, "disabil everything from Bed, Bath, and Beyond to
ity studies will be widely understood as one Urban Outfitters?and ideological dilution.
of the normal?but not normalizing?aspects Ideological dilution ensures that the poten
of study in the humanities, central to any ad tial threat to the dominant culture posed by
equate understanding of the human record" the subculture is "trivialized, naturalized, do
(343). In many locations, today looks a lot like mesticated" (97). This too is evident in Queer
the day B?rub? imagines. All things just keep Eye, not least in what it asks us to consent to
getting better. before we start watching: the reassuring idea
My use of the refrain "All things just keep that there are two distinct types of "guys,"
getting better" allows me to put my consid queer and straight. Forget about queerness as
eration of Garland-Thomson's essay and my a descriptor for what doesn't fit neatly within a
disability studies introduction on hold as I heterosexual-homosexual binary; forget about
consider a different, more recent, and perhaps queerness as a critique of compulsory hetero
unlikely cultural phenomenon. Queer Eye for sexuality or as a critical lens for denaturaliz
the Straight Guy, in which five gay "experts" ing all sexual identities. In many ways, Queer
in grooming, fashion, interior design, din Eye naturalizes sexual identity and stages for
ing, and "culture" make over a "straight guy" viewers a rapprochement between gay men
whose supposedly disastrous appearance and and straight men. "Straight guys are so much
living space provide the premise for the show, fun," fashion expert Carson Kressley says in
premiered in June 2003 and scored Bravo TV one episode, but if part of the fun of queer
record ratings. Each week, to the beat of Sim theory (not to mention more than a century
one Denny's vocals on "All Things (Just Keep of queer subcultural practice) has been watch
Getting Better)," the stars are introduced ing that compulsory identity unravel, that is
by their area of expertise, and as they walk no longer the case. As long as we agree that
through a drab, black-and-white semiurban gay men and straight men are distinct, and as
space, it is instantly transformed into living long as we're looking at the straight guy, sup
color. The so-called Fab Five have made Queer posedly, we can all get along.
Eye a gay media phenom; no other gay or Most queers, of course, could easily com
lesbian show has had such a meteoric rise to plicate that critique, before?perhaps?re
prominence. NBC, Bravo's corporate partner, doubling it. There is limited pleasure in the
consequently broadcast shorter versions of transformative power these men wield, power
some of the episodes, and Jay Leno signed up that resonates with the fantasies of many gay
to have The Tonight Show done over by the Fab people. When the show came out, I joked, for
Five. Clinique reportedly wanted to send Kyan instance, that my own drab gray department
Douglas, grooming expert, "every product it was suddenly filled with beautiful Benjamin

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588 Conference on Disability Studies and the University PMLA

Moore colors the day I walked in. This was one of the Fab Five will readily say when they
merely a joke, but it nonetheless attempted to first arrive at the straight guy s home or at the
mark what Matthew Tinkcomm, in his book end, when they are watching?stout cocktails
on camp, capital, and cinema, calls "working in hand?his performance on closed-circuit
like a homosexual." "Working like a homo television. If his face is twitching, "Maybe he's
sexual"?which Tinkcomm defines in relation got Tourette's"; if he fumbles in the kitchen or
to filmmakers such as Andy Warhol and John elsewhere, "It s like he has a mechanical hand";
Waters?consists of a camp luxuriating in the if he seems confused at all, "Guys, I think we
potentially excessive cultural values that gay have a real live Rain Man on our hands." Yes,
people produce when "paradoxically it would queer theory and disability studies have come
seem that no subject is ever prohibited from together in incredibly generative ways over the
exerting him- or herself on capital's behalf" past few years, but that academic fact should
(5). In other words, Tinkcomm, shifting the not lead us to discount the more widespread
discussion of camp from the realm of con cultural fact that our normalizing moment
sumption to the realm of production, argues (like all normalizing moments) depends on
that even as we are compelled to produce our identifying and containing?on disciplin
selves as commodities, "the passionate failure ing?disability. It also depends?paradoxi
to strive for a compulsory identity" is possible cally, given how much a version of queerness
and desirable (15), and that instead of simply is supposedly on display?on containing, on
producing ourselves as blank commodities disciplining, queerness.
and generating objects that erase entirely the Such paradoxes bring me back to the
history of their production, we might produce somewhat different disciplinary issues with
commodities (including ourselves) that bear which I started. "More analysis than evalua
the mark of queer labor and that thus hint at tion," Garland-Thomson insists in her essay
alternative values. on photography, as she moves from the won
Queer Eye, however, makes it difficult to drous, through the sentimental and exotic, to
work like a homosexual. The show emerges in the realistic mode, "the discussion here does
an overwhelmingly normalizing period: the not suggest a progress narrative in which the
dominant gay movement has a slick, corporate culture marches invariably toward a state
feel; marriage rather than a feminist critique of egalitarian enlightenment" ("Seeing"
of marriage occupies everyone's attention; me 339). I want to be convinced by this thesis,
dia invisibility has been replaced by innumer but?given the larger essay, which ends with
able figures who "just happen to be gay"; and something of a fanfare on a realistic-mode
a minority thesis that formerly emphasized photograph of Bill Clinton's undersecretary
positionality has been largely superseded by a of education, Judith Heumann?I can't help
naturalizing minority thesis that emphasizes feeling that the thesis requires me, as a reader,
essence: some guys (and girls) are straight, to engage in a disavowal: I know that asser
some queer. Attending to this larger historical tions of decisive differences between our pres
context for Queer Eye, I draw two conclusions: ent and a problematic past, appeals to things
first, the camp pleasures of the show partially like a seemingly unprecedented "climate of
obscure how it participates in the normaliz integration and diversity" (366), and trium
ing processes we are currently enduring, and, phant conclusions are generally the necessary
second, the seemingly marginal flashes of dis components of a progress narrative and, when
ability in the show at the same time attest to present, sufficient for constituting said narra
those processes. "That's so mental-institution tive, but in this case, I consent to not see it.
chic" (or, more directly, "He's so retarded!"), Call it a queer eye for the progress narrative,

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i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 589

but you will have gathered that I dissent: Sec moral values: country, army, family, honour,
retary Heumann, in Garland-Thomson's essay, reckless heroism" (92). None of these moral
is as counterposed to the closeted Franklin values magically inhere in any given photo
Delano Roosevelt as her era is to his; the real graph of a politician, whether the photograph
istic mode that brings disability close is three is of the right-wing Pierre-Marie Poujade for
times "radical" in the space of two pages, and Barthes or of the neoliberal John Kerry for us.
it explicitly displaces the wondrous, sentimen Mythmaking, however, makes these moral
tal, and exotic modes. Moreover, the full-page values seem self-evident; ventriloquizing the
concluding photograph of Heumann flanked images, Barthes imagines them saying, natu
by flags in her Education Department office rally, "[L]ook at me: I am like you" (91).
arguably participates in progress-centered, "Seeing the Disabled," it is important to
and very American, narratives of arrival. emphasize, purports to acknowledge such
There is one other argumentative strand ideological maneuvers; Garland-Thomson
that troubles me in "Seeing the Disabled," insists that "the rhetoric of realism is just as
this time because I am at least inclined to constructed and convention-bound as the
be convinced by portions of it: "Realism rhetorics of the wondrous, sentimental, or
aims to routinize disability, making it seem exotic" (344). This claim, however, is at least
ordinary. As such, it has the most political partially undone by the disavowed progress
power in a democratic order, although one narrative and by the subordination (through
could argue that the transgressive most effec a brief dismissal) of the transgressive. The act
tively achieves social change in democracies" of quickly subordinating the transgressive, in
(363). My first question about this seduc other words, makes it seem as though there
tive argument is: if one could argue that the were something inherently better, less bound
transgressive most effectively achieves social by the conventions of the past, about the re
change?and in a post-Stonewall, post-HEW alistic mode. But since we're talking about
takeover, post-ACT UP, post-ADAPT, post bondage, let me say a few things about Bob
Sex Panic! world, such an argument would Flanagan, the self-proclaimed "supermasoch
have a lot going for it?then why not argue it? ist . . . famous for pounding a nail through
And my second question may partially answer his penis" (Garland-Thomson, "Seeing" 358).
my first: if we are in the realm of routinizing As Garland-Thomson notes when she brings
a particular cultural construction and mak his photo forward as an example of the ex
ing it seem ordinary, are we not potentially otic (in the longer version of the essay, that
in the realm of ideology? "Routinizing and is; he is not included in the shorter, more
making something seem ordinary" is actu disciplined MLA version), Flanagan incor
ally a fairly good description of what Roland porated into photographs and performances
Barthes called mythmaking. From soap pow "cape, chains, piercings, and the oxygen mask
ders to wrestling matches, Barthes's queer eye characteristic of cystic fibrosis to discomfort
for the French bourgeoisie of the 1950s pin his viewers" (358). In an installation at the
pointed the ways mythmakers appropriated Museum of Modern Art, Flanagan and his
cultural and historical objects or signs and partner-mistress Sherry Rose staged a perfor
attached new meanings to them. This new, mance that included a beating characteristic
second order of signification was then made of their erotic practices together. The beating
to seem natural. In the essay "Photography was at once therapeutically useful for Flana
and Electoral Appeal," for instance, Barthes gan (clearing the respiratory system, keeping
contends that political "photography consti the lungs as free of mucus as possible) and,
tutes ... a veritable blackmail by means of presumably, erotically satisfying for both

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590 Conference on Disability Studiesand the University PMLA

participants. Flanagan's life and his relation neoliberal mode is already operative in the
ship with Rose were documented in Kirby Clinton-era photograph, but it's even clearer
Dick's 1997 film Sick: The Life and Death of in another set of photos, accompanying the
Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. "I was so ex World Bank's press release announcing Heu
cited to learn about an artist with cf," one mann's appointment as its new "Adviser,
admirer wrote on the second anniversary of Disability and Development." Again, the pho
Flanagan's death. "Wherever I am today, I will tographs in question are generally official or
burn a candle for you, Bob" (Compton). And semiofficial shots, though representations of
CF individuals and communities were not Heumann are this time included alongside a
alone burning those candles; after Flanagan's collage of other people, presumably from the
death in 1996, BDSM chat groups and e-mail World Bank's client countries. These client
lists were abuzz with what they perceived as country photos can perhaps be read as distant
an incalculable loss. "Bob Flanagan Is Dead," or exotic, at least as far as viewers in the West
the e-mail's subject line proclaimed, over and are concerned, in that we are encouraged to
over again, in posting after posting. read these images as "elsewhere." I would
In place of a progress narrative, avowed or suggest, however, that the realistic mode is
not, we might recognize that any photographic more discernible in this collage and that the
rhetoric for disability can (and at times will) text of the press release invites such a read
be deployed in the service of a fifth mode, ing: "Disability is not a tragedy," Heumann
which we might term the hegemonic. By ex points out, "but rather a normal part of life.
tension, however (and more encouragingly), It is a tragedy when disabled people are ex
any photographic rhetoric can be deployed in cluded from the economic mainstream of so
a counterhegemonic fashion. In our historical ciety. Discrimination has denied hundreds of
moment, Flanagan's photographs indeed seem millions of disabled people around the world
to put forward counterhegemonic possibilities: their right to receive education, health care,
"sick," they scream, in an era obsessed with housing, transportation, and equal employ
narrow understandings of the body, health, ment opportunities" ("Disability"). As long as
and fitness; "pervert," they insist, in the face people with disabilities are denied such basic
of docile family values or a benign and "tol rights, talking points like these remain indis
erant" multiculturalism. And the fact that, in pensable, and they make evident Heumann's
the wake of his death, we can distinctly per history as a disability activist and educator
ceive alternative communities and communal from the early 1970s. Inevitably framing a
norms ("norms without producing effects of viewer's reading of the collage, such talking
normalization," as David Halperin might say points bring the disabled subject of the pho
[109]) attests more than anything to the coun tograph close, minimizing the distance that
terhegemonic role Flanagan played. might otherwise exist between, in this case, a
It is more difficult for the Department disabled or nondisabled (Western) viewer and
of Education photograph to perform such a (non-Western) viewed.
function. Garland-Thomson argues that the I cannot discount the genuine pleasure
realistic mode holds the most political power we as readers and viewers are likely to take
in a democratic order. While not entirely dis in the spotlighting, in the press release, of
puting that assertion, I would amend it to Heumann's decades-long activism. But as the
suggest that the realistic mode of representing World Bank makes a particular construc
disability has hegemonic power in a particu tion of disability identity seem ordinary, two
lar moment in the history of liberal democ other maneuvers are obscured: first, that the
racy?namely, neoliberalism. The hegemonic, World Bank is basically capitalizing on dis

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i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 591

ability, on these images; and second, that the this place!" Rather, a crip eye for the n?rmate
World Bank's general policies (privatization guy (and because we're talking about not a
of public services; imposition of user fees real person but a subject position, somehow
for?to echo Heumann?education, health "n?rmate guy" seems appropriate, regard
care, housing, and transportation; subordina less of whether he rears his able-bodied head
tion of genuinely populist notions of freedom in men or women) would mark a "critically
to what Marx and Engels called "that single, disabled" capacity for recognizing and with
unconscionable Freedom?Free Trade" [469] ; standing the vicissitudes of compulsory able
minimization of government or public regu bodiedness (McRuer 95-97). The capacity is
lation of markets) might be understood as needed because, regardless of who actually
antidisabled regardless of these pictures, re populates the "array of deviant others," com
gardless of what's happening in the Office of pulsory able-bodiedness always requires such
Disability and Development. In other words, an array to function efficiently?or perhaps I
disability, and even disability activism, made should say "flexibly," since I'm linking these
to seem ordinary, can still be deployed in the processes to the current moment in the his
service of normalizing dominant mytholo tory of capitalism. It takes a crip eye for the
gies?in this case, neoliberalism, trickle-down n?rmate guy to see this flexibility in action.
economics, the Washington consensus. Rewriting a disability studies truism
The often-insidious normalizing processes helps me bring these points home. Sooner or
at work in the media industry that brings us later, if we live long enough (so we often say),
Queer Eye and in the economic consensus we will all become disabled. Another twist on
that brings us the World Bank are also at the truism is that disability is the one identity
work in the humanities today. And especially that each of us will, at some point in our lives,
in the era of the corporate university, resisting inhabit. I don't want to dispute these foun
these processes (perhaps even working like a dational disability studies points?as long as
crip theorist) is necessary if disability studies we endure systems of oppression like com
is to become, as B?rub? imagines, a normal pulsory able-bodiedness (which have gener
but not normalizing part of the humanities. ally prohibited people with disabilities from
Perhaps it will take a crip eye for the n?rmate becoming subjects because it was assumed
guy to facilitate such resistance. N?rmate is they could not exert themselves on capital's
an indispensable theoretical concept coined behalf), they are worth emphasizing?but I
by Garland-Thomson: "This neologism names do want to invert them: sooner or later, if we
the veiled subject position of cultural self, the live long enough, we will all become n?rmate.
figure outlined by the array of deviant others And if the established disability studies point
whose marked bodies shore up the normate's is worth repeating, again and again, the queer
boundaries. The term n?rmate usefully desig disability studies point I'm excavating is
nates the social figure through which people worth resisting, especially as disability stud
can represent themselves as definitive human ies becomes, rightly and desirably, one of the
beings" (Extraordinary Bodies 8). A crip eye normal aspects of study in the humanities.
for the n?rmate guy, I propose, would not The fact that, if we live long enough, all of
just be a disability version of the Bravo hit, no us will become n?rmate is arguably the domi
matter how much pleasure imagining such a nant story of the gay movement at the turn of
show has given me: "Sweetie, your university the century. Resistance to becoming n?rmate,
is an accessibility nightmare1. Don't worry, consequently, has over the last decade engen
honey, it is your lucky day that disabled folks dered some of the most critically queer work
are here to tell you just what's wrong with around, from Gay Shame counterfestivals in

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592 Conference on Disability Studiesand the University PMLA

New York and San Francisco (festivals that Duggan, Lisa. The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism,
Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Bos
protest both narrow understandings of gay ton: Beacon, 2003.
embodiment and the fact that Gay Pride is
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now brought to you by Budweiser) to queer Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and
theory?by Michael Warner, Lisa Duggan, Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 1997.

Phillip Brian Harper, Samuel Delany, and -. "The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Dis
others?that relentlessly draws our attention ability in Popular Photography." Snyder, Bruegge
mann, and Garland-Thomson 56-75.
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-. "Seeing the Disabled: Visual Rhetorics of Disabil
cultures are being circumscribed or priva ity in Popular Photography." The New Disability His
tized out of existence. It may be impossible tory: American Perspectives. Ed. Paul K. Longmore
to say, right now, that someday soon that cir and Lauri Umansky. New York: New York UP, 2001.
335-74.
cumscription will cease?it's hard to deny the
Glitz, Michael. "Queer Eye Confidential." Advocate
bleakness of the world we currently inhabit.
2 Sept. 2003: 40-44.
But, keeping a crip eye on the horizon, we
Halperin, David M. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagi
should nonetheless continue to demand ac
ography. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.
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the Culture of Social Relations. New York: New York
UP, 1999.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London:
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Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. 1957. New York:
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