Disability Rhetoric

“Sins Invalid”, while the name of the documentary that ENG 401 viewed in class last Friday, is also the name of the disability justice visual-and-performing-arts troupe starring in that film. Based in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Sins Invalid is experienced similarly to an onstage lookbook: it is a performance that explores beauty, desire, the body, and identity through disability, paying careful respect to the intersectional lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Over the 33 minutes of the film artists Cara Page, Seeley Quest, Maria Palacios, Nomy Lamm, ET Russian, Antoine Hunter, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Rodney Bell and Mat Fraser are interviewed about their performance and the motivations behind their various creative expressions on stage. Since 2006, the group have performed on a rotating basis, and are allowed to choose their own acts. A single performance offers everything from slam poetry to aerial gymnastics, all with a focus on the beauty in self-realization among the disabled, and letting go of the ableist myth that our fullest lives and disability are mutually exclusive things.

Chapter two on “Ability” from Keywords for Disability Studies, by Fiona Kumari Campbell, posits that ableism “is useful for thinking not just about disability but also about other forms of difference that result in marginality or disadvantage” (Adams et al. 14). Sins invalid, which is run entirely by disabled people of color, makes this a focus of their work within the disability facet of the performance. Seeley Quest’s performance as “Carrie”, a pregnant foster youth, exemplifies these “forms of difference”, and demonstrates the avenues by which disabled people are too often taken advantage of (financially and sexually in Carrie’s case) when they are not adequately accommodated by the systems in which they must live.

The next chapter of Keywords for Disability Studies, “Access”, by Bess Williamson, adds that our modern pressures to accommodate the disabled “[follow] the logic of the ‘social model’ of disability, which shifts attention from the impaired body to the surrounding environment” (Adams et al. 15). Williamson means here that the social model of disability sees disability as defined by society, not the way someone is born. This reminded me most of the performance of Mat Fraser, who spars with an imaginary foe onstage as audio clips of derisive comments play in the background. As the comments continue, Mat falls and convulses on the ground, unable to get up, with blood streaming from his mouth. I believe at this moment Mat intended to show how the impairments of stigma, judgement, and low self-esteem themselves become a barrier, perhaps equal to or sometimes greater than the physical challenge presented by a given disability.

Personally, I enjoyed the film for its intimacy in subject, because to me it proved another level of sincerity and frankness in a discussion on bodies. How can that not include love, sex, and romance? However, I also noticed the uneasiness in the class when the nude bodies came on screen. In this country, it’s more acceptable to show a video of a shootout than a female nipple in most circumstances, so I understand their reservations. But, I think that awkward feeling is partially intentional on the behalf of Sins Invalid, as it makes us consider what should be normalized (like the scene where Mat washes himself onstage) for the human body in society, and also reconsider what bodies we do see onstage most frequently and why.

I would rate this documentary four stars because I thought it was a bit poorly produced for a documentary about a performing arts crew (you’d think they’d have better cameras in 2013), but the amount of time spent interviewing the actual artists and not the company was refreshing to me. Aesthetically, and in terms of the message, absolutely a five star film. If nothing else, Sins Invalid is a beautiful performance, and I think the artists important work bringing justice to all “forms of difference” at a degree of inclusivity that felt new to me as a consumer.