Throughout the article “Usually I Love The Onion, but This Time you’ve Gone Too Far,” Tom Coogan introduces a variety of theories and points of view regarding disability humor, as well as a variety of examples from the online satirical platform The Onion, that serve to complement and connect those individual theories. There are several opinions, ranging from the belief that disability humor is always inappropriate, to the idea that this type of comedy is a way of exposing the truth of this flawed society. There are also more ambivalent theories that present disability humor as a more complicated issue that can have many different manifestations, and that could be considered acceptable as long as it is clear that it is not bullying people that live with disabilities in any sort of way. Although neither me, nor anyone in my family has a disability, and therefore I have an “outsider’s” point of view regarding this issue, I would agree with those who believe that disability humor is a spectrum with multiple manifestations and that there are some conditions that can determine whether it is or nor offensive, such as the author of the joke, the way in which it is phrased, the target and the context. Depending on how these conditions are fulfilled, a disability joke can be either highly offensive or a way of exhibiting the flaws and issues in society.
The Onion’s satirical article “Christopher Reeve Placed Atop Washington Monument” serves as an example for the way in which comedy can be used as a way of exposing the truth and denouncing the media without being offensive to people with disabilities. As Coogan argues, this article serves as a parody for the way in which Reeves was objectified by society, and turned into a misrepresentative symbol of the disabled community. The fact that they use a specific person, who is also a celebrity, prevents his portrayal from becoming a generalization, which proves that the article is not targeting all people with disabilities. But the article is not mocking Christopher Reeve’s disability either. Every time he is mentioned, the only purpose is to demonstrate that he does not want to be placed on top of the Washington Monument, which serves to exhibit the way in which the press and the government take advantage of certain people with disabilities, including Christopher Reeve himself, turning them into sorts of national symbols against their will, only to benefit themselves. His paralysis is only mentioned once, when they say that the plaque below the monument reads: “We elevate you to the heavens, so that future generations may know of your courage and your almost total paralysis,” but this allusion is done such a way that the targets are those who in some way sensationalized his impairment.
There is another moment, at the very end of the article, where they mention that, “Plans are already being drafted to have hearing-impaired actress Marlee Matlin bolted to the Lincoln Memorial.” This serves to expose the way in which the media utilizes the image of these disabled celebrities as a representative of the whole community of people with a disability, in order to show their compassion and admiration. Coogan mentions how the community was not pleased with the way in which Christopher Reeves was idolized due to his paralysis, and was turned by the media into the face of the entire population with disabilities, and in this particular article The Onion managed to express these frustrations.
As The Onion’s article demonstrates, there are cases in which comedy can be used to expose the misrepresentative and flawed way in which media and publicity take advantage of disability, without perpetuating stereotypes and without being offensive. Nevertheless, not all disability humor works like this, in the same way that not all disability humor is denigrating. There is a lot of gray area that complicates this issue and where it is necessary to explore the conditions that were previously mentioned (the author of the joke, the context, the phrasing and the target), in order to investigate and understand the effect that a disability joke can have both in the community of insiders or people who live with disabilities, and the outsiders.
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