Ever since we started talking about media's portrayal of the disabled, I haven't been able to stop thinking about the television series Malcolm in the Middle. I used to love that show back in the day, and all the talk about disabled characters reminded me of Stevie Kenarben, Malcolm's best friend.
Not only is Stevie in a wheelchair and assumedly paralyzed from the waist down, he also wears extremely thick corrective glasses, struggles with asthma, and has only one lung. (Did I mention he's black?) Because of his respiratory condition, Stevie can only say one or two words with each breath, which is a source of comedy for most of the scenes that include him. Although Stevie has a great sense of sarcasm and can usually say a great deal with very little, Malcolm usually cuts him off before he can finish a sentence, as do most other characters on the show. Stevie thrives off of other people's pity, and in the clip below, milks an accidental punch from a bully for all it's worth.
Although some of the scenes involving Stevie allow us to laugh with him, many of them encourage us to laugh at his expense as well. Sometimes the only humor in the scene stems from the painfully long time it takes for him to say anything, which seems to have become more and more emphasized in the later seasons. This is a great example of a character who is more often identified by his disability, rather than his personality. While Stevie may get into some conflicts of his own, they all stem from or focus on his disability. It's difficult as a viewer to pinpoint the problem at hand when the character takes fifteen minutes to finish his sentence.
Malcolm does very little to actually get to know Stevie during the show. Even though they are supposedly best friends, Stevie is usually silent or close to it while Malcolm goes through everyday life. Malcolm usually responds to the things Stevie says with a pitying aside to the audience, such as when Stevie mentions that his parents won't let him watch TV.
"My parents say... watching TV... makes you... stupid," he explains to a bewildered Malcolm.
"No, watching TV makes you normal!" Malcolm replies, and with a side glance at the viewer, "How can they do that to him? He's in a wheelchair!"
While the jokes the show makes at the expense of the disabled (calling them "crippled," for instance) are intentional, and perhaps ironic, the messages that result seem pretty conflicted. Does the sarcasm the writers use to confront these issues present a positive or a negative representation of the disabled? What does this tell viewers about kids that have health problems like Stevie?
I loved Malcolm in the Middle it was my family show growing up, we watched it every sunday night. I never noticed that Stevies character is depicted as very subordinate in society. He's african american and he's in a wheelchair due to a disability of being paralyzed. He also has a lisp and even asthma. The show always views stevie as the smart genius with all these problems and disabilities and having strict parents. They can't just take a step back and view him as stevie as you do malcolm and his older brother reese. I never really thought about how it made viewers feel that had health issues similar to stevies.I'm sure it made them feel hurt that they were being made fun of. But since it seemed like all fun and games with stevie they were probablly confused on how they should act too.
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