Disability Studies

The relationship between feminist media studies and disability studies is one of emergent cross-pollination. At the generative intersection of the two fields, we might consider: How does compulsory able-bodiedness and -mindedness inform representations of gendered subjects across mediated platforms? Building off of Laura Mulvey's foundational theorization of the male gaze in cinema, how is the ableist gaze both distinct from and imbricated in patriarchal dynamics of mediation and watching?¹ How might we conceptualize our mediated landscape as a built environment in which people have, depending on their social location, varying degrees of access as both consumers and producers? These are but a few critical questions with which we might grapple with meaningful engagement with disability studies as feminist media scholars. In what follows, I sketch the contours of disability studies and the subfield of disability media studies, noting their parallels to and points of intersection with feminist media studies....