Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I’m finding it difficult to reconcile the last two episodes of Glee—”Laryngitis” and “Dream On”—in regards to their treatment of the disabled.

Let’s take them in reverse chronological order, blog style. The B plot in “Dream On” revolves around Artie’s struggle to accept his disability. This is by no means an easy topic for television. TV shows tend to portray disability either as a weighty curse or as a complete non-issue. Neither interpretation is very truthful, and I’m impressed that Glee‘s writers are willing to ditch these simplistic tropes for something more challenging to the audience. It made me very uncomfortable to watch Artie triumphantly hoist himself onto crutches, only to face plant in front his girlfriend a moment later. It was heartbreaking to see him laying there on the floor, telling Tina to get out and leave him alone. It might have been uncomfortable and heartbreaking to see, but I’ve been there, and the moment rings true.

Then the episode goes a little farther. Artie gets excited about stem cell research and the inevitably of a cure for his condition, and imagines himself leading the entire mall in a startlingly catchy “Safety Dance”. The school’s guidance counselor eventually brings Artie back to down to Earth, pointing out that these treatments are at least a decade away from human trials, and it’s unhealthy for him to pin his hopes on the slim chance of a cure. Jayma Mays’ delivery in this scene is excellent, again, very true to life. But no matter how gently she handles the situation, Artie can’t help but feel trapped and inadequate. The episode closes with Tina and Mike dancing to “Dream A Little Dream On Me,” with Artie providing the vocals, trying to come to grips with the idea that he may never be as close to Tina as he truly wants.

It’s a complex ending, to say the least. Artie isn’t stuck with his face on the floor, but nor is he exactly thrilled with his life. The episode leaves him, and the audience, somewhere in between. It’s daring, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a TV show try to present disability with this kind of depth. This is one of the hard truths of living with a disability: you’re constantly walking a line between hope and pragmatism. It’s not healthy to let your disability keep you down and trap you in a box of limitations, but it’s equally unhealthy to pretend that there are no limits at all. For years—and I mean twenty years—I truly believed that my unusual walk was by and large totally unnoticeable. When I realized that it was, in fact, often the first thing that people noticed about me, well, that wasn’t such a good day. Or month, for that matter.

But that’s what it’s like. Some days you feel super confident, the equivalent of standing on two legs for the first time in years, and other days you’re laying there on the floor wishing everyone would just leave you the hell alone. Some in the disabled community (this guy, for instance) feel that it’s insulting to portray Artie as an insecure, pitiful victim, as aspiring to be able-bodied. I disagree. I’m perfectly comfortable with who I am, but I didn’t get there overnight, and I’d be lying if I said that I never imagine what it’d be like to move around without pronounced muscle spasticity dogging my every step. Like I said, some days are better than others. Teenagers are famously insecure about their bodies as a matter of course. Now try adding a wheelchair to that, and now tell me that it’s not okay to show Artie having a bad day. Glee did a great job on this one (Neil Patrick Harris’s stellar “Dream On” duet with Matthew Morrison and Joss Whedon’s skilled direction, particularly on the final Mike/Tina/Artie number, didn’t hurt either).

This makes “Laryngitis” all the more baffling, especially since it was written by the same trio who did “Dream On”. Don’t get me wrong, I felt that Kurt’s plot was well-handled, but the rest was a real mess. Drama queen Rachel comes down with laryngitis, which she immediately blows up into a catastrophe that will imperil her career and ruin her life. To set her straight, Finn introduces her to his friend, Sean, a former football player who, thanks to a bad day on the field, is now a quadriplegic. Sean’s lesson to Rachel is that you can lose the thing that most defines you and still go on. Or something. In other words, “You may have lost your voice, but things could be a lot worse, and even when really bad things happen, it’s not the end.”

Why did the writers feel the need to conjure a quadriplegic out of nowhere? Artie is right there, and it would’ve been nice to see he and Rachel have a substantive interaction for once. Instead, we get Sean, a character who we’ve never seen or heard of before. Hell, couldn’t you at least have had Artie introduce Rachel to Sean, instead of Finn?

It turns out that Zack Weinstein, who plays Sean, is a real-life quadriplegic. He was probably brought on board to answer some early criticism about the fact that Kevin McHale, who plays Artie, isn’t really disabled. Unfortunately, in trying to address one problem, the producers have only created a bigger one. Namely, that the disabled only exist as cautionary tales and object lessons for the able-bodied. “You think you have problems? Look what I deal with on a daily basis. Here but for the grace of God goes you.” It’s one of the worst (and most persistent) images of the disabled on television, and it blows my mind that the same team that writes Artie could make this mistake. Nice try guys, but Sean is still just a cipher who was brought into existence to teach one of our stars a lesson. Are you guys schizophrenic or something? Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, I’m talking to you. I need more “Dream On” from you and a lot less “Laryngitis”.