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Speechless Satire

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ABC's family sitcom Speechless follows JJ DiMeo, a teenage boy with cerebral palsy, and his family as they navigate a new school and deal with coming of age issues between the three children. The central family consists of JJ's brother and sister, Ray and Dylan, his parents, Jimmy and Maya, and eventually his aide, Kenneth. Speechless's representations of disability have gone over well with large audiences, and the show draws praise from non-disabled critics and from critics within the disability community. Although the show avoids a certain extent of politically radical stances, it does a number of things that destabilize harmful misconceptions and question both societal and institutional norms. Speechless does not fully situate itself as …show more content…

Of course, the show also manages zany subplots where Ray can't get girls and Dylan comes up with schemes, but a large part of the comedy gets the audience to laugh with the disability perspective against what is commonly touted as an acceptable way to behave. In the first episode, JJ's new classmates and teacher greet him with a standing ovation before nominating him for class president. We as the audience are asked to laugh at this overt display of performative decency, as well as the principal's excitement about their arrival that has led her to make the school carnival "inclusivity" themed. Rather than seeing the perspective of the cheering audience as JJ strategically uses the offer of class president nomination as a distraction to help his brother, they are asked to think about how silly they might look applauding for someone they barely know. JJ makes the same performative example of the "charity case" stereotype, and like the radical crip performers Sandahl references, "embraces it parodically by hyperbolizing"

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