“DZIEWCZYNA Z SZAFY“ BY BODO KOX: PSYCHOSOCIAL DISABILITY IN THE POETICS OF MAGICAL REALISM
PDF (Język Polski)

Keywords

autism
representation of disability
magical realism
tolerance and recognition
autism/psychosocial disability as ameliorative space

How to Cite

Kołodziejczyk, D. (2018). “DZIEWCZYNA Z SZAFY“ BY BODO KOX: PSYCHOSOCIAL DISABILITY IN THE POETICS OF MAGICAL REALISM. Porównania, 21(2), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.14746/p.2017.21.13944

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of representation of disability as ameliorative space. Autism, because it most often plays the role of radical otherness in narrative forms such as film, novel, (auto)biography or border genres such as essay, as a disability determined by insufficient social and communication skills of the subject, represents, on the level of the plot, the riddle of the human mind. On the level of rhetoric, the riddle is realised as a problem of untranslatability – the mind of an autistic person cannot be reached, because there are no shared codes which would enable communication. The character with autism is either described from the outside or “translated” through the images of sensory distortions whose role is to approximate the condition. The article shows how the current changes in the Polish law relating to the integration of the disabled (education, elections regulations) are the direct corollary of a certain social attitude towards disability which can be defined as tolerance without recognition. This key ethical combination: tolerance only if grounded in recognition is recommended by Charles Taylor in his 1994 essay “The Politics of Recognition”. In an analysis of Bodo Kox film „Dziewczyna z szafy” [A Girl from the closet] (2012), the author shows how the rhetoric of magical realism opens up in the film an alternative space for autism and other psychosocial disabilities. This space reveals the deep incommensurability between the world of the norm and the world of disability and their hierarchical structuring, in which exclusion is the basic form of interaction. As alternative space, however, it shows also the deficits of the norm and reverses the hierarchy in which disability features as lack to show the opposite. It is, consequently, the space of ethical challenge for the norm.

https://doi.org/10.14746/p.2017.21.13944
PDF (Język Polski)

References

Aldea, Eva. Magical realism and Deleuze: the indiscernibility of difference in Colonial literature. London and New York: Continuum, 2011.

Dziewczyna z szafy. Reż. Bodo Kox. Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Piotr Głowacki, Magdalena Różańska, Eryk Lubos. Canal+ PISF WFDiF, 2012. DVD 2013.

Faris, Wendy B. Ordinary enchantments: magical realism and the remystification of narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004.

Huggan, Graham. The Postcolonial Exotic. Marketing the Margins. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.

Jameson, Frederic. „Magic realism in film”. Critical Inquiry 12 (Winter 1986). S. 301–325.

Kołodziejczyk, Dorota. „Poza metaforą – autyzm jako impas hermeneutyczny w powieści postkolonialnej”. Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka, 30 (2017). S. 141–167. DOI: 10.14746/pspsl.2017.30.7.

Marcus, Laura. “Cinematic Realism: ‘A recreation of the world in its own image’.” Adventures in Realism. Red. M. Beaumont. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. S. 177–192.

Mitchell David T., Snyder Sharon L. Narrative prosthesis: disability and the dependencies of discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

Murray, Stuart. Representing autism: culture, narrative, fascination. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008.

„PO: zmiany w ordynacji wyborczej to zamach na godność osób niepełnosprawnych”. PAP 23.11.2017. WEB http://www.niepelnosprawni.pl/ledge/x/631934;jsessionid=4BCF0A05FB57E0466E8480232F32AFC1

Prendergast, Catherine et al. “On the Rhetorics of Mental Disability.” Embodied rhetorics: disability in language and culture. Red. J. Wilson, S. Lewiecki-Wilson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001. S. 45–60.

Price, Margaret. “«Her Pronouns Wax and Wane»: Psychosocial Disability, Autobiography, and Counter-Diagnosis”. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, vol. 3, no. 1 (2009). S. 11–33. DOI:10.1353/jlc.0.0010.

Quayson, Ato. Aesthetic nervousness: disability and the crisis of representation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Różański, Mateusz. „ZUS i PFRON łączą siły. Szykują wielkie zmiany. Kto na tym skorzysta?”. WEB (VIII 2017). http://www.niepelnosprawni.pl/ledge/x/563994

Searle, John R. Intentionality, an essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Slemon, Stephen. “Magic Realism as Postcolonial Discourse”. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Red. L.P. Zamora, L., W.B. Faris. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. S. 407–426.

Smela, Dorota. „«Dziewczyna z szafy» – polski film, jakiego nie było. Warto?”. Filmtok. WEB www.filmtok.pl/Dziewczyna-z-szafy-polski-film-jakiego-nie-bylo-Warto-RECENZJA-a36897.

Taylor, Charles. “The Politics of Recognition”. Multiculturalism. Examining the Politics of Recognition. Red. A. Gutman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. S. 25–73.

Thiher, Allen. Revels in madness: insanity in medicine and literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.

Zakin, Emily. “Psychoanalytic Feminism”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition). Red. Edward N. Zalta. WEB https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/feminism-psychoanalysis/