Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg says the word “retarded” may have started out as a clinical term, but it has been twisted into a taunt over the past half century and should be put to rest.

Were developmentally disabled people secure in the mainstream alongside the Irish and accountants, we could happily debate the cultural desirability of mocking them. But given that recognizing their full humanity is a fairly recent development, it seems that we should at least acknowledge that ridicule, though funny in entertainment, is destructive on a personal level.

…In 1953, Dale Evans, wife of cowboy star Roy Rogers, penned a book, Angel Unaware, about their daughter Robin, who was born with Down syndrome. Doctors told her to have Robin institutionalized. Instead Evans, inspired by her deep Christian faith, posed the little girl in family publicity photos. The book sold 400,000 copies in the mid-1950s, and parents who otherwise never let their children out of the house felt comfortable bringing them to Roy Rogers rodeos, because of his wife’s book.

They felt safe there.

I believe that any person with a heart, facing this complex issue, would rather err on the side of those children, would want them, not merely to get out of the house to see a cowboy show, but to also go to school with other kids and work at a job, if they could, still safe and accepted, without their lives being made a hell by would-be wits looking for someone to abuse.

Lennard Davis, writing at Huffingtonpost.com about the flap over “Family Guy,” says Sarah Palin misrepresented the show’s meaning in an effort to “attack the left in any form.” Far from being a slight on people with disabilities, Davis said, the episode “serves to show us that we can’t and shouldn’t underestimate people with Down syndrome.” An excerpt:

Tellingly, she didn’t mind Rush Limbaugh use the R-word, saying is was just “satire.” Satire? What is Family Guy? Greek tragedy?

The moral of this story isn’t that Family Guy is an insensitive show; it’s that Palin is using Trig as a hostage to shield her from the shoot-out of the last election. With Trig in tow she’s not the incompetent former governor of Alaska or the incendiary anti-wonk, she is simply the good Mom protecting her child and all people with disabilities.

If Palin really cared about people with disabilities, she would be supporting health care legislation and stronger enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But then that would be more of that “hopey changey” stuff she ridicules.

Lennard Davis is professor of English, disability studies, and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

(Photo from www.lennarddavis.com)

Writing on CNN.com, San Diego Union editorial board member Ruben Navarrette Jr. says the ‘Family Guy’ dig at Sarah Palin was just about as funny as “showing President Clinton, one of their icons, having a heart attack.” It’s not funny, he said, because Trig Palin “already has a hard life in store — filled with intolerance, prejudice and limitations imposed by others.”

An excerpt:

Wanna take Palin down a peg? Fine. But don’t use her child to do it — especially this child.

Mia Navarro, writing at Politicsdaily.com, salutes actress Andrea Fay Friedman for responding to Sarah Palin’s attack on Fox’s “Family Guy.” Friedman voiced the character of Ellen, a teenager who has Down syndrome (as Friedman does herself.) An excerpt:

The thing is, in the broader context, Ellen represents a tremendous step forward in Hollywood. For too long, the public image of people with disabilities in this country has hinged on the heroic or the tragic … Members of the disabled population don’t want to be defined by their disability, just like so many other minorities don’t want to be defined only by, say, race or sexual orientation.

… Friedman told the Times she was raised by her parents “to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.”

“I was doing my role,” she insisted. “I’m an actor.”

I think it’s safe to say she’s a role model too.

Earlier posts here.

“Family Guy” actress Andrea Fay Friedman is interviewed on ABC Good Morning America about her dustup with Sarah Palin.

“Sarah Palin didn’t even get the joke,” Friedman told ABC News.”It would be nice if she did have a sense of humor … Come on Sarah, laugh a little.”

The actress’s mother, Marjorie Friedman, says the “Family Guy” episode was inspirational to other people with Down syndrome because it portrayed them as “everyday teens.”

“She was feisty, she was aggressive, she was mean. It was a real acting job.”

On CNN, talk show host Leslie Marshall says the “Family Guy” controversy has been a “win-win” for both Sarah Palin and Seth MacFarlane, the show’s producer, because it “ups her popularity and the show’s popularity.” Entertainment reporter Tanika Ray says MacFarlane’s goal is to stir up controversy. “He thinks: if Sarah Palin’s responding, he did his job.”

Blogging at the Baltimore Sun, critic David Zurawik says he supports the free speech rights of Bill Maher and Seth MacFarlane, but thinks they are “bullying” people with disabilities.

…there is a larger point to these two remarks this week: I think they are emblematic of how toxic and nasty our public discourse has become.

Reading some of the comments in reaction to my post from people who found the “Family Guy” joke funny, I was struck by just how far we have fallen as a society in our anger and need to feel superior to someone else.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper says Sarah Palin needs to acknowledge that the “Family Guy” episode was satire — unlike Rush Limbaugh’s “retard” reference.

And there’s coverage of Andrea Fay Friedman’s response to Palin at the New York Daily News, USA Today, CBS, Village Voice and elsewhere.

In a piece by Dave Itzkoff in the New York Times’ Artsbeat blog, actress Andrea Fay Friedman chides Sarah Palin for criticizing the recent episode of “Family Guy” on which she worked.

“I guess former governor Palin does not have a sense of humor,” said Friedman in an email to the newspaper. Friedman, 39, has Down syndrome, as did the animated character she voiced. “I thought the line ‘I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska’ was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm,” she wrote.

Palin has said that the show “really isn’t funny,” and was the work of “cruel, cold-hearted people.”

Excerpts from Itzkoff’s interview with Friedman:

Q. When you get asked to play characters who have Down syndrome, does that make you at all uncomfortable?

A. No, I’m proud of it. I’m not embarrassed. But mostly, it doesn’t matter if you have Down syndrome. Really, it just matters to have a different challenge.

Q. Do you agree with what [Palin] and her daughter Bristol were saying, that the character and the jokes were insulting to people with Down syndrome?

A. It’s not really an insult. I was doing my role, I’m an actor. I’m entitled to say something. It was really funny. I was laughing at it. I had a nice time doing voiceover. It was my first time doing a voiceover, and I had fun.

Earlier posts here.

(Photo from New York Times; animated screen capture from “Family Guy”)