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.

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.

Rehashing the drama involving Sarah Palin and “Family Guy”, Dave Itzkoff writes on the front page of the New York Times that the show is “probably the last program that anyone expected to serve as a catalyst for a continuing fight about the depiction of disabled people on television, and whether they are fair game to participate in and be the subjects of satire.” An excerpt:

Gail Williamson, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles, which, among other services, assists films and television series in casting actors with the disability, and helped [Andrea] Friedman get hired by “Family Guy,” said it did not matter whether she thought the episode was funny.

“Within ‘Family Guy,’ the character was fully included, well-rounded, dynamic, not dealing with stereotypical Down syndrome issues,” Ms. Williamson said. She added: “Am I a fan of that kind of humor? Eh. It’s beside the point.”

“If we’re asking for full inclusion in the schools and full inclusion in the world,” she said, “ we should appreciate full inclusion with other genres. Even if those genres are not what we appreciate.”

From Entertainment Weekly: “Family Guy” producer Seth MacFarlane tells Bill Maher that Sarah Palin wanted to “inspire phony pity” for people with Down syndrome.

Video update: Interview with Andrea Fay Friedman ‘The Insider” is here. From the Washington Post account:

“Sarah, I know you’re watching this. … A lot of people have teased me because I have Down syndrome. … [It's] a challenge, not a disability.”

Citing Trig’s having Down syndrome, Friedman appeals to Palin: “Don’t take advantage of that. He has a normal life. I have a normal life.” She goes on to say she’s angry because she believes Palin is using Trig to gain votes.

Related posts.

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”)

In an interview with the New York Post’s Page Six Magazine, comedian Sarah Silverman talks about her life, her program on Comedy Central, and her comic view of disability. An excerpt:

In one new episode, Sarah realizes she’s “retarded,” a plotline that, like most others on the show, will surely incense her critics. With regard to riling people up, Sarah shrugs. “I love retarded people,” she says. “A lot of the time, networks resist dealing with retardation at all in television, and I think it’s so much more insulting to not have them be a part of the world we’re reflecting than to risk offending not them, but advocates of them. They [people who are mentally challenged] are not offended.”

Earlier posts here.

Says she’s advocating on behalf of ’special needs community’

From the New York Daily News, CBS Political Hotsheet blog. Video at Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor.”

During an appearance on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday, Sarah Palin renewed her demand that President Obama replace White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel for calling a group of liberals “F-ing retards.”

Calling herself a champion of the “special needs community,” Palin also attacked the “cruel, cold-hearted” writers of a Fox animated show that lampooned a character with Down syndrome, but defended conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s repeated use of the word “retard” as “satire.”

An excerpt:

“When I gave my vice presidential nomination speech at the GOP convention, I promised the special needs community that they would have a friend and an advocate in the White House,” she said. “And just because John McCain and I did not win, that did not take away my passion for helping those who want to reach out and ask me to do what I can to allow this country, this world to be more welcoming place for all innocent people, all special needs children. I am going to keep pursuing that in our country until we are a more tolerant, compassionate, welcoming place for the innocents.”

Full transcript here.

Ellen Seidman, writing at Huffingtonpost.com, says Sarah Palin’s criticism a recent episode of ‘Family Guy’ is “completely misguided.” Seidman, whose son has cerebral palsy, says she applauds what she views as the show’s message — that people with disabilities are people just like everyone else. An excerpt:

I work so hard to spread that message every single day of my son’s life. It is an endless, Sisyphean labor of love. To be sure, I would not enjoy it if someone called Max an asshole, but hey, at least they’d be engaging with him instead of just gaping. At least they’d be treating him like a typical person instead of like a freak show.

Sarah, the genius of this episode is that it made a girl with Down syndrome seem like just another feisty teenager with ‘tude. It also gave people in this country a way to get the conversation going about people with disabilities.

… Really, you should be grateful to “The Family Guy” — for tackling a taboo topic with relatable humor and smarts; for holding a funhouse mirror up to the public so they can recognize their shortcomings in their dealings with people who are handicapped; and for being real.