A digital artwork with slices of five images arranged in a fan. From left to right they are: a photograph of a character sheet with blue dice and a green pencil, The International Symbol of Access (a blue background with a white stylized image of a person in a wheelchair), a chaotic pile of dice in many colors and styles, splattered rainbow paints with a black and white drawing of a brain on top, and miniature houses with figurines of people in action poses.
I have a new article up on the Mythcreants blog!
People create monsters that reflect the fears of their society, including fears about disability. Because of this, ableism has been incorporated into our depictions of monsters. In some cases, disability is used to make monsters seem dangerous, unsettling, or unpredictable. Other times, it’s used to give monsters weaknesses that heroes can exploit.
In each case, these depictions spread harmful stereotypes about what it means to be disabled. This is a real shame, because a good monster can add a lot to a story, and ableism detracts from that. So let’s have a conversation about ableist monsters and explore our options for ridding our monsters of ableism.
This is a major expansion of my popular Ableist Monsters article from the Addressing Ableism Series.
I’m really excited to have worked with the folks at Mythcreants on this article! Their multi-stage editing process brought a high level of polish to it. 😀
