Tourette in Popular Media, Entry 0: Unto the Breach, Dear Friends
Hey everyone! I've decided to try a little experiment with my blog. I don't remember how the idea came about, but I thought it would be a fun exercise to go through depictions of Tourette Syndrome in popular media to examine how they've influenced how the average person might perceive TS. While this is a purely academic exercise, it's awfully personal to me and I imagine it is to some of you as well. A person's beliefs about TS and TS patients can profoundly affect those of us who suffer from it, from personal relationships and dating to college admissions and job hunting, not to mention, as I'm discovering, parenting.
I know I have a tendency in my blog posts to ramble, but I want these entries to be accessible, pointed, and relevant. I'm going to do my best to keep these pieces laser(ish)-focused on what effect the media in question might have had on viewers' beliefs about TS. I will surely digress here and there, and I want to leave space to investigate nuance where it's appropriate. Also, I don't want to write book reports. I had enough of that as a student and I'm loathe to relive those fraught days.
I think my main goal in taking this project on is to give us all a better understanding of the silent environment we live in every day. You never know who knows what about our condition. There's such a hodgepodge of different media sources where TS is depicted that you can't be sure who has seen what. Knowing a little more about these sources might arm us to better answer innocent questions from strangers and to explain ourselves (if we feel like it) to friends, family, and employers. My hope is that these entries generate conversation where we, as a community, can devise strategies to better move through a world where the perception of Who We Are has been co-opted by media before we even meet a person.
Over the next five or six-ish entries, I'll be writing about a few different media sources that may have played a part in what people think about Tourette Syndrome. I'll go after low-hanging fruit like South Park and Deuce Bigelow, to be sure. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook version of "Motherless Brooklyn", in which the performer does an excellent job of sounding like a Touretter, both in his speech and in his narration. I'm going to read a couple books and watch a few movies that my Twitter peeps recommended, and I'll also do an entry at the end where I'll aggregate a bunch of talk show segments featuring Touretters. Until I started researching this, I had no idea that Oprah Herself had a Touretter on at least one time.
Finally, I want to offer an apology-in-advance, or a sort of disclaimer. I'm a straight, cisgender, white, Catholic, able-bodied, college-educated, white male. While I'm fully aware of my privilege, I'm not always fully aware of the extent to which it affects how I think about this sort of thing. I will, for instance, confess a certain affection for South Park in Entry 1 when I investigate The South Park Episode. I'm also aware that if Lionel from "Motherless Brooklyn" were a black man and not a white man, the story would play out totally differently. What I'm trying to say is that I'm still learning to be an ally, and I apologize in advance if over the course of the next few entries I write or think the wrong thing. If I do and you notice it, please call me on it. I'll try to adjust my thinking to the best of my ability.
Now, with no more gilding the lily, let's get onto Entry 1: The South Park Episode.
I know I have a tendency in my blog posts to ramble, but I want these entries to be accessible, pointed, and relevant. I'm going to do my best to keep these pieces laser(ish)-focused on what effect the media in question might have had on viewers' beliefs about TS. I will surely digress here and there, and I want to leave space to investigate nuance where it's appropriate. Also, I don't want to write book reports. I had enough of that as a student and I'm loathe to relive those fraught days.
I think my main goal in taking this project on is to give us all a better understanding of the silent environment we live in every day. You never know who knows what about our condition. There's such a hodgepodge of different media sources where TS is depicted that you can't be sure who has seen what. Knowing a little more about these sources might arm us to better answer innocent questions from strangers and to explain ourselves (if we feel like it) to friends, family, and employers. My hope is that these entries generate conversation where we, as a community, can devise strategies to better move through a world where the perception of Who We Are has been co-opted by media before we even meet a person.
Over the next five or six-ish entries, I'll be writing about a few different media sources that may have played a part in what people think about Tourette Syndrome. I'll go after low-hanging fruit like South Park and Deuce Bigelow, to be sure. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook version of "Motherless Brooklyn", in which the performer does an excellent job of sounding like a Touretter, both in his speech and in his narration. I'm going to read a couple books and watch a few movies that my Twitter peeps recommended, and I'll also do an entry at the end where I'll aggregate a bunch of talk show segments featuring Touretters. Until I started researching this, I had no idea that Oprah Herself had a Touretter on at least one time.
Finally, I want to offer an apology-in-advance, or a sort of disclaimer. I'm a straight, cisgender, white, Catholic, able-bodied, college-educated, white male. While I'm fully aware of my privilege, I'm not always fully aware of the extent to which it affects how I think about this sort of thing. I will, for instance, confess a certain affection for South Park in Entry 1 when I investigate The South Park Episode. I'm also aware that if Lionel from "Motherless Brooklyn" were a black man and not a white man, the story would play out totally differently. What I'm trying to say is that I'm still learning to be an ally, and I apologize in advance if over the course of the next few entries I write or think the wrong thing. If I do and you notice it, please call me on it. I'll try to adjust my thinking to the best of my ability.
Now, with no more gilding the lily, let's get onto Entry 1: The South Park Episode.
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