Acceptance of one disabled person doesn’t exclude the person from ableist beliefs.
In Finding Nemo, Dory serves a purpose for Marlin.
“The inclusiveness of Marlin and Dory’s relationship throughout the entire film
is one that the majority of viewers come to adore.” (Draman, 2)
In Finding Dory, Marlin transitions from accepting to valuing Dory’s differences. Finding Dory is about Dory finding her parents and herself.
She learns through this film to be proud of who she is. Early in the quest for Dory’s parents, Nemo gets hurt. This immediately brings out Marlin’s parental instincts to protect Nemo.
He lashes out at Dory when she wants to help and feels sorry for putting Nemo in danger.
Marlin says, “Go wait over there and forget it’s what you do best.”
Marlin is still a father. His reaction after Nemo gets hurt in line with his character. The problem is the way he said it. It is a comment on her short-term memory loss being a problem Marlin is annoyed with.
From the film’s start, Dory’s repetitive questions cause Marlin to express how tired he is of it. Because snapping at Dory made sense in the context, the audience could assume Marlin is right to be annoyed at Dory’s mental differences, which is ableist.
When Nemo and Marlin are in trouble, they ask, “What would Dory do?” because Nemo sees the value of Dory’s determination and problem-solving. Marlin is more open to what Nemo says because of the first film’s character growth. The dynamic mimics
The reality of physical disabilities being taken more seriously than mental differences.
As a result, Nemo has increasing empathy for Dory. Nemo reminds Marlin that he pushed Dory away by saying she should go and wait to forget.
“Marlin tries to shift responsibility for making an ableist remark. The audience can see the consequences of prejudice,
how hurtful it can be to those with disabilities, but the audience, as well as Marlin, might still see his remark as factually correct.
A general audience might see this as evidence that Dory really is best at forgetting.“ (Klinowski 54)
The audience might also see Nemo’s perspective as a member of the disabled community. He argues that Marlin pushed Dory away in a condescending way.
Disabled people don’t serve a purpose to anyone. They have valuable contributions beyond disability inspiration or courage.
Nemo knows that and has grown from the first film to be confident and an advocate.
Where Marlin’s statement:
“Look if I said that—and I’m not positive that I did— it’s actually a compliment because I asked her to wait, and I said it’s what you do best…,”
but he then admits that it was an inappropriate, hurtful comment to make (Finding Dory 00:25:17-00:25:26).“ (Klinowski 53)
became problematic using a disability as evidence to say a person is good or bad at something reduces their identity and worth to one aspect.
Sources
Draman, Alexa. “Swimming for Inclusion.” The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research 17 (2016): -. Web. https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1166&context=ur
Klinowski, Stacie, “Finding Nemo, Findng Dory, Finding Ourselves: How and Why We Teach Our Children to Think About Disability” (2018). English. 25. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_eng/25