It’s Scary to Realizing Limitations:
Despite Jace’s projections of his internal ableism on people during a fire drill, when Jace is struggling, John (a jock he previously antagonized) guides him out of school during a fire drill after he has lost his cane and begs for help.
It is emotional because it shows how his disability affects everyday tasks. This demonstrates Jace’s need for support, whether he wants it or not. He is not the visually impaired superhuman. He is a typical flawed, stubborn teenager.
Impacts of assuming you’re getting special treatment
The internal ableism Jace is projecting onto wrestling culminates after Jace angrily insists he’s not a “charity case” and shouldn’t be kept around for the “freak factor” on the team. The coach says,
“Now you listen, and you listen good. If you wanna think of yourself as a freak, go ahead.
What I see is a kid who’s worked his tail off and earned his spot.”
Next, the coach confronts Jace’s projection that he is treated “special” because of his disability. He lacks faith in other people to believe he is like everyone else. Again a projection of himself. That characterization is subtle and pleasing.
Good representations has it’s flaws
Jace’s character moves quickly from stubborn and self-centered to sensitive and romantic toward Mary Beth.
No film about a blind person is complete without a face-touching scene.
This sudden romance is unexpected, given how much of a jerk Jace is to everyone.
“Authors go so far as to convert the sense of touch into that of sight, for the blind stripling has “fingers” that “must almost see” (Joyce, 1922/1998, p. 173).
This fixation on the sense of touch leads to the stereotype of touching faces. Audio descriptions of people are more useful and only sometimes necessary.
The touching of faces trope depends on sighted people’s want to fulfill the sense they would be missing and accustomed to.
Disabled people are not categories
Disabled people adapt to their circumstances individually and cannot be so easily categorized. There is a scene where John reveals wrestling is “all his identity.” Unlike Jace, he doesn’t “have music.” This reminds the audience that
Jace joined the wrestling team to be like everyone else, not because he is passionate about it.
He could pursue a musical passion that coincided with a stereotype or “fit in.” By becoming a jock. He chooses the latter, which reinforces his belief he’s not like other blind people. Comparing the stereotypes of visually impaired people to reality,
Bolt concludes, “People with Impaired Vision are no better than the overtly negative formation,
for either way an object position is being defined,
the subject position is necessarily held by someone with unimpaired vision.
Indeed, beneficial blindness only benefits prejudiced people who wish to maintain the binary logic of ‘the blind’ and ‘the sighted,’ them and us.” (Bolt, 27)
Sources
Bolt, D. (2006). Beneficial Blindness: Literary Representation and the So-Called Positive Stereotyping of People with Impaired Vision. Journal of Disability Studies, (12), 1-31. https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/library/bolt-Beneficial-Blindness.pdf
Joyce, J. (1998). Ulysses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1922)