Disfigured

On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

by Amanda Leduc

paperback, 160 pages

Published March 3, 2020 by Coach House Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-55245-395-7

(5 reviews)

"Challenges the ableism of fairy tales and offers new ways to celebrate the magic of all bodies. In fairy tales, happy endings are the norm – as long as you’re beautiful and walk on two legs. After all, the ogre never gets the princess. And since fairy tales are the foundational myths of our culture, how can a girl with a disability ever think she’ll have a happy ending?By examining the ways that fairy tales have shaped our expectations of disability, Disfigured will point the way toward a new world where disability is no longer a punishment or impediment but operates, instead, as a way of centering a protagonist and helping them to cement their own place in a story, and from there, the world. Through the book, Leduc ruminates on the connections we make between fairy tale archetypes – the beautiful princess, the glass slipper, the maiden with long hair lost in the tower – and tries to make sense of them through a twenty-first-century disablist lens. From examinations of disability in tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen through to modern interpretations ranging from Disney to Angela Carter, and the fight for disabled representation in today’s media, Leduc connects the fight for disability justice to the growth of modern, magical stories, and argues for increased awareness and acceptance of that which is other – helping us to see and celebrate the magic inherent in different bodies. "

(from the author's website

2 editions

Erin reviewed Disfigured by Amanda Leduc

Review of 'Disfigured' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Great message here. Accessible style but still challenging content. The use of disability in fairy tale is so common and so clear, it's easy to see the need to talk about it. Leduc doesn't mention horror, but I immediately thought that horror's use of disability needs to be addressed as well.

Leduc doesn't discuss it explicitly too much, but I thought the way that disability does not fit into the Protestant ethic or the American Dream was interesting to mull over. The way that our stories reward or punish folks with disabilities in accordance with that ethic has no connection to reality.

Unfortunately, this book suffered from what oh-so-many nonfiction books I read suffer from - structural mayhem. ;) Why are the chapters split the way they are? What's the progression of the argument? What are we doing with the personal information interspersed throughout? Who knows. I wish each chapter had a clearer main point that was different from the other chapters. And I wish the personal information (which was engaging and moving) was more clearly sectioned off from the information about fairy tales and disability in general. That would have gone a long way toward improving the reading experience for me.

I wanted more clarity and organization. I also wanted more of a framework presented. I'm left a little dissatisfied, but I'm glad I read it.