Noun
A disabled person, particularly an athlete, who achieves exceptional success or accomplishments, whom others view as inspirational.
- Examples
-
Roosevelt was the quintessential American "supercrip," to use a term coined by disability activists.
The athletes also believe that the supercrip model is good for the able-bodied public because it shows disabled individuals in a "positive" light.
More examples (2)
In other words, there is the remarkably healthy inspirational and independent supercrip that I became at the height of my Paralympic career, and then there is the sickly, dependent, revolting gimp that I became as I transitioned to using tools like oxygen, a backrest, and attendant care.
I thought about supercrips. Some of us—the boy who bats .486, the man who through-hikes the A.T.—accomplish something truly extraordinary and become supercrips. Others of us—the teenager with Down syndrome who has a boyfriend, the kid with CP who runs track and cross-country—Iead entirely ordinary lives and still become supercrips. Nothing about having a boyfriend or running cross-country is particularly noteworthy. Bat .486 or have a boyfriend, it doesn't matter; either way we are astonishing. In the creation of supercrip stories, nondisabled people don't celebrate any particular achievement, however extraordinary or mundane. Rather, these stories rely upon the perception that disability and achievement contradict each other and that any disabled person who overcomes this contradiction is heroic.
A disabled fictional character with extraordinary abilities or superpowers.
- Examples
-
More examples (3)
Yet because of the history and proliferation of the supercrip in films in television shows – not only with autism but supercrips with other disabilities as well – viewers are primed for the supercrip autistic and are therefore not expecting (in some ways) a view of autism that comes across to many in the autism community as more realistic or honest.
Another potential siting of disability masquerade connecting the superhero and 'supercrip' is M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (2000), which establishes a kind of disability continuum between the villain Elijah Price/Mr Glass, who lives with osteogenesis imperfecta, and the hero David Dunn, who is seemingly impervious to physical harm.
As I have argued throughout this book, the supercrip model represented by a sword-fighting blind masseur or a shoot-from-the-hip, deaf gangster is very entertaining but does little to advocate the critical needs of this particular minority group.