On the Evelyn Evelyn story. (Warning: Long-ass post.)

Today, part two. I ramble a bit, so I tried to separate it into bits that make sense.

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Hm. Shit's going down.

For anyone who isn't familiar with Evelyn Evelyn, it's a performance act put on by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley, in which they dress up as conjoined twins and play music. For anyone with eyes and ears and access to Youtube or Myspace, it should have been fairly obvious from the start that it's the two of them, and not a real set of conjoined twins. When I first saw them I found it silly and fantastic and weird. I still do. I love them both. But apparently people are getting really defensive about the whole thing, after AFP wrote this blog post, a fictional biography of the Neville twins.

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At the risk of sounding un-PC, I think the Disabled Feminists blog post is an overreaction. In fact, I think most of their comments are overreactions. The way they use the term 'abled people' leaves a bad taste in the mouth. While reading through them, I actually found..a lot of glossed-over hatred. This is why I'm not a fan of '-ists'. Everyone in the world thinks he or she or zhe is mistreated. So everyone in the world thinks that he or she or zhe deserves equal treatment. So everyone in the world ends up, inevitably, in the mindset of the persecuted and the downtrodden and, as in the mindset of the persecuted and the downtrodden, adopts a self-righteous and self-justifying anger. I have it. So do you. Don't deny it.

(When people are angry, they make up shit like this: "Palmer and Webley dress up as the twins to perform on stage, co-operating to play accordion, ukelele, and sing. They can barely restrain their sniggers while they interview about this oh-so-hilarious and edgy topic. ...Why do they snigger and smirk as they talk about “the twins” and their tragic tale? They do this – you do this – because you do see these bodies as Other. Fascinating, bizarre, freakish. Fodder." To clarify, I agree that 'disabled' shouldn't be considered offensive, especially by people who aren't. But this whole sniggering smirking shit? I wonder if the FWD poster has actually witnessed this. I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen.)

People are people. I don't care if you don't have legs, I don't care if you're albino, I don't care if you're a fucken WASP or something, I don't care if you happen to only like walking backwards, I don't care if you have a thick accent, I don't care if you're really short. Personality is not about the physical. It may be affected by it, but it shouldn't be overpowered by it. I've always had a problem with my appearance, but it only changes the way I act when I'm around people who would treat me differently because of it. My weight, my face, whatever. (It's not like I hate skinny people. Just skinny bitches. And, you know, other kinds of bitches, too.)

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I think the Evelyn Evelyn act is fun and sweet. It has a Twitter account, too, which AFP uses to talk to herself. The characters of the twins are charming. And I don't think that the story is about 'how the brave sane Abled People saved the weird little cripples and brought their music to the world' (in the comments). I don't think it's just AFP trying to be 'edgy'. It's about love and art and discovery and sadness. I agree with this, from a post on the Shadowbox forum, quoted in Amanda's second blog on the subject: "But I also think art making people uncomfortable is all right. Also freedom of expression and everything, it’s not like Amanda and Jason are physically exploiting disability or even making a joke at it’s expense; the entertainment comes from way people’s imaginations are captured, the mystery and the confusion."

People write novels about all sorts of controversial topics. Why can't people make art? I find it very interesting that people are getting squeamish over the idea of child porn. (For clarification, part of the backstory of the Evelyns is that at one point, they were in pornography. Just another part of their fabricated tragic past, which also includes a spot in a circus freak show.) It's illegal. It's widely considered a bad thing. But it exists. It's not as if the Evelyn Evelyn story is promoting it; far from. AFP fans loudly defended her over the Oasis controversy in the UK. The song mentions rape and abortion, and they rushed to back her when the song was banned from the air. Though it shouldn't make a difference, she has both been a victim of rape and had an abortion. Does this mean, since she hasn't been in child porn, and isn't a conjoined twin, that she and Jason Webley shouldn't be allowed to continue the project? I say no. Censorship is gross.

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(Here's a collection of mostly angry linkspam.)

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About the twins again: Even if they were real people, their story isn't about bringing in a bunch of people to stare at the oddities. It's about the oddities overcoming their unsavory, shared past, and learning to embrace a future in the sun. This could be a story for anyone. It could be about a painter who was lifted out of a crippling depression by friends, or a writer who grew up in an abusive household and now writes about love. It just happens that this one's about conjoined twins.

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Some comments on her second blog post that mostly reflect my opinions:

Do you believe no fictional characters that are abuse survivors or disabled should be created except by artists who are themselves disabled abuse survivors -- because anyone else who does so is not OWNing their "privilege"?
For that matter ... do you believe no disabled artists should be allowed to create and give voice to characters that are able-bodied?

The more I read, the more I see "you don't have the right to do speak, and if you speak anyway, we will find something in your speech to attack you for, and if you then apologize, we will say sorry doesn't make it better, and if you STILL keep speaking, we will lather, rinse and repeat until you shut up and go away and leave us alone with our pain that you are not qualified to understand."

Amanda made no attempt to "raise issues"; she didn't do this to make lofty commentary on the issues facing the disabled in society, she wanted to tell a story about two young women who overcame a sordid past to succeed.

To say that Evelyn Evelyn are "supercrips," or reinforce stereotypes that the disabled are helpless until they are "discovered" by able-bodied people (both of which the disabled feminists writeup contended), simply does not hold up to any rational inspection. *ALL* artists, ablebodied or no, have artistic mentors who lift them up and make them capable of creating more than they ever could alone. And frankly, for the disabled community to assume that fictional conjoined twins with 3 legs who have found their voice through art are intended to represent them misses the point entirely -- they speak to all misfits, all who are silent and afraid, all who have been misteated and misused and have had their egos thrashed and stifled. Not everyone's disabilities are visible, you know. There are plenty of broken, shattered people with complete command of their limbs and senses. So, yes ... I do discount the reaction as hysterical.

Evelyn Evelyn is clearly not just another gothic macabre cripple cliche. Its a sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of an archetype that is part of our culture's long history. I don't see that it promotes any negative ideas about disabled people. It is dealing with cultural history, this involves discussing and exploring controversies that already exist not denying their existence.

I agree that having a disability does not make someone a misfit. That is exactly why I don't understand why someone who is disabled but not a misfit would decide that EE, the ultimate misfits, are linked to a history of problematic representation for disabled people. I am an ablebodied misfit, and I do see them representing me. For which I am grateful. I dig misfit art, and find it empowering. ... Let's face it -- anyone who is not a three-legged conjoined twin who was raised in the circus has only a symbolic, metaphorical relationship to these fictional characters. Someone who has had an injury or was born with one or more physical limitations but who is otherwise emotionally, mentally and spiritually complete and socially well-adjusted and at ease has only the tiniest commonality with EE as a basis to personalize the story and take offense to it. ... There is more in EE to relate to than the physical.

Evelyn and Evelyn are shy in a way which is effectively a disability, especially in the music industry.

It is *your responsibility* if you're offended by a work of fiction. Straight out. It's not her responsibility, as she said directly, to coddle you or to try to pat you on the head and tell you it'll be ok. It's her job to continue to put out art. Art, by nature, is inflammatory. It's supposed to provoke. Apparently, it worked. ... A lot of this "ableism" business mystifies me. So the problem is what, that someone wrote a story about disabled people, while not being disabled? Or is it that the story involved cliches? Like, the disabled person possessing a skill and becoming world famous for it? Oh, but no, they had to be helped by an abled person, because nobody ever gets famous by being discovered, everyone just magically sells records. ... I read that disabled feminists article. It was self promotion, overreaction, and political correctness run crazy. It's someone crying foul because someone else created a fictional disabled person, and didn't turn them into a twilight-style glistening paragon of goodly virtue and power. I don't know about you, but twilight bored the hell out of me. This record would suck if it were "and they're conjoined, and came from a great life, and became famous, the end". Struggle creates art. Breeds creativity. *reaction in section below

But tell me one "able bodied" person who hasn't got help in life by another person?
And tell me about one "dis abled" (prefer situation challanged ;) ) person who has not asked for help, at at least one time.
Show me those two and you will have liars. This by a disabled woman. So this comment should be 'valid' in the eyes of those who say that only the disabled are authorized to react to the situation.

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Comments for the other side of the discussion:

The power of belief is mighty, but that doesn't mean it can actually *change reality*. IMO, lying to your fanbase is a pretty shitty thing to do. Well, I find this interesting. Fiction is lies. When Amanda talks about the twins, she assumes a persona almost exactly like her own, with one exception: She knows, co-manages, co-produces, and assists the Evelyn twins in their musical career. If, instead of adopting the Evelyn disguise, AFP and Jason Webley were to write a book, would they garner the same reaction? I don't view the Evelyns as a lie. Are Gorillaz fans angry with the creators for pretending to be animated primates?

I do not object to "Evelyn Evelyn" because of my feelings about it. I object to it because the disabled community, who has the sole right to decide whether an artist's portrayal of the disabled is acceptable, objects to it. Does every single disabled person object? No. But many do, and so I take my cue from them. I don't see anyone rushing to the defense when the players of games such as World of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons are portrayed as fat, pale recluses or snorting, freakish, socially retarded geeks. (I'm a fat, mildly tannish recluse, thank you very much.) Also, 'the disable community' whose voice is being heard is only the group of disabled bloggers who have chosen to speak out against the Evelyn project. And the response: "That's how mobs get started. (Gee, I don't want to burn this witch necessarily, but the majority of this mob does, so LET'S BURN HER!" It MUST be the right thing to do!)"

You, as an able-bodied person, DO NOT and CAN NOT fully understand the reality that a disabled person live in and therefor you do not get to decide what is and isn't offensive IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE. ... It has to do with you not being fully aware of how it is to live as a disabled person in our society.

* reaction to comment in previous section Spoken like a true abled person. The whole point, and problem, of this debacle is that disabled twins ARE being displayed as shiny and interesting and fantastical. It is a fetishization of what disabled people actually go through. I know I would not want to be represented as a twilight style glittering paragon of virtue. If you'd pay attention for five seconds and even attempt to step outside of your own privilege, you would understand that the problem is that disabled people are being used to glam up a story -- not that the disabled people therein aren't glammed up enough. We aren't plot devices to be used at whim. Hm. Maybe Harry Potter shouldn't have been orphaned, because that was certainly a plot device. I find this 'you guys are privileged and don't understand' thing really absurdly interesting. Any group of people can say this about anything, really. A reply: "Everything in life is a plot device. If we were to try and write art and stories without using anything that really happens in life 1-what would it be about? 2-would anyone get it? ... All art has to reflect on real life for it to make sense, for it to have context, for people to understand it, get involved with it and make an emotional connection with it. ... You are in fact marginalising yourself if you say to someone, well, you can write art about anything you want, as long as it's not this group of people."

What certain people responding to Evelyn Evelyn are saying is that, when disabled people are going to be depicted, they would prefer it to be in a sensitive light; they believe this is not an instance of that. They would prefer it to be in a light that understands the disabled perspective; they believe this is not an instance of that. ... They are reacting against marginalisation. Evelyn Evelyn is, literally, a musical freakshow. The disabled community who is reacting negatively is ASSERTING itself, arguing that it is NOT a freakshow – that is the opposite of self-marginalisation. That is self-assertion. One could say that the act itself is a reaction to the concept and historical value of the freakshow. Obviously, they're not parading, say, people in wheelchairs, or blind people, around stage. They are turning themselves into a fantastic example of a circus freak, and giving the characters a story that turns them into more than a two-dimensional caricature. Amanda and Jason are both freaks of the music world, after all; have you ever heard their music? They're both crazy (and crazy-wonderful), and Amanda especially is controversial as fuck.

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And this from Miss Amanda herself, something I think sums up her career as a whole, and the reason I love her so:

"as far as people hurling the criticism that i am “hiding behind my art”….(this one has come up several times)

here’s what i consider hiding: producing inoffensive, corporate-penned, vanilla-bean love-story family-friendly made-for-mainstream-radio music that won’t offend a single person. and won’t make anybody laugh, won’t make anybody think, won’t make anybody wonder, won’t make anybody talk, and won’t change anybody’s life.

THAT, my friends, is hiding behind art."

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I don't know why I wrote this. It's so long. I guess I just have to throw my opinions out into the void, like I do. Last long-ass opinion post was about the Kevin Smith Southwest thing, I think..

I am fascinated by the discussions going on in the comments on AFP's blog. Both sides have well-articulated arguments, whether or not I agree with them, and I wish I could keep reading. But it's three in the morning, and I have to get up at seven, so I don't think I will. Maybe tomorrow. Bedtime story, bedtime blog?

I wonder if anyone read this.

Good night, again.

Olivia