This blog is created by students from Clemson University's spring 2009 course Women's Studies 459 - "Building Bodies: Women's Bodies in Theory and Practice." This class explores the construction of bodies from various methodological perspectives, focusing on five specific areas: theories of bodies; bodies and genders and sexes; “misbehaving” bodies; politics of bodies; and constructing bodies. We welcome comments and contributions to our posts and discussions.

28 April 2009

House

I watched an episode of House last night and it tied together a lot of things that we have discussed in class dealing with disability and parents span of control over making decisions for their children.

In the episode a deaf teenager experiences explosions in his head so he is taking into the hospital. They test him for many different diseases and one of the procedures involves brain surgery. While the teen is under the knife House calls for the doctor to put in a cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is a device that allows a deaf person to hear. When he wakes up he is shocked and extremely upset that he can hear. He doesn't want to hear because he has embraced being deaf and the lifestyle that goes along with it. He even attends an all deaf school and has a girl that attends the same school. The mother is also upset because she did not consent of the surgery, but she asks her son to give it a try. Well the boy is so upset that he rips the implant out of his own head, very gross. After this they end up curing whatever the boy had and the last scene is the mom telling her son that she is going to have the cochlear implant put back in. She wants her son to really give it a try, it takes awhile to really get comfortable with the implant and integrate into a hearing society. When the son asks her "why?" she responds by saying something along the lines of "because I am your mother and I am in charge of making those decisions.

Anyway it was a good episode, and as you can see from my synopsis, really deals with issues we have been discussing. Something else that is a topic in the episode is electing to be disable, which is what the son was trying to do to himself.
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3 comments:

  1. CaitlinWednesday, April 29, 2009 6:33:00 PM

    How old was the boy. I have red before that the legal age to consent to a medical procedure is 13, this being said if the boy really didn't want to implant in he could legally say no and get his way. I think in broader terms everyone knows what is best for their body. I feel like an implant such as this one, could be added at any time of life should he decide to go forward with it. It would be different if he was donating a kidney, or making a choice that was irreversible...

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  2. Marie on CampusThursday, April 30, 2009 4:17:00 AM

    It seems kind of odd that a person would not want to hear? But I guess if you never experienced it before it is not something that you would miss or necessarily want. I think because he did attend a deaf school, that probably affected his attitude. I know I would be upset if I had to change schools because I no longer deaf. Or would he still attend the same school? It might be a bit scary to one day hear sounds when you have never heard anything before. Overall, I would think that hearing is a sense that most people take for granted, and there are those who will never get to hear that want to hear. It sucks that he did not have a say in the situation, but what is wrong with trying something out, especially if it could benefit you.

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  3. akbFriday, May 01, 2009 10:11:00 PM

    There is a huge movement for preserving the Deaf community, and many in this group hold the belief that being deaf is not a disability, but simply a difference in human experience. Perhaps an equivalent analogy for the experience of the son in the House episode would be if you, as an American, were forced to instead become (let's say, since we've discussed the culture a small bit) Iranian, and told you had to do this because as an American you were deficient as a human being. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with being Iranian, nor would we say with being American -- but being forced to change against your will would be an incredibly disturbing experience, and one we would easily consider as against someone's human rights.

    Just another perspective on the issues...important to remember that disabilities are at least in part social constructions, and not inherently weaknesses or problems that need fixing!

    Here's a link to the National Association of the Deaf, for more info:
    http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=91587

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