Crip Camp &
Bleeding Hearts

PS140O: Projecting Power

Prof Wasow

2025-04-15

Movie poll

bit.ly/pp25film12

Video Essay: Yana Verma, Amelia Monsour, Madeleine Harrison, Erika Pascual

Stoddard on New Zealand’s Promise

“But I was glad for another reason. I am, in addition to being a lawyer and law teacher, a political activist—especially, although not exclusively, on behalf of lesbians and gay men. New Zealand, on paper, seemed like the Promised Land—at least by contrast to my own country.”

Discussion: What is Stoddard’s puzzle of New Zealand vs New York?

Let’s hear from: Liz, Tahira, Praceda, Fabian

Gay Rights: US vs New Zealand

United States (1997)

• Only 9 of 50 states outlaw discrimination
• 22 states criminalize consensual same-sex relations (“sodomy laws”)
• No recognition of gay relationships in any state
• Parental rights jeopardized

New Zealand

• Nationwide anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation
• Military allows openly gay servicemembers
• Abolished “sodomy” criminalization
• Provides residency rights to same-sex partners of citizens

The New Zealand Conundrum

“In flying to Auckland, I was eager to see how such a gay-friendly world—a world unimaginable to gay people living in the United States in 1996—would look and feel. After a few days in Auckland, I had my answer: Auckland in 1996, from the point of view of a gay man, looked and felt very much like a large American city (Washington, D.C., perhaps, or Chicago or Los Angeles) twenty years earlier.”

Questions About Law & Social Change

• When can law change society for the better?
• Are there more successful and less successful ways to make social change?
• Is the law an effective tool for social change?
• What lessons can be learned from public interest lawyers’ attempts to create change?

Goals of Lawmaking

• “Lawmaking has at least five general goals:
• 1. To create new rights and remedies for victims;
• 2. To alter the conduct of the government;
• 3. To alter the conduct of citizens and private entities;
• 4. To express a new moral ideal or standard; and
• 5. To change cultural attitudes and patterns.”

Rule-Shifting vs. Culture-Shifting

• “The first three goals comprise the traditional role of the law in expressing the formal rulemaking function for a society. The law sets and alters rules; if it is effective, it also enforces those rules. I will call this the law’s ‘rule-shifting’ capacity.”

• “But lawyers of my generation, inspired by Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, Baker v. Carr, and Roe v. Wade, and by the success of the African American civil rights movement and companion movements for political change, have sought to do more with the law than make rules.”

Rule-Shifting vs. Culture-Shifting

• Rule-Shifting: Traditional role of law in expressing formal rules for society
• Culture-Shifting: Making social change that transcends mere rulemaking
  • Advances rights of marginalized people
  • Promotes values that ought to be rights
  • Transforms society in fundamental ways beyond the rules

The Civil Rights Act as Paradigm

• “The Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacting probably the most famous reform statute of the twentieth century, may be the statutory paradigm of legal reform intended to make social change. The Act established new rules of law, but it accomplished much more, and its full effects are still being felt—and I do mean ‘felt’—throughout the society.”

The Civil Rights Act: More than Rules

“The Act was, as already stated, far more than an employment manual or sales guide. It put forward new ideas about everyday relations between individuals—not only in the workplace or in stores, but, implicitly, in all aspects of human interaction. The ideas were essentially two: (1) that each human being has rights equal to any other, at least in the public realm, and (2) that segregation by race is wrong.”

Evidence of Cultural Change

• “There is no sure way to measure changes in cultural attitudes. Legal and economic statistics about jobs and income may help somewhat, but they reflect external rather than internal realities—formalities rather than conceptions.”

• “Perhaps the most credible monitor is television—the cultural medium that binds together more Americans than any other. On the American television screen of 1996, black and brown faces are everywhere: on situation comedies, in dramas, on talk shows, on sports programs, at news desks, and in advertisements; in 1966—when I was in high school—integrated depictions on television were exceedingly rare.”

Discussion: Have we seen a culture-shift with LGBTQ people? How about for people with disabilities?

Let’s hear from: Kayla, Amelia, Qing, Kierstyn

The Importance of How Change Happens

• “I think history would have been different. The new rules of law were widely disliked, especially by whites in the South, but the opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 never rose in rebellion, either formal or informal, against enforcement of the statute. If the new rules had come down from on high from the Supreme Court, many Americans would have probably considered the change of law illegitimate, high-handed, and undemocratic—another act of arrogance by the nine philosopher-kings sitting on the Court.”

The Source of Legitimacy

• “Because the change emanated from Congress, however, such sentiments of distrust (whether grounded in principle or in simple racism) never came to affect the legitimacy of this stunning change in American law and mores. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 came into being because a majority of the members of the national legislature believed it represented sound policy and would improve the life of the country’s citizens as a whole; the ideas motivating the Act must therefore have validity behind them.”

Four Factors for Culture-Shifting

• “My analysis of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other ‘culture-shifting’ forms of law suggests that four factors determine when ‘rule-shifting’ becomes ‘culture-shifting’ as well. For ‘culture-shifting’ to take place, all four factors must be engaged. The four factors are these:
• 1. A change that is very broad or profound;
• 2. Public awareness of that change;
• 3. A general sense of the legitimacy (or validity) of the change; and
• 4. Overall, continuous enforcement of the change.”

Value of Extended Public Debate

• “Between 1971 and 1986, the New York City Council had before it every year a bill that would amend the city’s human rights laws to protect lesbians and gay men from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. The bill failed each year until 1986, principally because of the personal opposition of the council’s majority leader.”

• “Over those fifteen years, the city council and the citizens of New York more generally had to confront continually the issue of discrimination against lesbians and gay men.”

Debate as Education

“The city council, for a full decade and one-half, became a city-wide civic classroom for a course on sexual orientation discrimination—an intracity teach-in, if you will. If we had our platform during the fifteen years of the bill’s pendency, so did our opponents, but in many ways the other side’s comments (especially the more rancorous observations) bolstered our advocacy, for the comments prolonged the discussion—and also helped to demonstrate our claims of the existence of prejudice.”

Discussion: Do you agree with Stoddard?

Let’s hear from: Erika, Alisa, Lanah, Alexander

Discussion: Why might the director have included this scene?

Let’s hear from: Brynn, Katie, Diego, Ying

Break

Video Essay: Alisa Mineeva, Liz Urbina, Praceda Gaddampally, Ava Reyes

“Not Just ‘About’ Disability”

• Elizabeth Ellcessor (University of Virginia)
• https://docalogue.com/crip-camp/

The Visability of Disability

• Early observation in the film: counselor “not prepared for the visual of so many disabled people at one time”
• Context: 1970s era when many disabled people were institutionalized or isolated
• Contemporary parallel: film enters media landscape where disabled representation remains limited
• Ruderman Foundation reports only 20% of disabled roles played by disabled actors

A Disability Aesthetic?

• Refuses to cater to the stares or curiosity of a nondisabled audience
• Not only about but also for disabled people
• Presents a shared disabled perspective through:
  • Formal elements
  • Narration
  • Extratextual materials

Discussion: What are some examples of not catering to a nondisabled audience?

Let’s hear from: Deisy, Sarah, Ramona, Tennley

Archival Footage as Intervention

• Critics praised use of footage from People’s Video Theater (1970s)
• Shows disabled teenagers as teenagers:
  • Dating
  • Gossiping
  • Playing music
  • Rebelling against authorities
• More complex portrayal than typical fictional representations or news media

Centering Disabled Perspectives: Camera Work

• Formal choices validate disabled perspectives
• Example: Co-director Jim LeBrecht’s footage
  • Shot from his wheelchair height rather than normative eye level
  • Shows his progress up ramps at Camp Jened
• Not explicitly discussed but powerful in literally shifting viewers’ perspectives

Centering Disabled Perspectives: Speech Representation

• Treatment of speech disabilities throughout the film
• Individuals with slowed or slurred speech filmed and edited like others
• Talking head segments not cut short or narrated over
• Open captions accompany speech, fading in/out in sync
• Enhanced captions demonstrate:
  • Respect for speakers
  • Priority of access considerations

Narration from Within the Community

• Story told by campers and counselors themselves
• No (nondisabled) voice of authority
• No all-knowing narrator or authority figures to “explain” disability
• No doctors, parents, professors, or other “experts”
• Historical figures (Nixon, Rivera) seen briefly, heard less
• Education about disability history provided by those who experienced it

The 504 Protests: Educational but Not for “Others”

• Second half of film focuses on the 504 Protests and related activism
• Story told through experiences of people introduced at Camp Jened
• Not primarily aimed at nondisabled viewers
• Part of what Stacey Park Milbern called “crip ancestorship”:
  • Connection to those who came before
  • Offering disabled viewers possibilities for new ancestors and new selves

Discussion: Why talk about sex, sexuality, parenthood?

Let’s hear from: Andrew, Crystal, Derya, Shah Bano

Creating Present-Day Connections

• Uses disability history as starting point to:
  • Learn about disability history, community, culture, and activism
  • See oneself as part of disability community
• Meetings focus on disability history, disability and sex, social media activism
• Explicitly invites viewers to find their own disability communities
• Encourages developing political voices to carry forward Camp Jened’s legacy

Discussion: What role did media play?

Let’s hear from: Yana, Yuning, Patrick, Amy

Conclusion

Lives “Unworthy of Living”

• Nazi’s first systematic victims were disabled people
• “Aktion T4” program: physicians became executioners
• Extermination methods tested on disabled people before Holocaust
• Estimated 300,000 disabled people killed
• Key connection: same personnel later established extermination camps
• Ideological foundation: 1920 treatise “Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life”

Eugenics: American Influence

• Eugenics wasn’t just Nazi ideology, flourished in America
• Buck v. Bell (1927): Supreme Court upheld forced sterilization
• Justice Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”
• American eugenics directly influenced Nazi programs
• “Ugly laws” criminalized public appearance of visibly disabled people until 1974
• Medical authority used to enforce social prejudice

Common Threads of Resistance

• Both ACT-UP and DIA movements challenged:
  • Medical authority and paternalism
  • Public indifference and disgust
  • Government neglect
  • Being defined as “other”

Common Threads of Resistance

• Both ACT-UP and DIA relied on:
  • Building community
  • Direct action and civil disobedience
  • Educating themselves when institutions wouldn’t
  • Reframing narratives about their identities

“Resources” and Disposability

• Recurring argument against marginalized groups: cost to society
• Nazi arithmetic textbooks calculated “burden” of disabled people
• AIDS crisis: resistance to funding research and treatment
• Contemporary debates about healthcare costs for disabled people
• Peter Singer’s “practical ethics” echoes eugenicist arguments
• These cost calculations ignore humanity, dignity, and rights

Media Representation and Self-Narration

• Both films center the perspectives of affected communities
• “Crip Camp” deliberately uses disabled perspectives in filming
• “How to Survive a Plague” built from activist-shot footage
• Both challenge medical voices as sole authorities
• Both demonstrate importance of documenting one’s own history
• Those directly affected tell their stories without mediation