[Theme Music] Hip hop beat from “Hard Out Here For a Gimp” by Wheelchair Sports Camp
Erika:
Welcome to Invalid Culture, a podcast dedicated to excavating the strangest, most baffling, and worst representations of disability in popular culture. Unlike other podcasts that review films you’ve probably heard of, invalid culture is all about looking into the abyss of pop culture adjacent representations that never quite broke through because, well, they’re just awful. I’m joined today by my co-host, Jeffrey Preston. Jeff, why don’t you tell us about yourself?
Jeff:
I am a professor of disability studies and my background is in media. I teach media studies, I love movies and television, and I first got interested in media and disability because as a person with a physical disability, I always found it strange how the things that we see on television and in film were just not representative to my lived experience. And I wanted to understand why that was. I also have a love for terrible movies. The worse they are, the more I enjoy them. I don’t care about the Oscars, I’m here for the Razzies. But I’m not the only one here at Invalid Culture, I’m also joined by my co-host, Erika Katzman. Erika, why don’t you introduce yourself?
Erika:
Well I am also teaching in disability studies. I have a PhD in health and rehab science. I have a background in cultural anthropology, so that’s sort of where I come to this table. I’m really interested in the stories that we tell, the things that drive us, the cultural narratives that find their way into these cinematic representations. And I can’t say that I share your passion for terrible film, but I’m thrilled to be along on this ride with you. So that’s sort of where I come to this table.
Jeff:
And it is going to be a ride. So what is Invalid Culture? Well, we decided that it would be interesting to do a podcast, not about those classic films that we all hear about and read about in scholarship, we’re not here to talk about Rain Man or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or whatever Eddie Redmayne is trying to win an Oscar with this year. But rather, we decided it would be more interesting for us to look at maybe not just the B-list films, but the C-list films. Because it turns out, there are a ton of bizarre, strange, often confusing films about disability that are not the type of thing that you’re going to probably see in theater, but is 100% the thing that you’re going to see on your streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video and Disney Plus, Tubi.
Jeff:
So Erika, why did you agree to do this with me?
Erika:
Why? Why would I agree to do this with you? I mean, I am interested in … I don’t know if it’s unfair to call this the underbelly of popular culture. I’m interested in knowing what are the … I’m familiar with the Oscar winners, I know those stories. But I’m curious to learn more about and maybe pick apart a little bit, some of the lesser-known tales that I wonder if these are going to really be lesser known tales, or if these are going to be tales that we know kind of well in different boxes.
Jeff:
So Invalid Culture is going to be about looking at the culture that is just that, invalid, things that probably should not be consumed. But don’t worry, weary traveler listening to this podcast, Erika and I will watch it for you and we will filter through the fun and the joy. If you’d like to play along with us, I’d recommend watching the movie before you listen to the podcast, but maybe not. Maybe you prefer to be spoiled, hear what the movie is all about, check it out after. But most importantly, we want to hear from you. Do you know an absolutely absurd film about disability? Have you seen something that left you questioning existence, reality, the very nature of humankind? Please send it to us, send it in. We want to know the filth that you’ve had to endure. Punish us for doing this to you.
Jeff:
So it is our first episode of Invalid Culture, and we have chosen, I would say, a great place for us to start. Erika, what was your … Did you have any relationship with this film before you watched it?
Erika:
No, I had never heard of this film. I mean, I knew who Frankie Muniz is from Malcolm In the Middle, of course. I was shocked to hear that when you spoke to people of a slightly younger generation about this film that it seems to be quite well known. I knew nothing about this film.
Jeff:
Yeah, I was also in the dark until, actually it was young people, kept referring to it in my class about disability of pop culture, my university class. And I will share I have special connection, I think, to this film, because right in the early 2000s, I suddenly had people telling me that they thought I looked like Frankie Muniz. And that’s a weird thing, because I do not look like Frankie Muniz at all. I mean, we’re both men I suppose, boys. We both have brown hair, I suppose. And I never understood it. And it wasn’t until years later that I saw this film and was like, “Oh dear lord. It’s because Frankie Muniz was in a wheelchair in a film.” And that’s what people are clocking. I’m reminding them of Miracle on Lane Two on some deep unconscious level.
Erika:
That is something.
Jeff:
It is weird. So let’s just put the record out there, I don’t look like Frank Muniz, I don’t think. Even if I do low-key maybe have the same manual wheelchair as he does in this film. I’m fairly confident that I have his exact same wheelchair. Different color, because I’m not basic, but the same wheelchair, I think.
Jeff:
So what are we even talking about? Well our friends that are listening, we are of course talking about Disney TV, not film, not even really Disney Plus, it didn’t exist at this point. We are talking, of course, about the made for TV movie, Miracle in Lane Two.
Erika:
From the Vox, “Sensational Frankie Muniz from TV’s Malcolm in the Middle, stars as Justin Yoder in Miracle in Lane Two, inspired by the true story of a mischievous and courageous 12-year-old who refused to let a physical challenge defeat him. His unrelenting desire to win a trophy leads to Justin’s discovery that it’s perseverance that makes a winner as he prepares for a national soap box championship race. Fresh, funny, all of action and heart, Miracle in Lane Two combines courage, challenges, and thrills for the ride of a lifetime.”
Jeff:
The ride of a lifetime. The bar is set very high.
Erika:
It is, but you know, I mean reading this over, it doesn’t even really ring, it doesn’t even ring with the film.
Jeff:
No, anyone who’s watched this film might be wondering, they’re like, “Well, I mean, Frankie Muniz is in it, there is a soap box race.” But a lot of the rest of it seems really disconnected. Did you find it fresh, Erika?
Erika:
[crosstalk 00:08:14] committing the pun?
Jeff:
Ah, interesting. That’s clever. Did you find it full of action?
Erika:
I mean, I’m not big on action so I can’t really say, but I think most of the action was contained within a short, five or so minute window, near the very end of the film.
Jeff:
Yeah, I’m wondering what they’re definition of action is here. I mean, Frankie Muniz didn’t kill anyone in this film that we’re aware of, implied, there may have been some implied massacres.
Erika:
Oh yeah, I think I would agree with that.
Jeff:
Maybe, I don’t know.
Erika:
I mean, if we’re talking attempts, I think there was an attempt at funny too.
Jeff:
Okay, yeah, I’ll give them funny. I laughed at it, probably not the way they wanted. Would you say that it combined courage and challenges?
Erika:
I mean, in the matter of speaking, there was a lot of … Was there a lot of courage? I don’t know. I think challenges were a real theme in the film.
Jeff:
Oh yes.
Erika:
And coming from unexpected angles. If we take a close look at the film, Frankie, excuse me, Justin wasn’t the only one facing challenges.
Jeff:
Which is actually something I kind of liked about the movie, I’m going to say. I liked the fact that everybody was broken in this film. Literally everyone. Maybe the reporters, they were maybe not broken, but of course lamestream media, so you know, they’re probably broken too. But I found it interesting just, “Would not let his physical challenge defeat him.” Did you feel like that was really part of the film?
Erika:
It wasn’t. I mean, I think it was the narrative. The narrative was intended to be he wasn’t going to let this physical disability ruin his life. But ultimately, I think what we see play out in the film are that there are real limitations that he faces.
Jeff:
Yeah, he does face challenges, I suppose, that are tangentially connected. As well as he almost dies a few times, that’s a recurring…theme which I guess…It’s funny, but I think watching the film, I don’t know that I really saw the disability as being the thing he was really fighting in some ways. It seems like he was fighting a lot of attitudes and physical barriers and trying to understand his where he fits in the family.
Jeff:
We are doing a review of this film, but we are just two random people from Canada. So we don’t know anything. So we thought it would be important for us to go to the legitimate sources of film review, and as you can probably imagine, the reviews were, in the press, not great for this film, not well-loved. I think one of my favorite comments comes to us from David Kronke, not sure, sorry David, DK, as his friends call him. Anyway, he wrote on the LA Daily News this brilliant quote.
Jeff [doing a strange accent]:
“It could also be important for some children to see someone they respect so much playing a handicapped character. They might feel a little sympathy for the disabled, and understand that there are fewer differences between them than there might appear.”
Jeff:
What we noticed in a lot of the reviews for the film is this real desire to situate the value of the film, not in its ability to stand as a part, but rather as its functional purpose in normalizing disability to non-disabled people, but also a little bit about what to do about disability.
Erika:
Just for anyone who might not know, something that really hit me about this quote is that, as you mentioned, DK themself, are not non-disabled, we presume, and so is Frankie Muniz. And this is something that I think really gives some shape to the film itself. Frankie Muniz, as far as we know, is not physically disabled. And I think we presume, having seen the film, that the writers and directors also, perhaps, don’t have a lot of lived real-world experience with physical disability, and we really see that in the film. So it’s interesting that this review is sort of setting this up as a story that’s maybe going to teach people, educate people, warm people up to this perhaps unfamiliar idea and experience of physical disability.
Jeff:
Yeah. It’s almost like they couldn’t just be like, “This movie is bad.” They were like, “Well, we should reward them for trying.”
Erika:
But this professional review really resonates with those Amazon reviews. This is a recurring theme, that this is an educational film.
Jeff:
Erika, what was your favorite one that you read?
Erika:
I think I’ll have to go with Gertrude Black’s five star review, Soap Box Derby, which reads, “I purchased this when my sons were participants in the local soap box derby. It was great inspiration for them. I have the trophy, magazine article, savings bond, and pictures to prove it.” So just, help me out with the interpretation of this, if I’m understanding correctly, Gertrude’s sons were in a soap box derby and were so moved by this film that they won a trophy.
Jeff:
And savings bond, they won money.
Erika:
Someone wrote a magazine article about this win, and obviously there are pictures. But this movie was so moving, it was so moving.
Jeff:
Without this film, her sons would be destitute and poor right now.
Erika:
What do you think that savings bond racked up to?
Jeff:
Honestly, I wonder. Did the savings bond get wiped out in the ’08 housing crisis? Did it survive that? Did it get wiped out in the start of the COVID financial crisis? I love it. I also love the idea that Gertrude is perhaps using films to inspire her sons in all of their tasks and she’s like, “Well, when they were getting ready for University, I got them that Matt Damon film, and they watched that. And now they know about apples and anger and they did great and now they’re Harvard grads, and I have the pictures and the educational debt to prove it.” Do we need to get more tactical with the disability movies? Why have we not made a movie about a disabled person during COVID? Because maybe that’s all it would take.
Erika:
If there’s anyone out there working on it, we need to know.
Jeff:
Hollywood, you can have that one for free. That one’s on us, the next ones you’ve got to pay for. So I like that one, I also liked … There was one from presumably a completely real name, Gurgly Bidet. If that is a real name, and Gurgly, if you’re listening to this, shout out to you brother. Five stars Miracle in Lane Two, “This movie is one of my favorite movies. I can learn a lot from physically disabled peoples’ lives and I can see that everything is possible if we want. I will see it again and again, I like it.” “I can learn a lot from physically disabled peoples’ lives.”
Erika:
I mean, I think that is the moral of this story.
Jeff:
Yes, we are educational tools, predominantly. That’s sort of what we’re here for. I love this … And this is going to come up a lot in our podcast, I love this narrative of anything is possible if you believe. And it’s like you can’t fly, it doesn’t matter how much you believe, you’re never going to be able to fly, you’re not a bird.
Erika:
If we can dive into the film, there’s this question of wanting to play sports. And Justin, who I’m having a very hard time not calling Frankie, wants to … It’s not that he wants to play baseball per se, it’s that’s he wants to be an athletic superstar like his big brother. But we see this attempt to play baseball and realistically, he can’t play baseball. The question is asked, “How are you going to run the plates? How are you going to traverse the grassy outfield? Can you play baseball?” And maybe … I think that just kind of flies in the face of this idea that you can do anything you want if you just will it to be, you can overcome reality?
Jeff:
Yeah, and that just completely ignores, obviously, the actual experiences and challenges that people with disabilities face.
Erika:
Right, that’s the challenge.
Jeff:
Yes. Or maybe this is actually disconnected totally, but it’s like, “Okay, disabled people, their lives are terrible, but what we can learn from them is that as a non-disabled person, I am a tremendously powerful and [inaudible 00:17:49] person, I can do whatever I want, and I should stop wasting my life.” This is that inspiration porn thing, right?
Erika:
Yes. And I think we do catch a little bit of that in this film.
Jeff:
A little bit. There is one other review, I think, that stuck out to me on Amazon by Pandorafan685. It’s unclear if the rings or of, of course, the home of the Na’vi in the film Avatar. I assume there are hundreds of fans on both sides. Pandorafan685, five out of five stars, Good Filmmaking is the title, which is very suspect already. There are some typos in this, so I am going to try not to butcher this as I read, but … “Disney did a good thing shooting a movie about a wheelchair bound boy in Justin Yoder, based on a true story. I also liked the scenes when they are in courtroom deciding whether Justin should play baseball or not. I like how the mom always defends him because he’s handicapped and should have a right to play. This is a good movie.”
Erika:
It’s a balanced critique.
Jeff:
I know, I like how he starts out as it’s like, “I’m glad that Disney did this.” And then he’s like, “I’m going to talk about the one very specific moment in the film for one sentence, and then I’m just going to wrap it up. In and out.”
Erika:
I think Disney would appreciate this one, because they got the pat on the back that they were definitely looking for.
Jeff:
They went, “Finally!, Finally someone appreciated what we were doing with this film.”
Erika:
I do have a couple questions about their “based on a true story,” and I want to note that in the intro to the film, I believe the text is, “Inspired by the life of…” I have some questions about the historical accuracy of this-
Jeff:
Inspired by the life of Justin Yoder. So for those of you who are listening, yes, there is a real human named Justin Yoder. But I wouldn’t say this is an exactly blow-by-blow as far as two Canadians have been able to ascertain. Justin, if you’re listening, call us. And that’s actually real, I’m not even being a dick right there. I’d love to be your friend, Justin, not because you’re inspiring.
Erika:
I really want to know what Justin has to say about this film.
Jeff:
I would love to know what Justin has to say about this film. So we’ve looked in at what the fans have said, “fan” might be, I’m putting that in giant air quotes.
Erika:
There are a lot of five reviews, these are fans.
Jeff:
Yeah, these are fans. Okay, these people loved it. There were a couple three out of fives, that also seemed to love it, I will say. They were like, “Eh, TV movie, but I loved it.” But this idea about who the film is for is a recurring theme in a lot of that. Is this movie for non-disabled people to learn about disability? Or is this film for disabled people to be inspired by the accomplishments of the disabled person? Where do you fall on the paradigm, Erika?
Erika:
This is where I tend to fall in general on this whole discussion of disability narratives. I’m not sure it’s necessarily one or the other. I’m not even sure that this is really, at the end of the day, a film about disability.
Jeff:
No.
Erika:
Right? I think we’re going to see some big themes that are less about disability and more about humanity and life and death and everything that falls in between, and human interactions, and family dynamics. The family dynamics here are interesting, but [crosstalk 00:21:36] if I have to fit your mold, I’m going to go the narrative about I think it is more about inspiring than educating, and that is all that I can give you right now.
Jeff:
What’s fascinating is that a lot of the reviews seem to indicate that this is a movie for disabled people. They’re like, “Oh now, I would never watch this film, however, if you have a child with a disability, this is for them. Go and watch Miracle on Lane Two with your disabled child, that’s who this is for.”
Jeff:
And I find that fascinating that there’s this massive divide between what I think was the intended audience, which is I think to normalize disability. I think that’s what they were trying to do. And that’s totally not how people have seen it. Even our old friend DK, at the LA Daily News, he was like, “This might be an important film for disabled people.” This might be good for them to watch.
Erika:
I don’t know if this is the point at which we get to dive into where they went wrong if their intent was to educate, but I do think we have to talk about the way that disability is constructed in this film.
Jeff:
The good news is that this film is actually really straight forward and open about how it feels about disability. It doesn’t really hide anything. In fact, I think the best way to understand the politics of this film is to actually listen to the opening monologue. I cannot stress this enough. This is the opening monologue of the film, in which Justin, sitting in his bedroom, watching his able-bodied brother, Seth, play basketball, begins to lament about his life, and then eventually goes and has a nice conversation with God in heaven about everything that is wrong with his body. Take a listen.
Justin Clip:
In this living room, if Seth is perfect, then I’m special. Which is my all-time least-favorite word. It’s how people say they don’t expect much from a kid in a wheelchair. God, are you listening? God? God?
God Clip:
Who’s there?
Justin Clip:
I thought you knew everything.
God Clip:
I don’t like being tested.
Justin Clip:
Justin Ross Yoder.
God Clip:
Why are you here?
Justin Clip:
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I think when you made me you messed up.
God Clip:
I don’t make mistakes.
Justin Clip:
Well, somebody sure did. I mean, look at me.
God Clip:
You look fine.
Justin Clip:
Fine? I’m 12 years old and already had 24 major surgeries. My legs are linguine. I have more stitches in my head than a baseball.
God Clip:
What do you want me to do about it?
Justin Clip:
Isn’t it obvious? Fix me! Make a miracle! I mean, you still do miracles don’t you?
Jeff:
Do a miracle. And ideally, a miracle that is in an area where vehicles travel, perhaps a lane or a pathway would be fantastic.
Erika:
Not the main one, but the secondary one.
Jeff:
I think the fact this movie starts right off the bat, right off the hop, talking about Justin’s disability as he’s looking out this window forlorn, looking at his sporting brother playing, “My brother’s perfect and I am but a broken special child who was not made right with my linguine legs and my stitches in my head.” Defining disability seems to be a really important part of this text. How do they define disability in this film?
Erika:
Leaky. Wet, very wet. I think we later learn that the apparent diagnosis is Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus and we hear a lot about the Hydrocephalus because this fluid-filled head could burst at any moment, bringing on death. And that’s a big theme here that our hero, Justin … Is he the hero? Antihero?
Jeff:
Yeah.
Erika:
… That he could burst at any time. That he is living under the shadow of imminent death, he is broken, not made right-
Jeff:
A mistake. Although God says, “I don’t make mistakes.” But I think we, as the audience, are supposed to kind of agree with Justin, “What the heck?” But this is the journey, this is the journey the movie is going to try and take us on is that we are going to learn through Justin that he’s not broken, that he’s not a mistake, that he is special, I guess, but that it’s all part of God’s plan. If you didn’t know, there is a religious undertone (overtone?), central thesis in this film. And there’s a reason for that, I think, which we’ll discuss later.
Jeff:
But it feels like the medicine doctors, science, seems to be essential roles here in terms of defining who Justin is. His diagnosis proceeds him everywhere he goes.
Erika:
It’s virtually all that we know about him. I mean, we don’t know anything about Justin’s social … Outside of his family, we don’t know, we never meet Justin’s friends, we don’t meet his teachers, we meet his physician.
Jeff:
Yeah, we meet his doctor.
Erika:
That’s it, and God. He has a relationship with God and a relationship with his family, and that is virtually all we know about Justin other than his very leaky body.
Jeff:
Yeah, it’s almost like this weird … It’s like every time he meets a new character, he reveals a new thing about his body, like his body is him, that is his life, there’s nothing outside. I find it fascinating that we meet his brother’s friends. His brother maybe has a girlfriend, maybe it’s just a woman who’s a friend, and then there’s this other boy that is sort of around his brother for some reason. We meet his brother’s baseball team, we meet all of these people in his brother’s life and we never meet anyone in Justin’s life.
Erika:
Except for the villain in the movie who he links up with eventually.
Jeff:
Right, Justin does make a friend. Disability, then, seems to be very much situated within the body that this is a kid who’s entire life circles, it orbits. And that seems to be kind of the center of his family in some ways too.
Erika:
The concerns about Justin himself? Or the concerns about the medical aspects of Justin?
Jeff:
I would say both, I think, in some ways. Early on in the film there’s this scene where he has a bit of a headache and it’s like, “Drop everything, get him to the hospital.” Everything seems to kind of orbit the needs of Justin.
Erika:
And fascinating in that scene, Justin is not being heard. Justin is trying to tell the family that this is not an emergency, but everybody is so locked in their routine to save Justin’s fragile medical life that they can’t hear Justin telling them that he’s fine.
Jeff:
Right, being like, “No, this is just a headache, I’m fine.” Yeah. And even both the parents are working long hours to pay for medical bills. In a scathing indictment on the payment of academic professors in this world, the father is both a STEM teacher, he teaches in STEM, but has to work as a house painter to pay for the medial bills. And the mom’s hours and even the brother, eventually, will then sort of break down in the ways in which his relationship with the family is driven by Justin’s medical fragility.
Erika:
Is it worth noting that the brother, himself, also has some kind of undisclosed invisible mental health disability something? It’s not the center point, it’s apparently not as expensive, although he is going to therapy, it sounds like, weekly.
Jeff:
Yeah, and drinking bottles of medicine, like straight from the bottle, for his what I assume is erectile dysfunction. It’s unclear. It has something to do with his tummy.
Erika:
I believe he describes it as, “Matters that are like baseball.”
Jeff:
Yes, so like a stick and balls being erect.
Erika:
Scoring bases.
Jeff:
Yes, yes. I think the movie is probably implying that he has some sort of anxiety disorder.
Erika:
In either case, it is very much about emotions, very much about his emotions.
Jeff:
Absolutely. And doesn’t really get any play. In a lot of ways, it’s like, “Well you’re fine, Justin’s not. His physical needs are far more important than you psycho-social needs.” So I think one of the things that, as we said earlier, a really contentious moment in many of these films are what I’m going to call the Yoder fantasies. So Justin Yoder often daydreams throughout the film, he has these sort of fantasies. So we made notes on all of the ways in which Justin kind of fantasizes, and what the outcomes of all of those fantasies are. And the film actually starts with a fantasy scene in a very relevant moment.
Erika:
So I think they’re at … Is it a grandparent? Great Uncle?
Jeff:
A Great Uncle? I think it said Great Uncle.
Erika:
Yeah, so they’re in a church, at a funeral. There’s a religious figure talking about the life of the deceased and Justin goes into this wondering, “What would they say at my funeral? What would my funeral be like?”
Jeff:
As one does at a funeral.
Erika:
But the anxiety is, “Nobody would have anything to say about me, what would they say about me?” There’s nothing to say about me. The only thing that anyone knows about me is my fancy, Quickie manual wheelchair.
Jeff:
Yeah, there’s this monologue from the preacher, right? Who’s going on about all of the sweet add-ons to the wheelchair. Which I am going to contest. I do not see offensive wings anywhere on that wheelchair. I think that is completely made up and shame on you. But it’s funny, it’s like immediately he, number one, as a child, a 12-year-old is thinking about his own death which we’ve been primed to understand that death is a part of his life, it’s lurking around every corner. But at the same time, shout out to this film in some ways. I think it’s actually a really clever fantasy here, to be like, “People don’t see me. I’m just a wheelchair, the wheelchair is the best part of me that people see.” And that that’s not true. Even if it is literally the first scene in the movie, second scene, they’re like getting ready for the funeral in the first scene and then they immediately are at the funeral and he’s dreaming about the sweet release of death.
Erika:
You know where the fantasy ends, is where he actually … So it’s all in his head until he vocalizes, “What about me?”
Jeff:
Yes, at the funeral. Which, hilarious for one. That’s something I’m going to start yelling at every funeral during the eulogy. And this is what then sets off the journey. This is the hero’s journey, is for Justin Yoder to become more than his wheelchair. You know what, I actually think I now agree, I think this is a battle against his physical impairment. But if he wants to beat the wheelchair as being the most important thing about him.
Erika:
And the vehicle that he chooses-
Jeff:
Is another wheelchair.
Erika:
It’s through sportsdom. It’s through ultimate achievement of athletics as embodied by Seth, his virulent but-
Jeff:
Erectily troubled brother.
Erika:
More subtly fragile brother who has a supreme collection of trophies. I have a fair few trophies myself, but this is unlike anything I have ever seen before.
Jeff:
This man has won every sporting competition in America since the 1980s, all of them.
Erika:
Since before he born.
Jeff:
Yeah, he was winning trophies in utero for sure.
Erika:
Although I don’t know about that because mom, we learn, doesn’t … Her sports knowledge is quite lacking. I believe he argues something about a touchdown at a baseball-
Jeff:
Right. Yeah, because she’s a woman, right? So sports don’t work in women’s brains. We all know that, that’s just truth.
Erika:
The gender stereotypes in this depiction are strong.
Jeff:
Oh yeah. Yeah, if nothing else, Disney is like, “There are two genders and we know everything about them.”
Erika:
And they know nothing about each other.
Jeff:
Right, so they are completely divorced from each other and they only tolerate each other insofar as sexual relation. Procreation is a part of it, but this movie is actually pretty pro-sex.
Erika:
I mean, again with the under overtones, they are there. But there is no sex.
Jeff:
No. Unfortunately, the movie does not have any hardcore pornographic moments, unfortunately.
Erika:
They are alluded to. There is the strawberry massage oil in the bedside table.
Jeff:
Yup, absolutely. And his parents do try to bang on the kitchen table?
Erika:
But they can’t, because they are too busy making money-
Jeff:
They’re interrupted, literally.
Erika:
-To cover Justin’s medical bills.
Jeff:
Oh yeah. Let’s put a pin in that one. Because those are really more our fantasies, as opposed to Justin’s fantasies.
Erika:
Right, Justin’s fantasies.
Jeff:
Right, yes. So he has these sports fantasies, he fantasizes about his sportsdom.
Erika:
So the sports one that I remember, did you remember this one? He’s picturing himself playing baseball. It’s like a bases are loaded, crowd going wild, dark night lit by stadium lighting, and he’s in the outfield waiting to catch this ball or I should say, the ball is waiting for him to catch it.
Jeff:
Precisely.
Erika:
Because the ball hangs in the air as he gets out to it.
Jeff:
Yeah. The rules of Justin’s fantasy life are confusing, I am confused. Because he has the power to control the ball so that he can wheel to get to the ball. And honestly, shout out for them not eliminating his wheelchair in his fantasies. That is a common thing in films, where they’re like, “Of course he would fantasize that he could walk.” And that’s not Justin’s fantasies, Justin’s fantasies are really about a world that kind of bends around him in the way that he is. Which, dare I say, this movie might be kind of progressive accidentally. So he can control the ball, but he can’t make his wheelchair go easy in the grass. Or, he doesn’t fantasize about himself being muscular and ripped. We never see Frankie Muniz in an athlete body in any of these fantasies.
Erika:
I don’t know, I think what we see is it’s not that he wants to play ball, it’s not that he wants to be good at ball, it’s that he wants to accomplish the quintessential act that will earn him the symbolic trophy.
Jeff:
Right. Yeah, it’s the win that he wants.
Erika:
It’s the win.
Jeff:
And he doesn’t want to change for it.
Erika:
I don’t know though, because he asks God to fix him.
Jeff:
That’s true, that is true. And then we have the legal fantasies. The legal fantasies are I guess I’m team family court, what are you? Are you team family court? Or are you anti-family court?
Erika:
I was kind of neutral in the family court. It didn’t bother me. It fit in well with the other fantasy scenes that we have appearing throughout. They moved the plot along, they enable some grappling with topics that we might not have otherwise seen come through. I thought the jury composed of 10 or so different couples of the parents was a bit of a stretch, but …
Jeff:
I liked how it showed two different but also kind of familiar archetypes of disability parents. They showed this dynamic in which Justin’s parents, the mom and the dad, are not actually totally aligned on what’s best for Justin, and what Justin needs.
Erika:
Exactly.
Jeff:
And then we get this … I don’t actually know the dad’s politics, that’s a little bit less clear, but the mom’s politics are really clear. What she thinks is best for Justin is abundantly clear, and that is inclusion. This is that fierce disability mom, the special needs mom that we hear so much about, where it’s like, “My son-”
Erika:
Well, Justin even calls her … He describes her as the grizzly bear.
Jeff:
Yeah, right, that she’s going to maul anybody that gets in the way and that the most important part is that her son is included, inclusion.
Erika:
Because sports are for fun, she says. And the thing that we learn about Dad is that Dad is sportsman, but Dad has renounced sports because Justin can’t play. So what Dad really wants … And we see this as his enthusiasm for soap box derby picks up, what dad really wants is for Justin to have the authentic sporting experience.
Jeff:
To be a sporting man, yeah. Yeah, so he wants authentic inclusion, whereas the mother seems to want more participatory inclusion.
Erika:
Yup, totally.
Jeff:
And the final fantasy, the reason that I first messaged Erika and was like, “We have to do this film, we have to,” because it has one of my favorite scenes in a film that I maybe have ever seen. That’s going to change as we do this. As we do this podcast, I’m going to come to new favorites. So tell us about the end of the movie, Erika.
Erika:
How to begin to describe this scene? I wish I could recall, and we might have to go back and look at this … What is the prompt? What does Justin say to God that prompts God-
Jeff:
So I know this.
Erika:
You know this?
Jeff:
I actually know this.
Erika:
Okay, what is it?
Jeff:
Everything is wrapped up, the movie is basically over, and Justin realizes he’s a champion now, he’s won soap box. So he connects with God one last time. And because this is a movie about death, he’s like, “Hey God, what is it like in heaven?” Like, “What is heaven like?”
Erika:
And God, who does not make mistakes…
Jeff:
And so then, God’s like, “Well let me show you.” And I can’t describe it without dying and seeing it. And Frankie Muniz, Justin, describes it as perfect. What is perfect heaven?
Erika:
Perfect heaven for Frankie/Justin is everyone in manual wheelchairs tinged in gold with giant flopping angel wings.
Jeff:
Just zooming around.
Erika:
Zooming around, looking as angelic as you could imagine. Perfect, it’s perfect.
Jeff:
Okay, let’s take a step back here. Here’s what I want to know. What are the rules of heaven in this world?
Erika:
Well I’m just wondering, is it that you are physically disabled on arrival? Or is that only physically disabled people get into heaven?
Jeff:
This is the question, the existential question of this film, does God disable you when you arrive in heaven and put you in an angel wheelchair? Or the more militant interpretation, only disabled people go to heaven? Or, are there multi-heavens in which the disabled go to the disabled heaven, the non-disabled go to the non-disabled heaven, and Seth goes to erectile dysfunction heaven?
Erika:
I think this conversation might be it’s own podcast, but I think the most salient point here is that we have reached the culmination of this film, it’s utmost message, which is Justin is perfect.
Jeff:
Yeah, perfect as he is.
Erika:
Now the real question is, is he perfect because he has now achieved his trophy?
Jeff:
Well yes. See, he was flawed before. He was going to hell because God only likes winners.
Erika:
I mean, he’s a champion race car driver.
Jeff:
Yeah, this seems to be the message. Okay, we have to talk about sex. We have to. Because we have come too far.
Erika:
Because Disney wasn’t going to, so someone has to.
Jeff:
But Disney does talk about sex. What is amazing to me about this film is ostensibly, it is for children, but there are overt references to sex. Like, his parents are written as sexual beings.
Erika:
I think the first thing that we see, Dad comes in the front door, Mom’s on the phone, and they have this sort of quick romp in the front hallway.
Jeff:
Yeah, before a funeral.
Erika:
You may be wondering why we keep referencing strawberry lube. And that is because there is a scene in this film where Justin Yoder discovers the strawberry “massage oil” in the bedside table of his parent’s bedroom.
Jeff:
I am not a sex therapist, I am not a registered massage therapist. But it seems to be the only reason you would want a flavored massage oil is if you were going to consume said massage oil. Is that an accurate take?
Erika:
I mean, there’s got to be something to be said for the olfactory experience.
Jeff:
It wasn’t scented though. It was strawberry flavored.
Erika:
I mean, flavor is … Yeah. I mean, you can’t contest that, nope.
Jeff:
This was clearly a sex lube joke in a children’s show.
Erika:
Oh yeah.
Jeff:
Undeniably.
Erika:
And if it were just on it’s own, let’s say dad was a massage therapist, and happened to have a collection of massage oils, that’s not the case. We have flirty parents who are-
Jeff:
Constantly trying to bang, perpetually.
Erika:
But are they actually sleeping together? Because I think we see them, they’re trying to, they want to, they have made kids. But there seems to be this obstacle.
Jeff:
Right. Yeah, they’re always being interrupted. They’re always interrupted by the disabled kid. It’s like, “Who will win? Two horny parents or one wheely boy?” And the answer is the wheely boy is supreme.
Erika:
Perfection prevails.
Jeff:
Yeah, he is perfect in his absolute desexualizing self.
Erika:
Is there something here about the religious overtone and the abstinence?
Jeff:
That’s a really interesting question, because I feel as an audience, we are supposed to feel for the parents, like we want the parents to be just mating all the time. And we want them to have that. But Justin, his differences, his specials, makes that just not really possible. But I think we’re supposed to want it though.
Erika:
I think it kind of also helps us tap into this impaired masculinity that is a commonality between, I think, all of the men in this film.
Jeff:
Yeah, so let’s talk about how a film about little penis cars go down a road. I will say, the film informs us that some people believe the soap box derby racers with the black tips go faster. Unconfirmed if that’s true or not.
Erika:
Completely unnecessary comment. When that comment is thrown out, there are no black tips to be seen.
Jeff:
No. And Justin Yoder does not have a black-tipped car. So it’s not true. The color of your car does not necessarily impact the performance. What if we look at this film through the lens of gender masculinity?
Erika:
I mean, this is your wheelhouse, but this is a quest for a trophy. It’s a literal quest for a trophy.
Jeff:
Right, the basis of the movie is … It’s almost like a Cain and Abel story, sort of, where it’s super God sport athlete brother who has friends, and all of these phallic trophies, and then loser beta brother who wants to be a man and win trophies, or steal trophies.
Erika:
Oh yeah, because he doesn’t have to earn it, he would happily just give his hand. He will lie, he will cheat, he will steal, as long as he gets the trophy.
Jeff:
Possession of the trophy is what matters. But if possession of the trophy validates him in the way that his brother Seth has been repeatedly validated as the holder of the [inaudible 00:48:46].
Erika:
I was surprised to find out a bit later in the film that Dad also was an athlete.
Jeff:
Also, holder of trophies.
Erika:
Not just a STEM professor painter.
Jeff:
Slash house painter.
Erika:
Also, former holder of trophies. But he has renounced his athleticism in the name of … I guess, is he trying to be on Justin’s level? He doesn’t … Because this is the tension with Seth and Dad, older brother and Dad, is that Dad hasn’t participated in this athletic lifestyle with Seth. He has to sit it out because Justin can’t participate and he can’t be there for Seth if he can’t be there for Justin in the exact, precise same way.
Jeff:
Yeah, there’s like this guilt. Like if he engages with Seth’s proper masculinity, it forces an acknowledgement of the improper masculinities of Justin, that he’s not a winner, he doesn’t possess the phallus. Is this about guilt in creating? Does the father … Is the necessary punishment of birthing an inadequate male, the punishment is that he then is also not a male? Is he contaminated by … Because that is the fruit of his loins, this disabled child, and therefore he has to give it up. And he also has to relinquish Seth, but as Seth can’t be the son anymore because he produced a faulty product.
Erika:
Right, I think then the mission of his life becomes rehabilitating this impaired son. His only chance at redemption is to fix the son.
Jeff:
Right, to be able to reclaim, to get back the power of masculinity. So the brother is a big part of this film, obviously. The interaction … Sort of the interaction with Seth and Justin is one thing, but more so, it’s this interaction with Seth and the family and the ways in which his athletic achievements are no longer being validated because Justin now is into racing soap box cars. But the brother also has problems. So as we said earlier, he is now seeing a doctor for reasons that we do not know, and he’s guzzling non-descript medicine.
Erika:
I think it’s Pepto because of his stomach issues.
Jeff:
Interesting. But it’s a medical bottle, this is not over the counter Pepto. This is the real … This is medical grade.
Erika:
Antacid? Is it an antacid?
Jeff:
Antacid, yeah, maybe. Yeah, it’s odd. Whatever it is, apparently there’s no dosage. Because he just slugs it like it’s a bottle of whiskey. What is it about these films that seem to always position the disabled person in juxtaposition with the hyper athletic and hyper performative sibling, whether it’s a brother or a sister?
Erika:
Is it the contrast? Like is this part of defining disability as lack or as other?
Jeff:
It’s like a desire? Literally in this film, Justin literally desires to be sad.
Erika:
I have a beef, and maybe it’s a beef or a confusion. So we started this film and Justin is gazing out on the driveway basketball court, flat pavement surface.
Jeff:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And a Paralympic sport.
Erika:
Right, fabulous. So it makes sense when we see the baseball fantasy, you know, we’ve got grass, it’s tough to traverse in a chair with a glove on, that much makes sense. But why can’t he be out there playing ball in the driveway?
Jeff:
Yeah, with his brother.
Erika:
And his dad. Later in the film, we see the dad and the brother reunited and they are, once again, on this flat plane of a driveway playing ball, which Justin explains that his legs are linguine but his arms are kind of ambiguous. His arms seem to function well most of the time. But occasionally, he is acting some kind of hand gesture.
Jeff:
Some sort of spinal cord injury.
Erika:
Yes. I mean, he does enough with his hands in the film to suggest I think he could hold a basketball.
Jeff:
Yeah, and probably throw one, probably. Yeah, and note also that the brother literally plays every sport. So we hear that he is a baseball star, we see him play basketball, he wins the league or something at soccer. This kid is playing every sport and dominating at every sport, just crushing it. And Justin wants to live … He lives through that a little bit, he talks about Seth pushing him around for a victory lap when his brother wins. So he gets to kind of earn some of that or feel some of that pleasure of masculine conquest. But he wants the real thing, it’s like not a good enough hit for him.
Erika:
The moment that that starts is when his brother, instead of taking him on a victory lap, is gallivanting with a woman.
Jeff:
Right, absolutely, yeah. He’s like showing off to this ambiguous woman character, who I do not believe has a line in the film.
Erika:
Is she the same blonde friend?
Jeff:
From the beginning, yeah. I’m 90% sure.
Erika:
Yeah, if she is the same one I think they might have had some dialogue when they were roaming through the neighborhood. And then there’s also the outburst scene when Justin calls out that his brother is crazy, that he’s going to a shrink, and that he’s crazy, cuckoo, nutso, he just unleashes everything…rawr…
Jeff:
Right, exactly, he’s like, “Well my legs don’t work, well his brain doesn’t work,” right in front of the girl, because she is there, right, when that happens.
Erika:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Yeah, he has to humiliate him. It’s like I can’t get to the Zenith of masculinity so now I need to pull you down into the sad castration land of the man without the phallus.
Erika:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Now another thing that I’ve noticed, I’ve noticed this in a lot of films, particularly about physical disability. I think it has to do with masculinity, I believe, is that Justin Yoder, throughout this film, is just bursting with fluid. This is a goopy dude who just does not have control of his fluids. He’s got water in his brain, he makes reference to losing control of his bowels, he makes a lot of references to bladder problems. He is just this leaky, fluidy boy. And I wonder how much of this is about contamination. It’s that anxiety, not just that Justin might die, but that idea that Justin’s body is just seeping out on everybody. And I think fluid and masculinity, there is certainly a connection I would say. A seminal connection, if you will.
Erika:
You seem to have glossed over the blue vomit scene?
Jeff:
Yes. Literally bursting with fluids. Oh man. I’m assuming that vomit scene, I think they probably thought that would play with the gross funny. This guy is just fluidy, super fluidy. And that seems to be a problem. Like literally, there’s the problem of his life. But there’s a lot of times where his bowels and his bladder comes into it with just no connection or context.
Erika:
Yeah, the other connection that it’s just bringing me back to is when the race car driver, not in a God fantasy, but in real life, visits him in the hospital when he finally does burst with fluids. Race car driver visits him in the hospital and picks up his bed pan as a steering wheel and then takes it as a souvenir.
Jeff:
Which he definitely pooped in.
Erika:
Oh yeah.
Jeff:
There is no way.
Erika:
Think also, when the family comes in and he tells them that the famous race car driver has taken his bed pan, there’s sort of a bashful moment of, “Oh yeah, by the way, can someone call the nurse?”
Jeff:
Right, like, “Also, I still have more fluids that I need to get out of my body.” Why did he not try to win a trophy for biggest poop?
Erika:
I have a question about this leakiness. How are these fluids different from the tears that his brother ultimately sheds? Because I do believe his brother is the only one that we actually see cry.
Jeff:
Yeah, that’s true.
Erika:
I think Vic, who we haven’t really talked about, but Vic, our sort of villain turned family member.
Jeff:
Something.
Erika:
Vic talks about sadness following the loss of his child and-
Jeff:
Entire family.
Erika:
But yeah, it was the brother that we do eventually see burst into tears. And that just seems like that those fluids are treated differently.
Jeff:
Yeah, I think part of it is control. I think control is another thing that’s running under this. Things that Justin cannot control, things that Seth can and cannot control as well, that seems to be a big part of this narrative, right? Like the ways in which Justin is not at fault, and the ways in which Seth perhaps gets to a point where he also is seen as blameless in his erectile dysfunction.
Erika:
But the thing with … I guess Justin’s leakiness is Justin. That is how we know Justin, he is a leaky boy.
Jeff:
He’s just a moist boy.
Erika:
But Seth, Seth has this on lock. No one is to know what these secret doctor’s appointments are about. He has a stomach ache, he does not have any kind of emotional issues. He doesn’t even have emotions because he is sport.
Jeff:
And as the famous film quote goes, “Winners never shiver.” He’s in control.
Erika:
The famous quote?
Jeff:
Yeah, it’s Werner Herzog. That is probably a very niche reference.
Erika:
Well, this might be the right demographic.
Jeff:
Maybe, our friends and family specifically.
Erika:
Specifically your friends and family.
Jeff:
That’s who’s listening to this, I assume. Hello family.
Erika:
Hello friends.
Jeff:
Thank you for caring for my leaky body. Don’t have a brother, but my sister has a lot of trophies, maybe they were right. What I didn’t have growing up was a villainous black man who eventually became my best friend. This is, of course, the character Vic. And I think we need to talk about Vic.
Erika:
Child hating is a descriptor that you have left out.
Jeff:
Oh sorry, yes, hates children. And is feared. At the beginning of this movie, he is feared by the townsfolk. Right, is that what I would say? I think that’s accurate.
Erika:
Oh absolutely. He’s this mythical figure that supposedly kills children or murders someone.
Jeff:
Yeah, he’s a murderer for sure. But also is very concerned about hooligans in his neighborhood, specifically the children hooligans. Don’t believe me? Take a listen to how Vic is introduced at the start of this film.
Justin Clip:
I’m in a good town with friendly neighbors, with one major exception. Old man Vic.
Vic Clip:
You hooligans are going to get somebody killed.
Justin Clip:
Who is all alone, hates kids.
Jeff:
Vic is a complicated character. At the start of the movie, he does not want to get involved. He is literally the villain. But eventually Justin discovers that he can access a trophy through Vic, either by stealing one of Vic’s trophies from his garage or maybe, if Vic will take him under his wing, to learn the ways of the box.
Jeff:
So Vic eventually takes Justin under his wing, they form a relationship, at which point we are informed that Vic has lost his entire family. That his daughter drowned?
Erika:
Yes.
Jeff:
Died swimming.
Erika:
Swimming accident.
Jeff:
And then the wife, I think, died of a broken heart, I think is the … implication?
Erika:
Yes, the doctor’s called it many things, but he’s convinced that it was a broken heart.
Jeff:
It was a broken heart, classic, absolutely. Is this a prequel to Star Wars? And Vic himself wanted to die.
Erika:
He didn’t have the courage.
Jeff:
Yeah, he had contemplated ending his life, but he didn’t have the strength to do it. And so he lives as a villain, an angry man taking care of cars. He’s into rare cars, sports cars if you will, and swears off soap box.
Erika:
This is how they meet. They meet because villain Vic is in a car show and Justin sees an opportunity to co opt this trophy.
Jeff:
Right, yeah, so Justin makes this deal. He’s like, “I will help you win the car show by being the pathetic wheelchair boy, and in exchange you will let me have the trophy of the car show.”
Erika:
He is like, “Yes.” And then Justin gets impatient and tries to steal a trophy and ruins Vic’s prize possession sports car in the process. And I don’t think we can look past the symbolism of the sports car.
Jeff:
Yes, Justin Yoder breaks into his garage and destroys his sports car. And that is the birth of a beautiful friendship.
Erika:
A beautiful friendship that inspires Vic to become a new person.
Jeff:
Yeah, it’s like as Justin is learning how to be a soap boxy derbier, because apparently Vic is like the Dale Earnhardt of soap box, this guy knows it all. He’s like, “Oh yeah, the instructions tell you to make it this way, but that’s wrong, because soap box derby is a lot like nuclear physics.” And Vic is the Oppenheimer of his text. So it’s ostensibly Justin learning from him. But of course, this is a family movie, old Vic has got to learn a lesson as well.
Erika:
And what lesson does he learn? We have an audio clip for this one.
Jeff:
Yeah, roll it.
Erika:
If I may.
Vic Clip:
I wanted to die, but I just didn’t have the courage, just crawled up into a ball and forgot to care. I was doing pretty good too, until you come busting into my garage.
Justin Clip:
I’m sorry.
Vic Clip:
Sorry, that’s the best thing that could have happened to me.
Justin Clip:
Really?
Vic Clip:
Yeah. I got to know you, see what you’re going through, how you just keep going. You got me and my car back up and on the road again.
Jeff:
And now Vic is ready. He’s overcome his feminine emotions and he’s ready to be a man again. But that was the piece of him that was broken that needed to be fixed. It’s funny, too, because at the end of the film, Justin’s dad tries to hug him and he’s like, “A handshake will suffice,” because I’m a man again.
Erika:
And then shortly thereafter they are out on the freeway, he has decided he will no longer be towing his red sports car around, he is ready to drive it, and he’s got his convertible, hot woman in another convertible is checking him out on the highway. Confirmation that this masculinity has been restored fully.
Jeff:
Oh yeah. Vic and that woman, 100% met up in a truck stop, they got out the strawberry lube, and then Justin interrupted them.
Erika:
He had not yet-
Jeff:
I think that was a deleted scene.
Erika:
He had not yet achieved his trophy at perfection.
Jeff:
No, he had not fully achieved. So no one is getting laid until Justin gets laid.
Erika:
So when we get into the soap boxing … Soap boxing? That’s what they call it, right?
Jeff:
Yeah, the suds. When they get into the suds.
Erika:
When he first starts the sport, there is this extreme celebration over the fact that he finishes. It’s like … That is definitely not what he was in it for.
Jeff:
Survival was a huge accomplishment.
Erika:
Right.
Jeff:
Yes, and then he goes on to win the national trophy. He wins it all against a woman. Most of the people he races against are women, I will also note.
Erika:
Yes, which is interesting because what do we know about the sport? Have there been female champions in this sport?
Jeff:
Because I’m now a sud head, like everyone else, I actually did look this up and there are female winners, 100%. I will say, the year that Justin Yoder competed there were no women that won that year.
Erika:
Justin must have won.
Jeff:
So that’s a fun thing about that, is because according to their website, Justin Yoder has never won a national championship of the All American Soap Box Derby.
Erika:
You’re telling me that a novice joined the sport and didn’t win in his first competition?
Jeff:
Yeah. Oh also, we should also point out for our listeners who have not seen the movie, he only makes the nationals because someone has to drop out.
Erika:
But he lost to that person because of his leaky malfunction.
Jeff:
Yeah, he had a disability, a leaky moment, and ends up in the hospital. So as far as I know, Justin did not win a national championship. Justin Yoder, if that’s wrong, come and fight me, and we will prove that we are both real men. So the movie ends in triumph. He wins the championship, which he didn’t.
Erika:
We’re re-writing history here, so go with it.
Jeff:
I’m going with what I read on the internet. And if I’ve learned anything about the internet, it is that it is 100% true. But the movie inspired by, not based on, Justin wins, Vic becomes a man again, Justin’s dad and brother figure out their relationship, they’re now besties again. And that’s it. Are you inspired?
Erika:
Were you inspired?
Jeff:
I mean, did I for a moment consider whether or not I could take over the soap box industry? The thought crossed my mind. I would say no, I was not inspired. I’m sorry.
Erika:
I think I was maybe slightly … I don’t know if inspired is the right word. But I did kind of appreciate the … I appreciated that this ultimately ended up being a story about Justin learning to accept himself.
Jeff:
I will fully agree with you, from a disability politics perspective, I actually didn’t hate this movie. Even if it was completely ham handed most of the time.
Erika:
Yeah. I mean, when you have someone telling someone else’s story, presumably without consulting the protagonist, despite their brief cameo.
Jeff:
It’s unclear how involved Justin Yoder was in the making. Yeah, they don’t cure Justin Yoder, he wins the medal, I think he has to win. I feel like if he didn’t win people would be upset. Because the real story of Justin Yoder is that the brake that is invented, the Justin brake, that is a real thing. And that literally is a thing in soap box now. He does have a mechanism named after him. But that’s not exactly made for TV movie material.
Erika:
No, and it was … Unfortunately, that was quite down-played. There was a good bit of a scene where the brother, interestingly, kind of inexplicably, because the brother does not strike me as the type who was so politically engaged that he was going to be the one to come up with the strategy to call the media to ensure that this hand brake was allowed to be used despite very strict soap box rules that regulate the construction of soap boxes and only allow a foot brake.
Jeff:
Yeah, feet only.
[Theme Music] Hip hop beat from “Hard Out Here For a Gimp” by Wheelchair Sports Camp
Jeff:
So we felt it would be remiss of us to not talk a little bit about some of the very strange little things we’ve learned about this film in production of this podcast. Because of course it is not just about watching the films, but rather it’s about digging in and trying to find out what, if anything, we can find out about the film. And we actually did find some interesting things about it.
Jeff:
So one of the things we wanted to keep track of is what brands of disability equipment are present within these films. So for those of you who are wondering, I’m sure you are, Justin Yoder’s wheelchair in Miracle in Lane Two is a Quickie brand wheelchair, so that is one notch for Quickie. And I also was thrilled to see in the credits, there is a wheelchair consultant credited in this film, a Barbara C. Adside. Now why Justin Yoder was not their wheelchair consultant, I don’t know. It seems like you had one in house. After all, he does appear at the end of the film. What does a wheelchair consultant do, Erika? Do you have any idea?
Erika:
I mean, I think your question about why it wasn’t Justin is rather on the nose, because if we already have someone involved in the telling of this story who is rather expert at wheelchair use, why are we hiring an outsider? But on the flip side, if we’re writing and directing a film, folks who have no insider knowledge about the world of wheelchairs, I suppose there are … We need someone who can talk about the logistics of chairs and fields, for instance.
Jeff:
Like how to push it maybe? I wonder if this is like an OT. I wonder if Barbara C. Adside is like an Occupational Therapist or something who was like, “Okay, this is where you get the chair, this is what it looks like, here’s how you push it.”
Erika:
Oh, so you think it’s more about acquiring it and using it rather than … I was thinking about the translating it into reality into the film.
Jeff:
Okay, this is like the dramaturge for Frankie Muniz, he has his own wheelchair person maybe. He’s like, “Oh no, I’ve got a woman … I’ve got a person for this very role. She’ll really help me work through it.”
Erika:
Of all people, Justin’s pastor came up with the concept for this film, I believe wrote the film.
Jeff:
Wrote it, and was involved in directing.
Erika:
So there’s a factoid for you.
Jeff:
His pastor, which to me means he wrote himself into the film. Because the pastor at the beginning of the film at the funeral.
Erika:
Yeah, so there’s a real life connection. And another interesting real life parallel is that Justin Yoder’s dad is, in fact, a college professor in deaf community. Does he teach ASL?
Jeff:
Teaches ASL I believe.
Erika:
I found that rather fascinating that on the whole, we’ve agreed this film has some troubling plots, perhaps representations, and so this was a factoid that really shocked me, that there were disability or deaf community actors here. And this just raised a lot of questions for me about what was their involvement in the film? Were they consulted? Was the family, was Justin consulted or part of the film? Or simply the subject of the film and not really invited to participate beyond that?
Jeff:
Yeah, if you look online and read, there’s actually an article about his father talking about the importance … His real father, not the man who plays his father in the film, the real Father Yoder, he talks about the importance of deaf culture and protecting deaf culture, and trying to bridge the hearing world and the deaf world, and really advocating for deaf people, deaf culture, particularly within the church. And it was at that church that they met the two writers of the film. And it’s interesting, since the Yoder family are actually this kind of activist family, or at least advocate. They are trying to raise the voices of lots of disabled people. And Justin seems to do that as well. There’s not a lot on the internet about Justin Yoder, but it does appear that he continues to try to speak out for acceptance of disability, I would say. Which is kind of cool.
Jeff:
I almost wonder if they told the wrong Yoder story. I wonder if there’s actually some more interesting things going on in the family that soap box derby is maybe actually just one slice of a broader narrative of acceptance, inclusion, thinking about disability not as a revolting other, but rather as an other that we should be accepting as opposed to fixing, rejecting, changing.
Erika:
Yeah, and it’s unfortunate, then, that that’s not the story that got told here.
Jeff:
So final thoughts. Erica, Miracle in Lane Two, what does it mean?
Erika:
I definitely don’t want to give this film more credit than it deserves.
Jeff:
Fair.
Erika:
It is all kinds of problematic. I’m quite disappointed in some of the significant oversights as I’ve already expressed my frustrations with why is Justin watching people play basketball from his bedroom window when he seemingly is perfectly capable of playing basketball? It tells us something about who created the film and what imagination drove the creation of this film that we see those kinds of oversights. I do … Ultimately I feel okay about the sort of underlying story of self-acceptance, but for me, that glimmer of hope was very much shrouded by the sap, the very thick sap that, I think, said a lot more about the people creating the film than its supposed audience. Whether we believe that the supposed audience were the disabled in need of inspiration or the non-disabled in need of education.
Jeff:
Yeah, at the end of the day, Yoder has to win in a non-disabled place in order to be seen as valuable. That is the overcometh that happens. He couldn’t go and join the Paralympics, that wouldn’t have been enough, that’s not the trophy he wanted.
Erika:
Absolutely. But I will say, in sort of maybe some credit … Again, I don’t know why I’m trying to give this movie credit, there is perhaps some credit due in the fact that they didn’t force him into the baseball. He didn’t go and play baseball just for fun. He found a sport where he didn’t have to change who he was to participate, he got to be himself and he won the trophy.
Jeff:
Absolutely. And if we were to take a theoretical take, what do you think … Not the politics, but what do you think is the ideology of Miracle in Lane Two.
Erika:
I mean, kind of summarizing … If I could summarize what we’ve covered in as few words as possible, I saw a narrative of this phallic trophy masculinity life, threatened by, pursued by this disability as death.
Jeff:
Yeah, like it’s not just the loss of the phallus, it’s like the death of the phallus.
Erika:
And for the procreative possibility to die en route.
Jeff:
Yes.
Erika:
All the death.
Jeff:
All the death.
Erika:
What’s your theoretical take?
Jeff:
I feel … I think that this film, it treads a lot of the typical physical disability tropes. Like the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of wanting to be included but not being included. And the idea that the focus of the person is the body, caring for the body, trying not to lose the body, trying not to die. And knowing that that might be inevitable anyways. So while I think it does some good things, which perhaps is actually a credit to the Yoder family … And maybe the good stuff in this film is actually the influence of the Yoder family and what was kind of observed in them, the way that they operated, talk, and that kind of thing. It’s interesting, to me, that the film still had to cling to that kind of … He still had to overcome, there was still that drive, they couldn’t let it go. He had to win at the end of the day.
Jeff:
So I wonder how much of this is about performance of normative activity is the pathway to acceptance for disabled people, that disabled culture is not the direction. You should not lean into your disability, but rather you should force yourself into the normative world.
Erika:
100%, I feel that. My question is, is that a conscious objective of this film? Or is that the sort of subconscious leaking into the attempt to create a film that’s going to sell?
Jeff:
I think so. And I don’t even know if the idea was to sell. I think part of this was a desire to heroicize Justin Yoder. I feel like one of the intentions was to share the story about the special boy. I think that that was a driver to show this fun family who are doing great things despite the challenges they face.
Erika:
But to retell the story in a way that he wins …
Jeff:
Yeah, to give him what he didn’t have.
Erika:
Or to give him what the filmmakers felt it was important for him to have.
Jeff:
Which is why I will be making the sequel to Miracle in Lane Two, which is about how Justin Yoder won the Oscar for best film.
Erika:
For best cameo?
Jeff:
No, the film in general, because he directed it in my movie.
Erika:
Oh, yes yes.
Jeff:
In my movie, Justin Yoder wrote, starred in, and directed Miracle in Lane Two, and then won the Oscar.
Erika:
This just goes to say, you can do whatever you put your mind to. Anything is possible.
Jeff:
Yeah, exactly. And he won it against Kathryn Bigelow, because he has to defeat a woman apparently.
Erika:
Oh yeah.
Jeff:
Did you see the Hurt Locker? That was nothing compared to Miracle in Lane Two.

[Theme Music] Hip hop beat from “Hard Out Here For a Gimp” by Wheelchair Sports Camp

Jeff:
Well I think that is maybe as far as we can go on Miracle in Lane Two. I think we’ve really unearthed some things. And if you feel the same, if you enjoyed your listen, then check back. We are going to have more episodes coming in. Make sure you subscribe, and of course make sure you tune in, because our next episode is sure to be a barn burner. That’s right, we are going from the glorious streets of Akron, Ohio, out to the West Coast, for a little film known as Different Drummers.

From all of us at Invalid Culture, we hope to talk to you soon.