Caricature

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The Story of Luke and The Sea Inside are movies about people that are in a struggle to be “normal”.  There is a problem with being “normal”. The state of being normal is a social construct and is different depending on the perspective. Both the main characters of these movies have a disability. Ramon and Luke were not portrayed as typical caricatures of disability. The plots of the films were based the perspectives of people that have a disabilities. In both films the “normal” people were made into the caricatures. In many ways Luke’s and Ramon’s modern day lives resembled the Freak Shows of the past as described by Robert Bogman in the chapter “The Social Construction of Freaks”. The modern day Freak Shows are more subtle, but people with disabilities are still made into socially constructed caricatures that do not reflect who they really are.

The Story of Luke (2012) is a film about a young man with autism that is striving to navigate his way through the “normal world” in pursuit of his dreams.  Luke’s mother left him with his grandparents when he was young. Luke was sheltered by his grandmother. His grandmother took him out of his special school because they treated Luke like an idiot. She taught him at home at his own special pace. After his grandmother’s death Luke was thrust into the “normal” world and went to live with his uncle’s family. The so-called “normal” people in Luke’s life had many of the same struggles to fit in that Luke had. It seems that Luke was surer of himself of his purpose in life than they were of theirs. Luke’s family, friends and even the institutional systems that were set up to support Luke didn’t expect very much from him. But Luke had dreams. His dreams were to get a job, a girlfriend, and to screw like the other boys his age. For Luke this was what living a normal life was like. Luke would not be stopped until he was free to pursue his dreams. Luke said, “Uncle Paul, it is good that I have dreams (The Story of Luke).”

The Sea Inside (2004) is a film based on the real-life struggle of Ramon Sampedro. He fought for nearly 30 years for the right to control his own death. Ramon lived a “normal” in life in Spain until a diving accident left him without the ability to move his arms and legs. Ramon was totally dependent on others for his care.  “When you depend on others you learn to cry with a smile (The Sea Inside).”   He did not like being dependent on other people. A priest that was also quadriplegic said to him, “Freedom that costs a life isn’t freedom”. Ramon responded “And life that costs freedom isn’t life.” Luke and Ramon lived very different lives yet the threads of disability and the idea of the “freak show” tied many of the aspects of their lives together.

When Luke first arrived in his Uncle Paul’s family, they did not know what to do with him. In their minds he was not normal like them. Over the course of the film it becomes apparent that they are more like Luke than they thought. Luke’s family was struggling just as much with fitting into molds that society has deemed normal. Luke’s aunt had trouble playing the role of a housewife that cooks. Luke was supposed to be the idiot yet he received a certificate from the Advanced Cooking Technic School and was an accomplished cook. Luke was reading a book titled Making Friends Fast. His cousin commented that her guidance counselor gave her that book to read. She was having many of the same social difficulties Luke was having.

The stereotypical view of people labeled with autism is that they have difficulty communicating with people. Luke seemed to be the only one communicating effectively in his family. Luke shared his dreams with his family and discussed ways he could achieve them. His family was able to also share their dreams with Luke and he was able to return the favor and help them figure out ways to achieve theirs. That was an accomplishment that they were not able to realize with “normal” people.  

Another stereotypical belief about people with autistic tendencies is that they have meltdowns and scream often. Luke’s aunt and angry coworkers exhibited more of the autistic tendency to yell and have meltdowns then Luke ever did. Luke was even able to give advice, “I scream sometimes too. I shouldn’t but I do. Breathing helps, and pancakes too (The Story of Luke).” 

Labels like autistic, retard, normal, and freak are social constructs that do not really define who a person is and what they are capable of. Robert Bogdan writes about a very tall man that was asked to join a freak show. The man can be measured and his height can be quantified. His extreme height is a matter of physiology. To be a Giant in a Freak Show this tall man must be turned into a “human oddity” or a “freak”. “”Freak” is a way of thinking about and presenting people---a frame of mind and a set of practices (Bogman,14).” Luke was referred to by his cousin’s girlfriend as the retard. His cousin corrected her and said that Luke is autistic. Luke did not accept either of those socially constructed labels. He answered them by saying that his grandma told him that he defies clinical classification. He is just as special as anyone else. Maybe a little more special than most.

Luke did not like labels being put on him. For Luke labels were debilitating. He was not a retard because he knew that he was smart. He proudly told everyone that he has a high school diploma and that he received a certificate from The Advanced Cooking Technic. Luke commented “People who call me that are ignorant fools or retarded themselves.”

In the film The Story of Luke, the characters were chasing the illusion of fitting in and being normal. Ramon, in The Sea Inside, did not believe in chasing the illusion. He could have used a wheel chair to get around. For him there was no dignity in this. Ramon thought using a wheelchair was like accepting the scraps from the life he had lost. Being normal for him would only be an illusion. It was only in his mind--- his dream that Ramon would allow himself to feel normal. He would fantasize about being able to walk or fly to where he wanted to be. It was all or nothing for Ramon. No illusion of being normal. He wanted to be what he considered to be whole. Anything less would be less than normal. Luke fought for his right to live a normal life and Ramon fought for his right to remove himself from life because he felt that he would never be able to be normal again.

The title of the movie The Sea Inside is appropriate on many levels. Ramon said that the sea gave him life and then it took it away. Before his accident he worked on a sea boat and traveled around the world. Ramon would define his experiences at sea as living the ultimate life. While diving into the sea Ramon injured himself and the sea left him a quadriplegic. For Ramon his “real” life ended that day. I believe that Ramon thought of himself like the “made freaks” that Bogman referred to in his writings. Ramon was not born that way. He felt that he turned himself into a quadriplegic because of the accident (Bogman, 24). Ramon chose to put himself in the “freak show” exhibit when he started fighting in the courts for his right to die. Ramon’s life had become marginal and precarious and he joined the freak show not because of what he got out of it, but rather what he would be able to get away from (Bogman, 35). He wanted to get away from the life and the broken body that had become his prison. Ramon wanted his freedom back.

Luke worked in a company’s mail room through the SMILES jobs program for people with disabilities.   His direct supervisor Zach also has labels put on him and is not deemed to be “normal” by society. Zach was secluded in a padded room away from the “normal” employees. Zach was put in charge of “other” employees like him from the SMILES program. Bogdan wrote that during the time when the freak shows were popular, the general public thought of the amusement world as degenerate and morally repugnant.  The general public thought that it was fitting that “freaks” were a part of the amusement world. “…they belonged with their own kind and were not competent enough to prosper in the larger world (Bogman, 35).”

Zach had become very cynical and gave up on his dreams. In a raging rant he said to Luke:

What are you doing here? Do you know your purpose to society? You are here to make people feel sorry for you. To remind people what a sad world we live in. Where somebody like you can be born. A living breathing example of everything that they don’t want for themselves. Nothing you can do to try and please them can make it better (The Story of Luke).

Zach had become like the freaks that were placed upon the platform to be gawked at by the “rubes”. He looked down on the other workers in the office. Many times he played up his role as the “office freak” by purposefully displaying random bursts of freakish behavior like screaming. Zach would laugh at and mock other people’s reactions.

As freaks sat on the platform, most looked down on the audience with contempt---not because they felt angry at being gawked at or at being called freaks, but simply because the amusement world looked down on “rubes” in general. Their contempt was that of insiders toward the uninitiated. For those in the amusement world the sucker that came to the show was on the outside, not the exhibit (Bogman, 35).

The freak show concept was also present in The Sea Inside. Ramon was visited by a local woman who had seen him on television. She was intrigued by his crusade for his right to end his own life. She thought she could give him a reason to want to live. Ramon told her that she was just a frustrated woman who woke up that morning hoping to give her life some meaning. She had many struggles in her own life. She thought she was coming to see if she save the poor lonely cripple. Ramon knew who was on the platform and who the real sucker was. Too often well-meaning individuals that take pity on people with disabilities assume that they know what is best for them.

Normal society often tries to take the freedom to pursue their dreams away from people with disabilities. Most are well meaning. Ramon’s dream was to be normal again.  Normal was the way he was before the accident. The way he is only in his dreams and fantasies. Ramon felt that the only way he could reach his dream was to leave his broken body. Luke’s dreams were to live a normal life.  Society does not believe that people with disabilities are capable people that can decide for themselves what is “dream worthy”.  

 There were also cinematic elements that the directors employed using camera angles and lighting that support the Freak Show angle.  Luke and his aunt were sitting on coach together when she was trying to control him for his own good. The camera angle panned away and she appeared to look very large and powerful compared to Luke. When Luke stands up for himself against labels, the camera angle is looking up at him. This makes him seem more in control. When Ramon is killing himself, the view from the camera is angled a bit upward and no one else is around. He is in total control of his destiny. Even the lighting suggests that he is alone. He is lit and there seems to be darkness around the edges. This scene reminded me of the “freak” on the podium being gawked at by the “rubes”. Ramon was really the one with the power in the end. Whether a person agrees with euthanasia or not is not as much an issue as whether people with disabilities are treated like they have their own hopes and dreams and allowed to reach for them. Many people believe that we have evolved so much since the days of the Freak Shows. But are the “normal” people really just still suckers? 

References: 

Bogman, Robert. "The Social Construction of Freaks." Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary

            Body. Ed. R. Garland-Thomas. New York and London: New York University Press. 23-37. Print.

"Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.

            <https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=active&q=caricature>.

Mar Adentro The Sea inside. Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Entertainment in Video, 2005. Netflix.

The Story of Luke. Dir. Alonso Mayo. Perf. Lou Taylor Pucci, Seth Greene. Gravitas Ventures, 2012.