The following is a brief summary of his Ph.D.
(If you wish to quote from the Ph.D. please ensure that you give full and proper credit to the author: Dr Paul Darke / www.outside-center.com Please also ensure that you notify Dr Darke that you are citing his work in your work (articles / essays / dissertations / books or the like). You do not need permission but we would welcome the courtesy of your notifying us/Dr Darke of your use of his thesis. Dr Paul Darke received his Ph.D. for this thesis at the University of Warwick, England, in 1999.)

The Cinematic Construction of Physical Disability
as Identified Through the Application of
the Social Model of Disability
to Six Indicative Films Made since 1970:

A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg (1970),
The Raging Moon (1970),
The Elephant Man (1980),
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981),
Duet For One (1987)
and My Left Foot (1989).

by Paul Anthony Darke BA., MA.

Being a thesis of 80,000 words resubmitted for the degree of PhD in Film Studies (supervised by Professor Richard Dyer) at The University of Warwick on April 30th in the year 1999

Summary

In writing this thesis I have tried to get beneath the clichés of disability imagery to reveal the social constructions, through cinematic processes, of images of physical impairment as disability. The thesis must be seen in the context of other writers who have done similar work on other marginalised groups within our society that are regularly portrayed on the cinema screen: gays, blacks, women and, to a lesser extent, the working-class. The construction of school of writers, using representation theory, who have over the last two decades revealed that which had previously been taken for granted - the ideological and cultural influences on and of imagery that have an impact upon the lived lives of those represented - have been my guiding influence. The Social Model of disability theory has been used as my primary methodological framework and analytical approach.

In the introduction I provide an outline of Disability Theory - i.e., the Medical Model and the Social Model of disability - and define the theoretical framework within which the thesis has been written to make the thesis comprehensible in the wider context of the social construction of 'disability'. In the literature review of disability imagery writing (Chapter One), I include writing that is journalistic rather than academic to redress the general scarcity of writing on disabling images.

In this thesis, the cinematic techniques that construct impairment as disability, i.e., pathologise impairment as Other(ness), are identified. I explore three specific areas of cinema and culture in Chapters Two, Three and Four of the thesis: the use, or non-use, of stereotypes; the representation of the family in relation to disability, and finally, the use of the abnormal body to pathologise impairment.

The full Ph.D is online

For more information email Dr Paul Darke: paul@darke.info

An excellent listing of disability in films is available at http://www.disabilityfilms.co.uk/