The Idiots – written for Channel 4’s web site in 2001

Title: A Masterpiece of Normalcy

The Idiots (Denmark, 1998, Lars Von Trier) is, I believe, one of the most politically and socially astute films to made this century which incorporates a Social Model of Disability point of view. Significantly, I would not argue that Lars Von Trier either knows nor cares about what the Social Model of Disability or its philosophical nuances are; few people do (including most disabled people).

What The Idiots consciously does do is have an overt awareness of the way in which the notion of normality is little other than a repressive (of both others and itself) delusion which is socially constructed. As such, The Idiots, Von Trier, clearly goes with the idea that the enemy of humanity is the delusion of normality whilst its salvation, its liberation one might, lies with those who challenge that delusion: the disabled.

The Idiots works wonderfully - intentionally or not, it does not matter - within a Social Model of Disability paradigm. The Social Model of Disability postulates the thesis that 'disability' is not a corporeal state, that 'disability' has nothing to with the bodies of the impaired. No, the Social Model of Disability more accurately interprets 'disability' to be the social process and practices of any given society which marginalise, discriminate and make abject (creates as 'abnormal') those who may be intellectually, emotionally, morally or physically different or labelled as impaired. Consequently, any individual or group can be disabled irrespective of whether or not they have a 'physical or mental handicap'. Single mothers, black youth, women, the homeless - the list goes on - can then be called the disabled; simply because what they share is the marginalising, discriminating and consequence of inequality forced upon them by society and politics.

Some films in the past have attempted to work within a socially aware framework, most notably the Spanish films The Wheelchair (Spain, 1959, Marco Ferreri) and Accion Mutante (Spain, 1995, Alex de la Iglesia). Yet even these films are guarded and represent people with impairments still as different even if they are more liberally categorised as non-the-less valid.

The British cultural version of 'disability equality' cinematic treatment is one rooted in a sad fantasy of middle-class normalisation. Thus, here, you get the good cripple scenario - where the 'disabled' character reinforces normality by seeking to be it. This would include films such as: The Raging Moon (GB, 1970 [US title: Long Ago Tomorrow], Bryan Forbes); The Elephant Man (US, 1980, David Lynch); Whose Life Is It Anyway? (US, 1981, John Badham); Duet For One (GB, 1987, Andrei Konchalovsky); and My Left Foot (GB, 1989, Jim Sheridan).

Alternatively you get the bad cripple narratives, those stories where the threat to normality - middle-class illusions of it - is so strong from the 'disabled' presence that difference must be irradiated at all cost. A good example of this is the crass fascism of films as diverse as the British classic A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg, GB, 1970, Peter Medak) and the Nazi propaganda film Ich Klage Na (Germany, 1941, Wolfgang Liebeneiner). Such films are on the increase; there is an increasing plethora of films that support typically bourgeois liberal ideals that are closely related to fascist traits such as eugenics, euthanasia and the genetic screening out of difference. Even a radical film-maker like Pedro Almodovar has fallen in to the trap of making such films; i.e., Live Flesh (Spain, 1997, Pedro Almodovar). A mainstream Hollywood example that goes against that grain is the excellent Gattaca, US, 1997, Andrew Niccol.

The Idiots goes much further than any previous film, and this is why it is a masterpiece. The Idiots has a degree of social commentary which has not been seen before in a feature film (even in the Art House scene of cinema which The Idiots is part of). It pushes the boundary of definitions of difference and normality further than many text-books let alone feature films.

The Idiots, in its narrative implications and ideological thrust, puts across the idea that the very notion of normality, and its required restrictive ethos of morality and behaviour, is the truly aberrant life form. There are two key scenes, in this respect. The first is when a very bourgeois couple comes to view the house the 'idiots' are in with a view to purchasing it and the 'normal' couple is offensive in their façade of liberal tolerance. The second key scene is when the Father of one of the group, a young woman who has just found happiness in love, comes to take her home and re-classify her as mentally ill and, as such, for the foreseeable future, also as chemically dependent.

Almost invariably impairment is used in cinema, both mainstream and in Art House cinema, to revalidate and reinvigorate the construction, and the actual idea, of normality. That is the fundamental point, for example, of any 'triumph over tragedy' scenario or any other archetypal variations of the sad, bitter or twisted or evil cripple representation of impairment on film (which are seemingly omnipresent in Western Culture). The Idiots is an exception to this rule in that it uses people with impairments to look at Disability (the social processes) rather than impairment (the pathological state of an individual). And, by looking at Disability correctly it hits the target wonderfully by actually examining 'normality'.

The Idiots looks at Disability in a radically different manner when compared to the 'triumph over tragedy' or archetypal representations of disabled people that dominate our cinema and television screens. The point about The Idiots is that rather than using bourgeois liberal morality and notions of normality as the yard-stick (or metre-stick) by which the impaired are (unfavourably) measured, The Idiots does the opposite. It does the opposite in order to completely demolish not only the hegemony of the process which does such judgmental comparisons but the actual validity of the philosophy behind the dehumanising processes of living under the cloud of normality.

The Idiots uses Disability as the comparative yard-stick by which 'normality' is measure; and it is found wanting. Simply put, The Idiots is about demolishing the entire category of normality by showing it to be a more corrupt and spurious form of behaviour than any other form of life or existence which 'normal' life seeks to deny, erase or hide.

Dr Paul A. Darke

Word Count: 1050