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The Elephant Man (David Lynch, EMI Films, 1980): An Analysis from a Disabled Perspective

1994; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09687599466780371

1360-0508

Paul Anthony Darke,

Cuban History and Society

ABSTRACT A paper that uses Foucault's ideas on normalisation and medicalisation to discuss David Lynch's The Elephant Man as a movie that dehumanises and objectifies its subject rather than one that represents abnormality/disability as human or valid in itself, as it is often claimed for the film. I analyse the methods by which the film inadvertently portrays the historical process of medicalisation and reinforces its ideology of normality as ‘common sense’ and abnormality as inhuman and ‘unbearable’ due to its pathological state rather than social construction; with the ‘Freak’/abnormality (as carnivalesque) also being examined. I consequently analyse the ambiguities of the film to show its hidden agenda (through unconscious acceptance) of placing abnormality further and further into the realms of the Other, with eugenic overtones.