That Heartwarming But Ableist Porcupine Cartoon

[beatrice_otter]

So there’s this sweet and heartwarming animated video of a porcupine going around social media.

There’s a school for animals, and the porcupine is the new kid.  Poor porcupine, the desks are too close together for its spikes!  And it can’t sit next to the other kids on the bus because the bus jerks and they fall into its spines and get hurt, so it has to sit all alone in the back!  And it can’t play soccer because the ball just hits its spikes and deflates!  Poor porcupine is all alone!  So, for Christmas, all the other little animals show up at its door with a Christmas present.

The porcupine opens the present, and it’s ... styrofoam peanuts.  For the porcupine to put on its quills so it can hug and play with the other little animals.  Isn’t that wonderful?

It is sweet, and heartwarming, but it also turned my stomach, because the whole thing is basically one giant ableist trope.

Here’s the thing: the reason the porcupine can’t participate is that the world is poorly designed for porcupines and everybody just accepts that.  The desks could be moved apart.  The porcupine could have a bench on the bus to itself, with its friends sitting across the aisle.  They could have played games with the porcupine that didn’t use equipment that would be damaged by the porcupine’s quills.  These are all really simple things to do.  This is not rocket science.  And you know what?  NONE of them are even considered in the video.

The video is framed as “the porcupine is lonely because it’s different and can’t participate” instead of “the porcupine is lonely because it lives surrounded by people who never bother to take its needs into account.”  And the cartoon’s “solution”?  The people who can’t take two minutes to consider “gee, maybe we can do things a little differently so the porcupine can participate” give the porcupine a “gift” that will allow the porcupine to participate like the “normal” animals, but which also requires lots of time on the porcupine’s part to achieve (how long does it take to put all those styrofoam peanuts on?).  We love you and want to include you, the cartoon says ... but only if you figure out how to fit yourself into what we consider “normal.”

How generous of them.

I am autistic.  The world is designed by neurotypicals.  And that causes problems for me.  And the standard attitude of the world is ... that’s my problem, not theirs.  And most people want me to be “normal” and will exclude me if I’m not, and think they should be given all kinds of credit for being generous by “helping” me be more normal.  Or being generous by moving approximately 3% of the way towards me, and expecting me to do the other 97%.

How generous of them.

This is not to say that fitting in to the norm is always bad and the wrong thing.  Maybe the porcupine's favorite game in the whole world is soccer, which you need an inflated ball for, which would require him to cover his quills.  But requiring assimilation to be the ONLY solution--and then praising it as being "heartwarming"--is ableist in the extreme.  It puts a huge burden on the person who is different to "fit in."  It assumes that difference is the problem and ignores all the times that it is society's design that is the problem.  It frames the people forcing the assimilation as good and kind and generous people.

Can we have different stories now, please?
 

Comments

[iamshadow]

...yeah. That was my feeling when I saw it.

[beatrice_otter]

I first saw it on facebook, shared by a casual acquaintance. Thankfully, she responded better to my talking about why it made me uncomfortable than she did to the time I pointed out that a lot of autistics really don't like the puzzle piece symbol.

[iamshadow]

It's very much a 'it's easy to be your friend when you're in a shape *I* find comfortable' kind of thing. Which is as much of a toxic message behind cuteness as The Rainbow Fish. Autistic people already live their lives conditioned to consider other people's desires above their own. ABA relies on it. No one seems to think, hey, maybe I should draw a cartoon where the porcupine's friends make kevlar jackets for themselves and then yell, 'come at me, bro' so it's the porcupine being accommodated AND making the choice to initiate contact.

[beatrice_otter]

See, now that would have been awesome.

[iamshadow]

But it would have required an NT to think hey, maybe the weight is on ME to move and accommodate someone different to me, and, to be honest, it is beyond most NTs to have that degree of insight into what autistic people actually deserve.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I was just thinking, the gift should have been the lot of them wearing ribbons and bows dressed in things like catchers chests and soccer shinguards. Fencing gear, because animals in fencing costume is funny and there's one animal it's bound to be laughing with.

[iamshadow]

Yeah, see, that would have worked, too, within the structure of the world. Baseball mitts and soccer helmets and hockey padding. All those kinds of things a kid could find.

I think a big problem with this cartoon is that it's made by an adult. Kids are generally more malleable. I've read any number of stories about kids, sometimes very young kids, going out of their way, creatively, to include people, from the four year old jumping up and down beside her spinning autistic friend, to the two year old who made sure to take turns kicking the ball for his aunt in a wheelchair so she was part of the game. It's adults and older kids who've learnt it from society who think erasure and conformity on the part of the disabled person is the happy ending.

[harpers_child]

Thank you for putting things into words. I knew there was something about that short that bugged me, but I've been having a pain flare and couldn't brain enough to figure out what it was.

[beatrice_otter]

You are welcome!

[duskpeterson]

The minute you described the video, I thought, "Wait. This is their solution? To make the porcupine more like them?"

How about a few lessons from the teacher on how cool it is that the new kid has built-in protection against enemies? And how important those quills are in a world where porcupines are in danger? How the quills aren't decorative, but are there to save the new kid's life?

Instead, the video ends with the porcupine being encouraged to *make itself less safe*?

Jeez. This is like a video encouraging the new kid with epilepsy to take off their protective helmet so that everyone else will feel more comfortable. I hope the porcupine has good parents who will teach it to politely reject presents like that.

[beatrice_otter]

I didn't even think of that aspect of it! But you have a point, and that makes it even worse!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

A safe porcupine can be stroked in the correct direction. A red kickball they _might_ puncture, but not a soccer ball (maybe if it was coming from behind, but that would still be _situational humor physics_)

[duskpeterson]

You do know that you've left me with a yearning to pet a porcupine?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Oh, dear. I don't know if you have any wildlife stations or zoos that do education outreach/have porcupine ambassadors.

Sharks also have to be petted the correct way around.

[duskpeterson]

Darn it, now my ambition in life is to meet a porcupine ambassador. Also, to pet a shark.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Okay, I've found that the range of porcupines is wider than I had thought, so perhaps your chances on meeting an ambassador are less restricted than I feared.

Only pet a shark where it is safe for the sharks.

[duskpeterson]

So I have consulted with my apprentice, and he has told me that animal ambassadors are a Thing. (I'm always the last to know.) And here I was, all ready to set off for whatever embassy that the porcupine ambassador lived at.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I'm sure your apprentice enjoyed presenting the briefing.

May you have many more fine consultations on the subject.

[ratcreature]

Yeah. Though when I checked out the video I didn't even get that far. I got hung up on it not even looking like a porcupine, just from the design I thought it was supposed to be a hedgehog. Also afaik porcupines can make their quills flat and then they are much less likely to prick anyone anyway, so it seems a kind of perception and image problem with an overinflated sense of danger on the other animals' part to begin with.

[iamshadow]

Yeah, there are a lot of racist, queerphobic and ableist excuses for brutality that begin with, 'they were scary and I felt threatened'.

[beatrice_otter]

It might be a hedgehog, I don't think the link I found is to the original posting, but I couldn't find it by searching hedgehog, so. :shrugs:

It's just ... gah. Terrible on SO MANY LEVELS.

[kass]

I am sorry. Ugh.

[beatrice_otter]

I saw it twice in two days. Ugh indeed.

[kickair8p]

❤

~

Assimilation is for the Borg, I ain't interested.

[sulien]

Admittedly, my reaction to that little video was a disdainful "Seriously?" accompanied by an eyeroll. I've always been "different" and an "outsider" (definitely ADHD, diagnosed as an adult, possibly other things as well...my parents always called me their 'weird kid' and it was left at that) and my reaction to the attitudes of people who want me to be more like them to fit in has been to say "Screw that!" (in more polite terms than I generally use) and go do my own thing. Life is always more interesting and rewarding when people are accepted and loved for who and what they are.

Re: Assimilation is for the Borg, I ain't interested.

[beatrice_otter]

Yeah.

[monanotlisa]

Here’s the thing: the reason the porcupine can’t participate is that the world is poorly designed for porcupines and everybody just accepts that.

Yeah.

If we are born outside the norm, or circumstances change us to be such, we should not also carry the full burden of adjustment. This is what makes us human (and even intelligent animals accommodate others of their kind -- dolphins, elephants: kinder to their own).

[jesse_the_k]

A++ analysis, and a happy new year!

[beatrice_otter]

Thank you, Happy holidays to you as well!