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“Please Call Now, Before It's Too Late”: Spectacle Discourse in the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: “Please Call Now, Before It's Too Late”: Spectacle Discourse in the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.
Authors: Smith, Christopher R.
Source: Journal of Popular Culture (Wiley-Blackwell). Spring2003, Vol. 36 Issue 4, p687. 17p.
Subjects: Muscular Dystrophy Association, Muscular dystrophy, Fundraising, Social justice, Culture, Activists, Lewis, Jerry, 1926-2017
Abstract: The article focuses on a telethon event, produced by Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), which raises millions of dollars for research and services which change the lives of individuals living with the thirty-five different neuromuscular diseases covered by MDA's services. Despite these and other accomplishments of MDA, telethons are continually criticized by disabled advocates for demeaning the lives of those living in what is termed the disabled culture. Lacking sufficient attention to the production of the telethon event, critiques of MDA's programming remain predictable and stagnant within an activist agenda. One way in which to develop a new critique of the MDA telethon is to focus critical attention on the manner in which financial gains work in relation to its visual and ideological structure. This article aims to push the intellectual pursuits of the MDA telethons beyond issues of social justice and political identity. It has been argued that the telethon event, produced by MDA, answers a contemporary need for the spectacularized other; it is in this sense that the MDA telethon can be seen as a contemporary version of the historical freak show.
Database: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Description
Abstract:The article focuses on a telethon event, produced by Jerry Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), which raises millions of dollars for research and services which change the lives of individuals living with the thirty-five different neuromuscular diseases covered by MDA's services. Despite these and other accomplishments of MDA, telethons are continually criticized by disabled advocates for demeaning the lives of those living in what is termed the disabled culture. Lacking sufficient attention to the production of the telethon event, critiques of MDA's programming remain predictable and stagnant within an activist agenda. One way in which to develop a new critique of the MDA telethon is to focus critical attention on the manner in which financial gains work in relation to its visual and ideological structure. This article aims to push the intellectual pursuits of the MDA telethons beyond issues of social justice and political identity. It has been argued that the telethon event, produced by MDA, answers a contemporary need for the spectacularized other; it is in this sense that the MDA telethon can be seen as a contemporary version of the historical freak show.
ISSN:15405931
DOI:10.1111/1540-5931.00041