Zatoichi - Tumblr Posts
inspired by your tags on that gifset about blue eyed samurai: please tell me about the best and worst blind representation in media according to you
Had to wait until I was at a keyboard and had the energy for this one haha.
Honestly, most blind rep is bad, to the extent that I avoid anything touting a blind character on instinct. Unless another blind person is recommending it, I prep myself to endure, at best, a lot of tedious stereotyping, and at worst something that will genuinely make me angry. I'm always surprised when I can unclench a bit over a blind character and be able to say just "eh he's alright".
But! There are a few blind characters I do like! While they are not perfect and somewhat fall into the realm of "blind in name only" (where magic or something else makes them function more like a sighted person), Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender and Terezi Pyrope of Homestuck get my nod of approval. While they both have some abilities that make them seem more sighted (Toph's earthbending, Terezi's super smelling/tasting), I find they get at some of the heart of what it's like to be blind. Toph has a viciously sharp sense of humor and leans into peoples' low expectations to tear them apart and the show isn't afraid to crack a few genuinely funny jokes about blindness. Similarly, Terezi is a delightful smartass who actually uses a white cane correctly (woohoo!) while taking advantage of peoples' ignorances. And both of them have friends who treat them as people first, which is incredibly rare in any media we're in. Terezi also has a very powerful moment in which she undoes a magical cure for blindness, something I have never seen anywhere else, which makes her stronger but also strikes at something the able bodied community always takes for granted: maybe we don't want to live in your world. That moment by itself was enough to have me make an homage to Terezi in my legal name when I changed it.
I have only seen the one movie so far but I like what I've encountered of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. The stereotypes he falls into are not western ones so that kind of helps, and he has a fantastic confidence which he masks by playing up being a helpless blind man. It's very satisfying to watch him kick ass endlessly. :D
Also Gareth or whatever his name is from Quest for Camelot; it's a dumb movie but I will always give extra points for a character using a cane like we actually use them! The movie gets points for not curing his blindness and for a joke I quote to this day ("What are you doing?!" "I'm driving!"). XD Points lost for face touching though, GOD. Stop doing that, sighted people! It's weird and gross and the only time I ever want to touch anyone's face is with my fist!
In terms of the worst, if I ever meet the author of this one book I read which featured a totally helpless, whining blinded knight who becomes a total asshole when he's magically healed (also fuck magically curing disabilities), I will beat them over the head with their own shitty book and then make them eat it one page at a time. I didn't even finish that pile of trash, it made me so angry. Oh, and the entire book/movie titled Blindness. I'm glad that motherfucker is dead because fuck that guy. Not only is it a massive insult to the blind, it shits on what people are really like in a crisis. Honorable mention to that one very dumb movie where the blind war veteran is the movie monster, but it is at least good for a ton of laughs right up until it just veers off a cliff into "what the fuck?!" canyon, after which it is just a singularity of stupid.