November 11, 2019

Children’s fantasy tales are more than colorful images of entertaining dialogue for people. They often contain meaning and significant values that can be applied to our own society. The idea of normalcy is not only witnessed in our own society today, but is evident in contexts like a children’s fantasy tale like Dumbo. Dumbo highlighted how someone who deviated from the mean was able to construct his own normality, not by being different, but by establishing his ability to be a talented act along with his peers. Lennard Davis’s Constructing Normalcy discussed how the person who is disabled is not the object that is a problem, rather those that construct the idea of what is the norm and what is not is the issue.

He states that no one thing can be ideal, and the history of the circus was contradicting. The circus was meant for “special animals” with special talents and abilities, and the circus group in general was meant to deviate from normal people in a fascinating way. However, Dumbo was considered to deviate from the norm within such a group. He was considered a deviation within a group that was comprised of other deviations. The history of all the past circus acts has created some sort of norm within them. “With such thinking, the average then becomes paradoxically a kind of ideal, a position devoutly to be wished.” (Davis 12) Even within the non-normative, people seek out other non-normative within a non-normative group. The idea of being non-normative is contextually determined. There is no uniform ideal across everyone, it depends on the context of a situation one is in, and Dumbo was considered to deviate from the mean even within a group that is already considered abnormal. This shows how there is no exception to the way non-normative bodies are treated. There is a consistent tendency to isolate those that deviate from the norm in many different contexts.

Davis states how they wanted to normalize humans, and in Dumbo, the circus owners wanted to normalize the acts to suit what the audience wanted. This eventually became to adapt to what the audiences were used to. The idea of conforming to what society wants, or what pleases society comes into play as Dumbo’s unique features do not fit along with the rest of the circus crew, so he is confronted with the idea that he needs to be more normalized to be significant in the circus. However, the circus directors do not realize how inevitable a deviation from the norm is. “The norm pins down that majority of the population that falls under the arch of the standard bell-shaped curve… Any bell curve will always have at its extremities those characteristics that deviate from the norm. So, with the concept of the norm comes the concept of deviations or extremes.” (Davis 13)

Furthermore, the bell curve on which normalcy is based on favors some extremes whereas other extreme deviations are not favored. Someone with abnormally large strength is often revered and celebrated for being so strong but someone who is more weak and timid than the average person is looked down upon. This concept applies to a variety of contexts, and is seen in Dumbo. The big and strong elephants are celebrated and revered in the circus community, but Dumbo’s unusual feature is ridiculed. For example, the boy that makes fun of Dumbo’s ears says, “Hey! Look at his ears…” (Dumbo) followed by mimicking and ridiculing laughter. This causes an outrage from Mrs. Jumbo, and causes her to be outcast by the circus due to abnormally “aggressive” behavior. They place her in an isolated trailer with signs saying “Danger” and “Mad Elephant” surrounding her. This shows how the slightest deviation in behavior from what is expected of these circus animals leads to them being outcast and violated, no matter how justified the situation.

This view that Davis had would influence the circus crowd in a way that makes it seem as though their natural repulsion against a deviation in and in of itself an abnormality. Davis’s viewpoint on the idea of normalcy includes the deviations and extremes as a part of the normalcy; having a deviation from what is normal itself is normal to have. Davis shows a more accepting and broadened view of what a society encaptures. He shows that with any group of people, there will be extremes, deviations or outliers, and the normal majority. In Dumbo, even within a circus group that is meant to display uniqueness and individuality, Davis would look down on the way they too reject a deviation.

People should not treat Dumbo differently because of his ears, because he is not the object that is the “hero” of the story. Rather, he should be accepted for his ears simply as he is another part of the act. Non-normative bodies were treated like objects meant to be studied rather than people or individuals with feelings. Davis discusses the idea of eugenics and how people such as Darwin, Marx, and Galton sought ways to normalize the abnormal through the concept of eugenics. By assessing people’s abnormalities and seeking ways to reconstruct those abnormalities people had, they labeled these people with abnormalities as traits that were not wanted by default. In Dumbo, his ears were immediately seen as a “freakish” and unnatural trait that was by default known as a trait that was “undesirable.” However, in truth, this was a false claim as the circus folk had eventually turned in awe of Dumbo’s feature but because it was initially seen as “different” it was immediately deemed undesirable. The outliers on the Davis’s bell curve should not be approached as immediately undesirable, rather they should take into account the abnormality as a trait of one’s persona rather than something to look down on. It should be accepted upon recognition rather than discriminated against.

If Davis were to be placed in the fairytale world of Dumbo and witness the actions happening in the movie, he would strongly oppose the out casting approach that was taken by the people of the circus, including both the circus goers and those controlling the circus. He would see the way in which Dumbo and his mother were seen as abnormalities from what they wanted to see and what they were used to seeing, and had immediate reactions to ostracize them. Dumbo was seen as an object would was judged mainly on his abnormality rather than the potential desirability of his feature that deviated from the normal, and Lennard Davis’s text opposes this idea of treating one differently due to a deviation from the norm.

 

Works Cited

Dumbo. [Burbank, CA] :Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, 2011.

Lennard, Davis. Constructing Normalcy: the Bell Curve, the Novel, and the Invention of the

Disabled Body in the Nineteenth Century . London: Verso, 1995. Web.