MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

According to the Ruderman Foundation, while people with disabilities make up 20% of the U.S. population, only 2% of characters on television have disabilities or chronic physical or mental health conditions. In the wake of the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite campaign, and the more recent impact of the #MeToo movement, there has been a push for greater onscreen representation and offscreen creative opportunities for people of color and women in both the film and television industries. However, these calls for inclusion have stopped short of extending to the number of stories about disabled characters or the kinds of stories told about disability in popular media, not to mention the number of creative opportunities available to members of the disability community. This makes FX’s Legion somewhat unique. Its protagonist both has superpowers and is a diagnosed schizophrenic, making Legion one of the few broadcast series currently airing to feature a neurodiverse character. However, Legion largely uses schizophrenia as a backdrop for examining the larger philosophical and moral questions that are truly the show’s thematic concern. This presentation will explore the ways in which the series reduces mental illness to a metaphor through which to explore the nature of reality, as well as questions of moral relativism. It will argue that, as a result, the series not only reproduces stereotypical representational tropes that position “madness” as shorthand for villainy, but it also follows in the tradition of puzzle films such as Memento and Shutter Island that use mental illness to tease plot twists based on the inability to differentiate between delusion and reality. Ultimately, then, it will argue that Legion is less interested in extending representation to neurodiverse characters than in using such characters to mount cautionary tales aimed at neurotypical audineces that imagine mental illness as a locus of both fascination and dread.