Growing up Disney; Growing up Different: Cripping the Cartoons; Glitching the Games

So I recently watched Wreck-it-Ralph for the first time. And I loved it! I'm not gonna lie I actually cried! Finally a character that looks like me! She's artsy, she likes powerful cars, she doesn't wear dresses comfortably, she knows what she wants, and she's glitchy. She has "pixlexia" (Does mean dyslexia or seizures?)

Some of you have heard me say that comparing mermaids to little cripple girls, who trade their voice for painful working legs is all kinds of wrong. It's still wrong but deciding to keep your glitch and still be a winner and leader is a little bit better.

But it got me thinking, which according to both Vanellope and Lefou from Beauty and the Beast is "dangerous". What's with these sexist ablest game characters? Disney can make a movie about a glitchy five-year-old video game character, which is a big step up from The Little Mermaid or Finding Nemo, but seriously, a princess?! Where is the character who doesn't walk? That isn't sexy? Who has no control over her abs?

Dear Sims, why is it that I can be  queer in your game, (albeit gender binary and  patriarchal) but I can't have my chair? Why is it that I get more points for hiring a nanny and working, than I do for making it work? Why can't I practice making it work more like it would in my real life?

And why is okay for Dr. Xavier to be disabled because he was disabled in battle? Is it also more okay because he has a superpower to overcome it? Why can't we have any girls who are supercrips?

I want a power chair in a game. I want a joystick with an onboard computer. I want heatseeking missiles. I went damage resistant rubber tires, and a seat that doubles as a flotation device. I want 007 theme music. I want the whole 9 yards, and I want to look like me while doing it.


And I want a lot of little lost boys and girls trailing behind me when I do it. After we've freed them from the pirates (the mean and bad ones who aren't like us SU kids who learned from Alison Kafer). But these kids should look a lot more like Hook than Pan, having had their own battles with crocodiles, or perhaps even been cast off in their prams by nursery maids who weren't ready to deal with the fact that they were just a little bit different.

Luckily, I've reconnected with a friend who is a blogger and a gamer. She's much more talented than I am. Punchdrunk Games is awesome because they have female lead characters. But after you finish Regicide, I want a game,  Featuring us, and our awesomeness! In all our glorious colors. The Glitchy Gamer Girls.