Sometimes, the way the narrators of these stories actually tell the story is with the intentions of making people like Helen, Merrick “the elephant man” and Ysrael “no face” a target. Paul K. Longmore in his theoretical text “why I burned my book and other essays on disability” in chapter seven “screening stereotypes” he talks about how movie makers take advantage of people with disabilities to make them the monsters, criminals, villains and crippled characters of the stories that they are telling throughout the films. In the movies, the person with the disability is portrayed as if he/she is not a human being but a creature or monster. “Further, the depiction of the disabled person as “monster” and the criminal characterization both express to varying degrees the notion that disability involves the loss of an essential part of one’s humanity” (135). Also, I can connect this to the elephant man because he wanted to be accepted as a regular human being, but due to his appearance, the human side of him was taken away. But also, Treves represents him as a “freak” or “monster.”
