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Staging Overcoming: Narratives of Disability and Meritocracy in Reality Singing Competitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2017

WILLIAM CHENG
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Abstract

With the American Dream seizing center stage, reality television competitions often feature disabled auditionees and their moving tales of overcoming adversity. Musical—and frequently singing—abilities potentially normalize and envoice contestants while silencing vital conversations about the exploitation, stigmatization, and corporate politics at work in these seductive narratives. How do chronicles of overcoming overcome consumers? And how might inspiration porn about disability disable beholders’ emotional, intellectual, and rhetorical faculties? As fans and scholars resist or succumb to the tearfulness induced by sentimental stories, they must chart tricky routes through the heady skepticism of Scylla and the naïve waterworks of Charybdis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 184 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2017 

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