http://www.media-culture.org.au/
M/C Journal: Disability, Heroism and Australian National Identity
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/48
Media/Culture was founded in 1998 to offer an intellectual place for discussions about the intersections of media and culture, supported by the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. On the website of media-culture.org.au, several publications can be found: The M/Cyclopedia of New Media, a record of key issues and terms, the M/C Reviews, which reviews books, movies and music, and the academic journal M/C Journal.
The article Disability, Heroism and Australian National Identity was published in that journal in 2008, written by Martin Mantle, a lecturer at University of New England. It is mostly about the Australian mocumentary We Can be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year, and how the process of inclusion and exclusion, that constitutes a national identity to a great extent, intersects with the ‘ableness’ or the disability of publicly visible bodies.
The satirical view on national ‘heroes’ (what is seen as ‘national’ as well as who is considered to be a hero in that context) in We Can be Heroes goes beyond the binary oppositions of ability/disability and positive/negative. It therefore contests the simple stereotypes that are usually portrayed as national and able bodies, just like they are shown in the opening credits of the show: Surf Life savers, firemen, cricketers, swimmers and running children.
