“Blind Justice, but Broken”

by Ryan Osentowski



(Editor's Note: The online film and TV giant Netflix has been under pressure to provide audio descriptions with its streaming service for some time. This spring it announced audio description would become available and, interestingly enough, launched the new service with its newest TV series, "Daredevil," based on the Marvel Comics superhero who is blind. Guess Netflix figured blind folks are big Daredevil fans. Ryan O decided he'd find out if we should be, and here's his review of the first year of the program.)



In his 1974 banquet speech, “Blindness: Is Literature Against Us,” Dr. Kenneth Jernigan posed a question that resonates well into the 21st century. How accurately does the media portray the blind? A decade earlier, Daredevil sprang into being on the pages of Marvel Comics. In 1964, the character seemed to be born of forward thinking. A blind lawyer who doubles as a superhero? How cool! Fifty-one years later, the post modern depiction of Daredevil as offered in a Netflix original series seems weighed down by the same misconceptions that have plagued the blind since the days of scripture.



Charlie Cox plays Matt Murdock; struggling lawyer, martial arts expert and all-around angry blind guy. Murdock doesn’t find the daily grind of being a lawyer to be challenging enough, so he runs around New York City after dark as a masked vigilante doing battle with the forces of evil. Murdock was blinded at age nine in a car accident in which his eyes were burned by chemicals. The chemicals (we never learn exactly what they are) cause his other senses to be heightened, thereby rendering him supersensitive to sound, touch, taste and smell. As an adult, Murdock uses these abilities in tandem with his acrobatic and combat skills to fight crime. He faces a diverse arrayed of enemies including ruthless Russian mobsters, Japanese ninjas, a shadowy organization controlled by a psychotic rich white guy in a penthouse and an elderly Chinese woman with a mysterious agenda.



The approach that the writers take to the development of Matt Murdock as a blind character is summed up by a scene from the first episode. Matt is conversing with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), his first client and future girl Friday. She says, “Can I ask you a question?” Anticipating her he retorts, “I wasn’t born blind.” Every blind person can relate to this. It’s one of the favorite early openers I experience when sighted people are trying to get to know me. Sooner or later, the predictable question, “Were you born blind?” comes down the pike. By having Matt cut her off before she can ask, it seems as if the writers are making an early effort to address some of the stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding blindness.



Yet, in the very next bit of dialogue, my hopes are dashed. Karen asks Matt, “So how do you comb your hair?” He replies (straight-faced), “I hope for the best.” I comb my hair everyday and I also hope for the best, but it has more to do with covering over my bald spot, rather than my blindness. It’s possible that Matt was joking, but this seems unlikely given the taciturn nature of the character.



The rest of the series follows in this same vein. Matt seems to kick down one stereotype as readily as he kicks down his opponents, but for every myth about blindness that he shatters, he propagates two more. Matt’s alter ego is the personification of another long held stereotype. How many of us have been asked, “Do your other senses make up for your loss of sight?” The writers, of course, can explain this away. Daredevil is a character based in the superhero genre; a genre that is often tinged with elements of science fiction and fantasy. If he does embody those stereotypes, it is appropriate in this particular niche.



Matt carries a folding cane and sometimes uses it, yet discards it when he goes into Daredevil mode, casually tossing it into a conveniently handy trash can or alley. His sharpened senses allow him to travel without a mobility aid of any type. In the season finale, he sports a new and improved cane that can separate into a pair of fighting sticks.



On the positive side, we repeatedly see Matt reading Braille. He learns Braille in flashbacks as a child, he uses Braille law books as an adult and, in one scene, he uses a refreshable Braille display. This is a marked improvement over the comic version, in which Matt’s fingertips could detect print letters on the page.



Matt Murdock’s mentor is an angry old blind ninja known only as, Stick. (Insert your own obvious joke here.) Stick has no use for sentiment or emotion, and for that matter, eyesight. “He taught me that my blindness isn’t a disability; that sight is merely a distraction,” Matt says. This is a rare and unique viewpoint, but in the first episode, Matt admits to Karen that he misses his vision. “I’d give anything to see the sky one more time,” he says in his typical melancholy manner.



Stick (Scott Glenn) puts a fine point on the argument in his first conversation with young Matt after he is blinded. “You had nine years of looking up womens’ skirts. That’s nine years that I never had,” he chides. Personally, I’d like to think that this nice little boy wasn’t looking up anyone’s skirt in his first nine years of life.



Beneath the flippancy of Stick’s remark, the message is evident. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and move on. This is a noble notion, though the premise of, ‘sighted people have it better,’ still remains at the periphery. Post partum blindness brings with it a normal and understandable amount of grieving. Yet, it’s not hard to discern that despite his super abilities, Matt never really stopped grieving. In fact, Daredevil himself is a living, breathing symbol of grief; at least, the angry stage of it. There are valid reasons for this beyond the loss of his vision; the violent death of his father and the overall state of an unjust world. This is standard in the superhero universe, but the writers never fully deal with the resolution of Matt’s grief over his blindness as a solid concept.



But let’s turn our attention to the other side of the coin; Matt Murdock Esq. Again, the writers seem to be lost in a limbo land of conflicting clichés, many of which begin and end within the friendship between Matt and Franklin ‘Foggy’ Nelson (Elden Henson.) Matt and Foggy met as roommates in law school, where Foggy pulled the tired prank of moving the furniture on the blind guy. Thereafter, they become best friends and eventually, partners in their own law practice.



Despite his Braille skills, Matt doesn’t carry a watch and thus, has to ask Foggy the time. Yet, he does carry a talking cell phone. Foggy loves to describe beautiful women for Matt. Foggy routinely says, “She just shrugged,” or “She just curtsied.” I’ve never held conversations such as this with my sighted peers. Moreover, I’ve never known any blind person who has. All of the blind people I know would think it rude to talk around a sighted person in such a manner. It’s clear that much of Matt and Foggy’s interactions are intended to be comical, but comedy steeped in ignorance is no longer acceptable. Just ask Mr. Magoo.



Matt’s enhanced abilities allow him to hear a juror’s quickening heartbeat, yet he relies on Foggy to tell him when it’s safe to cross a busy street. Matt can stalk a moving car from rooftops by listening to the music coming from the car radio, but he relies on a realtor to walk him around his new law offices in order to become acclimated to the surroundings. He can take out a room full of armed Russian gangsters bare-handed, but he doesn’t know if his professional and residential dwellings are clean.



Probably the most troubling stereotype arises when we learn that Matt loves to feel the faces of other people. In a flashback to his childhood, we see Matt (Skylar Gaertner) feel his prize fighting father’s battered face as a way to gain the motivation to learn braille. As an adult, Matt continues the trend whenever he encounters an attractive woman. Foggy needles him for this behavior while simultaneously encouraging it. With only a few exceptions, feeling a woman’s face is a form of intimate familiarity. Yet, Matt seems to use it as a get-acquainted gesture in order to gage the appearance of a woman. Of all the myths we encounter on this series, this is the one that strikes me as the most antiquated, and perhaps the most harmful.



SPOILER ALERT!!!



At the beginning of the series, Foggy is unaware of Matt’s duel identity. Later, Foggy discovers the truth. Prior to this revelation, Matt would return from combat with one or more foes and Foggy would inquire as to the numerous cuts and bruises on Matt’s face. Matt would respond with a standard variant of the excuse, “I fell down.” Foggy buys it without question. When Matt’s secret is exposed, Foggy is outraged that Matt kept the truth from him. “All these years, I felt sorry for you,” Foggy says indignantly. A very telling statement, and one that changes the context of their already lopsided relationship. Is the betrayal Foggy feels that of a best friend who has been lied to for years, or that of a caregiver who’s subject has been far more independent than he previously thought?



I found the exploits of Matt Murdock Esq. to be far more engrossing than those of his nocturnal counterpart. In the third episode, (“Rabbit in a Snowstorm,”) Matt is given a chance to shine as an attorney. He delivers an excellent opening statement to a jury and pours over his Braille law books seeking a legal strategy. His powers inevitably come into play later in the story, but it was fun to sit and watch Matt just being a lawyer for once. Of course, it’s unrealistic to hope that Matt the lawyer will take center stage for a large portion of the story. Fans aren’t tuning in for a courtroom drama. Yet, as I watched Matt orate, I longed for a series in which a blind lawyer could actually be depicted in an accurate light.



The proliferation of movies, television programs and the rise of the internet have only added weight to the impact of the media on societal views of blindness. Daredevil serves as the latest example of the unfortunate answer to Dr. Jernigan’s question. Where the entertainment media is concerned, the fictional blind are moving forward, but only with baby steps. Given this reality, it is more important than ever that we of the National Federation of the Blind continue to educate our sighted peers that the blind are far more layered and nuanced than a cartoon spawned in the pages of a comic book.