Pretending to be a normal human being: Peep Show, sitcom, and the momentary invocation of disability

Abstract

This interdisciplinary article presents research about the place of disability in the British sitcom Peep Show, whose 54 episodes span more than a decade in their transmission (2003–2015). The methodology of critical discourse analysis is employed to probe the relationship between casual word choice and broader themes such as normalcy, humour, and social attitudes. This analysis is informed by classic and new work in cultural disability studies, as well as by work in literary studies and television studies. The conclusion is that, despite its apparent irrelevance to disability studies, Peep Show reveals much about conversational invocations of disability.

Keywords:

• Peep Show
• sitcom
• history
• cultural representation of disability
• satire
• normality

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to my partner, Heidi Mapley, for her ongoing love and support in everything I do. I hope all these sitcom evenings have not eroded that humbling capacity for happiness.

Notes

1. This discrepancy resonates with the Freudian defence mechanism of reaction-formation – whereby ‘unacceptable’ impulses are ‘mastered’ by exaggeration of the opposing tendencies (Rycroft 1985, 136). In constructing its protagonists, Peep Show often juxtaposes uncomfortable memories of childhood with joyful assertions about adult relationships and social encounters.

2. Parenthetical citations to Peep Show throughout the article provide the year of the series and the number of the episode.

3. Savantism is popularly associated with remarkable mathematical or memory skills that compensate for some form of cognitive impairment. The late-nineteenth-century term idiot savant is now outdated but ‘retains a certain popular usage, still turning up in magazine articles and on television’ (Murray 2008, 66).

4. Indeed, Super Hans himself uses comparable language, for he describes taking drugs at his father’s funeral as ‘fucking mental’ (Peep Show 2008, 3) and, when trying to manage his addiction, asserts that he is ‘fucking mental for olives’ (Peep Show 2010, 3).

5. In 1988, for different generations, Barry Levinson’s film Rain Man served as both an introduction to and an explanation of autism (Murray 2008).

6. This prosthetic application of blindness is echoed in the best-man speech at Jeremy and Nancy’s wedding, which contains the line ‘Love is blind, that is not a joke about David Blunkett’ (Peep Show 2004, 6).

7. With reference to Jean-Jacques Beineix’s film Betty Blue, Mark says ‘Great sex and suicide flick, turned a whole generation of men on to girls with mental illness’ (Peep Show 2004, 4). Implicit in this intertextual remark is the eugenic division between disabled and non-disabled people, as well as the suggestion that cultural representation can have a significant impact on society.

8. Related connotations of hypersexuality are attached to the scene in which April and Mark have sex in ‘the disabled loo’ (Peep Show 2015, 5).