The Weight of Stigma: Representation of a Disabled Person in Russian Contemporary Mass Fiction

Another corporality has always been perceived differently in various societies in each epoch. Corporality — body and techniques of the body — of a disabled person was usually considered in archaic cultures in a negative perspective. Such a notion existed in European societies in Middle Ages. Since the Renaissance persons with impairments have appeared in art and fiction. Russian mass consciousness has retained a lot of negative stereotypes and labels concerning disabled people and their bodies. These notions and prejudices are often represented in mass fiction — detective stories, love stories, etc. On these pages, the author attempts to anthropologically analyze representations of disabled bodies and techniques of disabled bodies in contemporary Russian detective stories. The author has selected the texts of trendy women’s detective stories of the last two decades for this purpose. Analysis of these stories allows us to conclude that the medical model of disability, which is still widespread in the Russian society, results in profound stigmatization of disability and opposition “disabled person’ — ‘abled person,’ ‘worse people’ — ‘better people.’ Disabled people have worse corporality, worse futures, and worse abilities. Mass fiction is popular, and it not only represent prejudices and fears dealing with impaired persons but also promotes these stereotypes and thus impact on mass consciousness.