hey RTC fandom, i wanted to talk about disability erasure in RTC, and how the fandom (and potential future productions) can do better than canon has done so far!
What is disability erasure?
Disability erasure is, basically, finding ways to avoid acknowledging or depicting disability because of how it makes people uncomfortable. One example of this, and the most common thing that pops up in discussions of RTC, is taking a character that is canonically disabled or usually depicted as disabled, and depicting them without that disability.
When this happens in general, it is a problem because it deprives disabled people of a chance to see themselves represented in media. In theatre, it also often means that an abled actor gets a role that could have gone to a disabled actor - and this is already a problem even when the character is being depicted as disabled on-stage, due to ableism in the hiring/audition process.
We already have few enough disabled characters as it is - we don't need any less. Ricky is an important character to me and to many other disabled people. That's why I, like most of the fandom, do not support the 2022 script changes that made Ricky able-bodied and replaced his physical disability with a psychological trauma.
I won't discuss the script changes much here. Many other people, including Yannick himself, have already explained it better than I can. But suffice to say I think the new script is incredibly, inherently ableist.
But that's not the only example of disability erasure in RTC.
Disability erasure doesn't just mean taking a disabled character and making them completely abled. In fact, many people have correctly pointed out that Ricky still has a disability in the new scripts, because being unable to talk due to psychological trauma is a disability. And this is true, but it doesn't change the deliberate erasure of Ricky's physical disability.
Because all disabilities are different, it's possible to erase a character's disability even without making them fully abled. If a character has one disability, and you remove it to give them another - that's still erasure! Disability rep is not all interchangeable, and it does matter what disability or broadly what type of disability a character has.
I hope most of the fandom can understand that, for example, it would be a problem to make Noel bisexual. Even though bisexuality is still part of the queer community, it's erasure to do that for Noel - because he isn't just generic queer representation, he's specifically gay! And the same sort of principle applies to Ricky, because he isn't just generic disability representation - he is specifically a person with a degenerative disease, and a mobility aid user who cannot speak.
With the canon info that we have on Ricky's disability, based on the 2016 script, here are some examples of things that might not be making him fully abled but are still erasure:
Depicting Ricky not needing mobility aids, even if he can't talk
Depicting Ricky talking out loud, even if he still needs mobility aids
Depicting Ricky being a person who cannot speak & needs mobility aids, but having this be due to two unrelated disabilities that affect his speech & legs only (for example nonverbal autism & arthritis in his legs). Ricky canonically has a rare degenerative disease that affects both his speech and his mobility; it is very likely (all but stated outright in canon) that this is a neuromuscular disease which affects his whole body.
Removing the fact that Ricky has a degenerative disease specifically, and explaining his symptoms with a disability that will stay at the same severity throughout his life, when he canonically has a degenerative disease that he outright says will lead to an early death (even if this makes you sad to think about, which is 100% valid and understandable, it is not appropriate to erase outright)
But what about in the afterlife? What if Karnak allows Ricky to remove his disability or specific parts of it?
Pretty much every production of RTC involves Ricky, upon death, gaining some abilities that he didn't have in life. In most productions he discards his mobility aids, though there are some where he keeps them during most of the musical and only throws them aside for choreography, and some where he keeps them throughout choreography. To my knowledge every production of RTC also has him talking out loud after his death. This is all pretty easily explained by some sort of afterlife magic, or by Karnak actively choosing to remove (parts of) Ricky's disability.
And I'm sorry to say that it's still erasure.
I'm not saying this because I want to file RTC away as bad rep. I love RTC, and I love Ricky! I think Ricky is extremely valuable disability representation for so many reasons, and I also think there are some things that it could have done better.
I think having Ricky as an explicitly disabled character who becomes able-bodied due to magic later on is much, much better representation than simply writing his disability out of the canon entirely. It's a different level of erasure, because it still acknowledges him as a disabled character, and still acknowledges that as part of his backstory.
But using magic as a way to remove disability is lazy. It's a quick way to avoid having to depict a character as disabled for the entire length of a musical. And that means that the disabled fans who see ourselves in Ricky, don't get to see a character depicted as disabled or using mobility aids on-stage for the whole length of the musical.
Now, I understand that whenever you're making fanworks for a flawed piece of media (and every piece of media will have some flaws), there's a balance between being canon compliant and improving on canon. I don't think fans should be instantly labeled as ableist, or canceled, for writing canon compliant fic where Ricky's disability is erased in some way in the afterlife. I don't think it carries the same harm or weight - for one, it doesn't have the same reach as actual musical productions do, and on top of that, disabled people in the RTC fandom are already aware of the flawed parts of RTC's disability rep & we tend to be prepared for this when we go into the fandom.
I do think people should consider making Ricky disabled in the afterlife in fanworks. Many other parts of canon are changed in fanworks, so this one can be too!
And more importantly than that, I think more RTC productions (on the off chance anyone involved in a production of RTC is reading this post) should work to continue depicting Ricky as disabled on-stage throughout the whole musical. As I've said before, to my knowledge, there isn't an existing production of RTC that doesn't engage in some level of disability erasure, and that's something I'd like to see change one day.
But wait, if Ricky still couldn't speak out loud in the afterlife, wouldn't that mean cutting his song?
I get this response a lot when I bring up the disability erasure inherent in Ricky consistently regaining his ability to talk upon death. I understand the concern - I think it would be awful if a production simply cut SABM in order to avoid depicting Ricky talking/singing out loud, and that doing so would also be a form of erasure in the sense that it would inevitably involve minimizing Ricky's character and removing parts of what made RTC such valuable disability rep in the first place (especially so if some of ricky's speaking lines, such as his post-SABM speech, are also cut with SABM).
But the fact is that you simply don't have to cut Ricky's song for this to work. There are real people who have performed in musicals without speaking/singing out loud, and still had major roles!
One way of doing this is with an interpreter. Ricky's actor would perform SABM in sign language, and another performer would sing the song as he signs it. It's important to note that when this is done, Ricky is still the main performer and still the focus of the song, and the interpreter is just that - an interpreter.
This method has been done in musical theatre before. One example is Joshua Castille, a Deaf actor, playing Quasimodo (an originally deaf character) in the 5th Avenue Theatre production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He performs in ASL, with singer E.J Cardona acting as the voice of Quasimodo. There are some clips online if you'd like to look it up!
There's another idea that I've thought of myself, though I don't know of any examples or if it'd been done. If Ricky was depicted using an AAC device on-stage, that would mean he talks using a synthesised (text-to-speech) voice. And we already have the technology to create singing with synthesised voices - it's called Vocaloid!
Of course, real world AAC devices generally can't sing, and programming a song into a vocaloid inherently takes a lot of time - you couldn't do it on the spot. But the whole premise of a musical is people singing on the spot when they wouldn't normally be able to! In RTC specifically it's explained as Karnak's doing, but pretty much every musical involves characters perfectly singing in contexts where they couldn't have possibly memorised/rehearsed the lyrics, harmonies or choreography in advance. I don't think it's that out-there to stretch this to Ricky singing using a vocaloid-like voice in a context where he couldn't have possibly programmed it into his device in advance.
I don't think these are the only ways it can be done, either - they're just some obvious examples. I just wanted to make it clear that it is possible to depict Ricky as a nonspeaking character throughout the musical, and this wouldn't have to involve cutting his song or removing his singing roles. I'd really like to see productions start to come up with creative ways of doing this!
Disability erasure is a problem in all existing RTC productions to varying degrees, and it's a problem in the fandom as well. Disability erasure isn't just taking a disabled character and making them fully abled - many cases of disability erasure in RTC involve Ricky still having a disability, but it's still erasure if aspects of the disability he canonically has are erased.
Contrary to popular belief, Ricky's inability to speak being erased in the afterlife is not just a necessary evil of the musical genre. Nonspeaking characters can be represented in musicals, and this wouldn't have to involve cutting his song!
