supercrip

Noun

supercrip (plural supercrips)

1. A disabled person, particularly an athlete, who achieves exceptional success or accomplishments, whom others view as inspirational.
   • Roosevelt was the quintessential American "supercrip," to use a term coined by disability activists.2001, Ellen L. Barton, “Textual Practices of Erasure: Representations of Disability and the Founding of the United Way”, in Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, James C. Wilson, editors, Embodied Rhetorics...
   • The athletes also believe that the supercrip model is good for the able-bodied public because it shows disabled individuals in a "positive" light.2008, Marie Hardin, Brent Hardin, “Elite Wheelchair Athletes Relate To Sport Media”, in Keith Gilbert, Otto J. Schantz, editors, The Paralympic Games: Empowerment Or Side Show?, page 29
2. A disabled fictional character with extraordinary abilities or superpowers.
   • Yet because of the history and proliferation of the supercrip in films in television shows – not only with autism but supercrips with other disabilities as well – viewers are primed for the supercrip autistic and are therefore not expecting (in some ways) a view of autism that comes across to many...2016, Katherine Lashley, “Displaying Autism: The Thinking Images of Temple Grandin (2010)”, in Benjamin Fraser, editor, Cultures of Representation: Disability in World Cinema Contexts, page 130
   • Another potential siting of disability masquerade connecting the superhero and 'supercrip' is M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (2000), which establishes a kind of disability continuum between the villain Elijah Price/Mr Glass, who lives with osteogenesis imperfecta, and the hero David Dunn, who is...2016, Todd R. Ramlow, “Queering, Cripping”, in Michael O'Rourke, Noreen Giffney, editors, The Ashgate Research Companion to Queer Theory, unnumbered page