Robert McRuer

In Crip Theory (2006), Robert McRuer develops a crip theory, understanding ability to be similar to sexuality, in that both able-bodiedness and heterosexuality are compulsory, both can never fully be achieved. His critique is placed within a neoliberal ideology that sees identity as flexible, in which identity is not fully stigmatized, difference is celebrated (to a degree), and even "normal" folks are allowed flexibility. He explains that this flexibility is often controlled by allowing the show more queer or disabled subject to appear, for the heterosexual able-bodied person to be slightly queer and disabled, only for an epiphany moment in which the heterosexual, able-bodied subject recovers from crisis and re-enters the heterosexual, able-bodied order; queer and crip subjects then disappear or lose their queerness and cripness. His example is As Good As It Gets (Introduction). show less