‘A Part of Some Other’s Experience’: Dark Victory, Interdependence, and the Limits of ‘Normalcy’ in the 1930s

Disability representations are never divorced from their complex cultural and political contexts. This article argues that a culturally specific understanding of disability in the 1930s sheds new light on the superficially problematic disability representation in popular 1939 Hollywood melodrama, Dark Victory. While Bette Davis’ disabled heroine dies, perpetuating eugenic understandings of disabled people as unworthy of life, she also fosters a vision of disability as a valuable embodiment of interdependence. This echoes the increasing conflict around ‘normalcy’ evident in the period’s popular cultural material. Rejecting the ableist idealisation of independence, popular disabled figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Helen Keller instead modelled interdependent lives. Contextualising Dark Victory’s representation of disability and friendship through archival material reveals multifaceted understandings of disability across the 1930s and highlights the crucial role of historical research in unearthing the nuances of cinematic disability representations.