NotNormativelyHuman 277
ConanDoyle'soriginalversionwasaminorgloss.Thus,therecentfilm
"Mr. Holmes" (2015; Bill Condon, dir.) features an "aging" if not "old"
Holmes(IanMcKellen)whomightbediagnosedwithearly-onsetsenile
dementia.^106 With Sherlock Holmes being the most often adapted
fictional character from the 19thcentury, the introduction of dementia
into this format may be occasioned by the need for a new "take" on an
overfamiliarfigure.Atthesametime,suchamodificationmayhavethe
potentially beneficial effect, mentioned above in the context of
Alzheimer'sdisease,"ofpopularizingdementia"(SwinnenandSchweda
9), of bringing the message that people with cognitive impairments are
notallacrossbetweenavegetableandanogre.
The history of how cognitive impairments find their representation
and how these representations have changed over time is of course not
exhausted by the few examples cited here. At the very least, they serve
as a reminder (if such a reminder were needed in the first place) of the
great fabulatory potential residing in or activated by non-normative
mentalconditions.Thefactthatdisabilityoftenactsasastimulustothe
imagination returns us once again to the conceptual and ethical need to
acknowledge thatwhatwehavebecomeusedto calling "disability" is a
highly mobile and shape-shifting signifier with intense, even intimate
resonances in the individual body and mind but just as much in the
social and cultural manifold. Concerning this latter field, disability,
rather than being the characteristic property of a person, produces, as I
have said before, both imaginary and material relations with others. In
thisitislike"age."Disabilityrelates,andthisisthereasonwhyitisan
eminently political category. As Martha Nussbaum among others has
argued,theveryfactthat"wearedealingwithbodiesthatarevery,very
unequal in their ability and power," that disability is an unavoidable
social and cultural presence, poses serious ethical questions about the
norms at work in dealing with disabled people at a given moment, in
fiction and reality. Her "capabilities approach" is based on the
recognition that everyone has their own modicum of abilities and
(^106) The popularMitchell and Webbseries on TV likewise features an episode
with a demented Holmes who now resides in a nursing home. When asked for
help by the police, as the fictional convention demands, Holmes realizes for a
momenthowmuchhismindhasdeteriorated(Christien.pag.).