"I DON'T KNOW! I mean, seriously! What's with you people?! I'm blind!"
Peter: Kick, Joe, kick!
Lois: Peter, he's a paraplegic!
Peter: That doesn't mean he can't hear. Kick, Joe, kick!
Lois: Peter, he's a paraplegic!
Peter: That doesn't mean he can't hear. Kick, Joe, kick!
— Family Guy, "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire"
Many disabled people have lived with their handicaps for a very long time, and thus would usually develop a means of coping in a way where they appear "normal." Sometimes this applies naturally, like a blind person using all of their other senses to the point where they forget that they are blind. In most cases (and because it's cool), the trope usually applies to someone who uses superpowers to compensate, like getting around with levitation despite being paralyzed.
Because of this, running gags and moments of awkward silence are born from the times when the characters around them are suddenly reminded that one is disabled.
Sub-Trope of Disability Gag. Compare with You Know I'm Black, Right?; contrast with Ignore the Disability.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In the manga and 2009 anime Fullmetal Alchemist Ling asks Edward if he has athlete's foot, forgetting that Ed's leg is completely made of metal.
- Rurouni Kenshin Shishio asks his blind swordsman Usui if he saw a man with a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek or a man who looks wolf-like, putting up two fingers describing "those two".
Comic Books
- In Daredevil, characters will frequently forget that Matt Murdock is blind, immediately apologizing afterwards for being insensitive. Though Matt always casually brushes it off while acting amused by the mistake.
Fan Works
- Since the Izuku of The Devil of UA is blind, there are jokes centered around this.
All Might: That is the power that is growing inside your body now. You are now the next chosen bearer of One for All. The powers that which I had are now yours also. Take it in young one! This is who are you now! Feel the illumination of the great ball of fire down upon you and the view of the crystal water beach that which you yourself have created! Do you not see the beauty of which it possesses? Izuku! TELL ME, DO YOU SEE IT!
Izuku: I can't, I'm blind remember?
All Might: Oh... right. - In Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K, Anakin tries to offer a handshake to Iskandar Khayon after they agree to help each other escape the Inquisitor's warship, forgetting that his newfound ally is both blinded and armless.
Khayon: [amused] Did you... just extend your hand towards me?
Anakin: No! Obviously not! I was, uh, swatting a fly! - In Chapter 14
of Waiting is worth it, Izuku's classmates commend his win over Tenya when he used his quirk to telekinetically tie his shoelaces together. He explains to them that he learned how to do that with his own shoelaces because he could not reach them himself (being handicapped and all). This creates an awkward pause with the others.
Ochako: Sometimes we forget that you are paralyzed.
Films — Live-Action
- In Happy Gilmore, Happy seems to constantly forget that Chubbs has a prosthetic hand and keeps knocking or pulling it off by accident before apologizing afterwards.
- In Mandy, people sometimes forget that Ellis is deaf, and she has to remind them to look at her when they talk to her.
- Before making love to Rita, Betty in Mulholland Dr., asks if she's ever done such a thing before. The amnesiac Rita sensibly answers, "I don't know."
- In Psych-Out, Jenny's new friends sometimes forget that she's deaf.
Ben: [yelling from a car] Hey, Jenny!
Stoney: Hey, it's not gonna do you any good to yell, you know.
Ben: Oh yeah, that's right. - A Quiet Place Part II: Emmett chews Regan out early in the film for running off without telling him... except that he's not facing her and she's deaf. Finally, she grabs him by the head, points him toward her face, and whispers, "Enunciate."
- Tom Stewart of Tormented is talking with Mrs. Ellis, a blind resident of the island, about a strange supernatural event that occurred in the past, and he absently asks her if she saw anything herself; she quips back, "It's been many years since I've seen anything." Tom replies that he keeps forgetting her blindness.
- In Rogue One, Chirrut Îmwe is a Guardian of the Whills, a Warrior Monk and Blind Weaponmaster who fairly effortlessly takes down a squad of Imperial stormtroopers with his skills. When a group of Saw Gerrara's Partisans captures them and shoves a sack over their heads to take them to Saw, Chirrut snaps out an indignant, "Are you kidding me!? I'm blind!"
- In Oddity, Yana keeps walking into this in her interactions with Blind Seer Darcy. At one point she asks if Darcy's seen her keys anywhere, and is flatly reminded that Darcy hasn't seen anything in many years. Later, when they are debating the mysterious murder of Darcy's sister Dani, who supposedly let a stranger into her house in the middle of the night, Yana insists that she would never do such a thing, rhetorically asking "Do I look stupid?" Darcy reminds her that she has no idea what Yana looks like.
Literature
- Played for Drama in The Ship Who... Searched. Having fallen in love with Tia, whenever he's out being her brawn and she's Mission Control Alex imagines her as sitting in a chair watching screens and instruments and speaking into a microphone - not suspended in a People Jar encased in the machinery that keeps her alive. It makes him feel warmed and cheered to imagine her waiting for him as someone he could have a physical relationship with, and it reaches the point where any reminder that she's not just out of sight and they Can't Have Sex, Ever depresses him.
Live-Action TV
- This has happened to the character who is disabled in Better Call Saul. Chuck McGill, the older brother of main character Jimmy, is convinced that he has developed a painful sensitivity to all electronics and anything that uses or conducts electricity, which has turned him from one of the most prestigious and influential lawyers in the state to a rather pitiful shut-in. Although Chuck's symptoms are psychosomatic, at times he has gone into a catatonic state reminiscent of locked-in syndrome. On a few occasions however, Chuck has been so distracted by other things that he has failed to react to those same external stimuli and situations that otherwise cause him so much grief. Jimmy ultimately uses this against him when Chuck tries to have him disbarred, by having someone sneak a fully-charged phone battery into Chuck's pocket, then having Chuck take it out while he's on the stand, showing everyone that it's psychosomatic. The real damage, however, comes when Chuck goes into an outraged Motive Rant.
- The occasional scene in later seasons of Grey's Anatomy which feature Arizona limping or otherwise drawing attention to her being an amputee for a short period of time — beyond this, the rest of the time she is just as effective running to crashing patients or dodging her co-workers as everyone else despite only having one leg.
Podcasts
- Nerdist Podcast: The Radiorama special with the Futurama cast has a subplot in which Fry buys Leela a custom 3D-projected sculpture, which offends her because, as a cyclops, she's incapable of viewing it properly. She forgives him at the end of the episode when he explains he doesn't define her by her disability.
Video Games
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Wu Zi Mu is first met during a car race, and The Reveal that he's blind comes as a surprise to CJ. There are a few scenes where the joke is that he's blind (running into a wall or shooting randomly) and a few where other people forget about it, such as the heist planning scenes.
Woozie: Hey, are you pointing again?
Visual Novels
- In Case 3 of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the blind singer Lamiroir is assaulted with a blow to the forehead.
Trucy: But they hit her on the forehead, right? That's right in front of her! How could she not see... Oh.
Web Animation
- This occurs in RWBY volume 6 when Cinder tries to come to an agreement with the mute Neo:
Cinder: Okay, let's talk.
Neo: [points to mouth]
Cinder: ...Right.
Webcomics
- In Beyond the End, End constantly forgets that Roman is severely (can barely see a metre in front of him) short-sighted and will keep asking him about things he can't see.
Web Videos
- In The Funniest Minecraft Videos Ever with the Better End Mod, Tommy and Phil find a biome with wildly colorful crystal spires. They bring some crystals back and excitedly show them to George... forgetting that George is colorblind.note
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Toph is blind, and while she can sense people and objects through vibrations, Toph's friends variously forget how this differs from actual sight.
Sokka: [in a cave] It's so dark in here. I can't see a thing!
Toph: Oh, no, what a nightmare!
Sokka: Sorry.- Most often, Toph is handed printed or written documents, which she explains she can't read because she can only perceive them as colorless, featureless shapes. The first time, when Katara asks why Toph wouldn't bother going into a library, she takes it gracefully. Ever time after, Toph keeps getting angrier and more mocking. She also uses her own blindness as a Stealth Insult about Sokka's bad drawing of Appa ("It looks just like him to me!"). This even comes up when Toph isn't present: Sokka sends Katara a message he put Toph's signature on, which doesn't work because she remembers Toph can't write.
Toph: I've held books before. And I gotta tell you, they don't exactly do it for me.
Katara: Oh, right. Sorry.
Toph: Let me know if they have something you can listen to. - Although her hearing is very good, Toph can only feel vibrations through solid surfaces, so to her flying on Appa it like floating in a endless void. During one flight searching a desert, she passively-aggressively expressed her discomfort by yelling that she saw what they're looking for, knowing the others would react before realizing that's impossible.
Toph: THERE IT IS!
[the others rushes to see nothing]
Toph: ...That's what it'll sound like when one of you spots it. [waves hand in front of eyes] - The joke is ultimately played with in the series finale. While Sokka forgets to verbally specify who he's talking to when Toph is present, it causes her to mistakenly interpret it as a much more ridiculous oversight.
Sokka: Good work, Toph! Time to take control of the ship. (looks at Suki) Take the wheel.
Toph: That's a great idea! Let the blind girl steer the giant airship!
Sokka: I was talking to Suki.
Toph: (embarrassed) That would make a lot more sense.
- Most often, Toph is handed printed or written documents, which she explains she can't read because she can only perceive them as colorless, featureless shapes. The first time, when Katara asks why Toph wouldn't bother going into a library, she takes it gracefully. Ever time after, Toph keeps getting angrier and more mocking. She also uses her own blindness as a Stealth Insult about Sokka's bad drawing of Appa ("It looks just like him to me!"). This even comes up when Toph isn't present: Sokka sends Katara a message he put Toph's signature on, which doesn't work because she remembers Toph can't write.
- Family Guy does not want you to forget that Joe is "dead from the waist down". When Peter tells him to kick, Lois reminds him that he's paraplegic, only for him to reply "That doesn't mean he can't hear!"
- Lynx-O of ThunderCats briefly gets some humor of this nature in "Thundercubs Part II":
Wilykat: Anyone entering [the Jungles of Darkness] might as well be blind.
Lynx-O: Of course, that wouldn't make much difference to me, but the rest of you...