‘This magic keeps me alive, but it’s making me crazy!’: Amputation, Madness, and Control in Adventure Time (2009–2018)

Unlike the prior periods under consideration, the 2010s is still a somewhat uncertain period. Due to its proximity to the current moment, it is challenging to conceptualise it as history. From the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to Donald Trump’s US Presidency to Brexit, the 2010s was a period of major political, economic, social, and cultural crises. The GFC set the stage for the early years of the decade with ongoing economic crises in several nations, while others consolidated their power, and antiestablishment and anticapitalist protests across the world. The resultant ‘austerity’ discourse served to shore up the institutions responsible for the crisis while making “the lives of ordinary … people more vulnerable and precarious” (McRuer, 2018:1). As Robert McRuer demonstrates throughout Crip Times (2018), these new political and economic formations that emerged at this time had direct impacts on disabled people worldwide and, through passing these responsibilities on to citizens, produced conditions that could cause and amplify disability, illness, and mental health crises. But as life became more precarious for people, representation emerged as a key battleground.