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a screenshot from the film Crip Camp shows a white disabled man being carried by black disabled man outdoors in the camp in upstate New York in the 70s. There are other disabled people in the background including a man in a manual wheelchair. The photo is black-and-white.
FilmStreaming

Reviewing a Review: We’re Not Your Inspiration

by Editor March 7, 2020
written by Editor

Before I begin this article, I have a confession. I don’t normally read film reviews. I have all the respect in the world for film critics and have written my own reviews, but as a filmmaker I find film to be like any art form – subjective. I prefer to watch a film and make a decision on my own. Still, like all Internet users, I occasionally find a review and find myself reading it. That’s what happened today.

One thing that stands out about film reviews, articles, and even films is that after all the work is done, they are essentially broken into sound bites. Little digestible nuggets of truth or controversy are sent out into the ether to quote, lament about, or to educate. In the case of Variety film critic Peter Debruge’s review of Crip Camp, a documentary by filmmakers Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham. , the quote that struck me the most would have to undoubtedly be:

“In the end, “Crip Camp” isn’t about disability so much as the incredible ability this community showed, overcoming physical barriers and personal discomfort in order to be taken seriously.”

It only takes this sentence to realize that Mr. Debruge doesn’t understand disability. It’s clear early on that Mr. Debruge has limited knowledge of disability history, but that doesn’t become too much of a problem until this sentence is uttered. Here’s the thing, I know he means no offense, and, I don’t take what he said with any, at least not personally. However, it’s well-meaning unintentional microaggressions like this that keep disabled people from being seen as people.

You don’t have to watch Crip Camp to know that this film is about disability rights. The film is called Crip Camp for a reason. A derivative of the pejorative ‘cripple’ a term that has been used to harm/describe disabled people for centuries, the term crip itself has been reclaimed by many within the disability rights movement. Saying Crip Camp is not about disability but rather “ability” is condescending, even if well-meaning. It’s erasure. It’s removing disability for the comfort of nondisabled people.

Perhaps removing disability makes it easier to digest the idea that someone had to cause themselves physical discomfort to be considered a person in the first place. Maybe it makes nondisabled people feel empowered knowing that a person was willing to fight for their autonomy so much so that they would throw themselves out of a wheelchair, crawl up steps, or chain themselves to a fence in a demand to be seen. But here’s the thing, and please listen when I say this. It’s not your power.

In removing the dis- from ability, you remove what makes us wholly unique. You remove what made some of us have to crawl up those steps or chain ourselves to those fences.  You attempt to take the little power we have only to wash over it and erase what makes us heard when no one wants to listen. You don’t get to do that unchecked.

Many non-disabled people, like this film critic, are so inspired by the actions that disabled people are forced to take. Perhaps they should be disgusted by nondisabled society because it is this society that forces us to take those steps. You make us crawl up steps because you refuse to give us enough ramps. You make us chain ourselves to fences because if we sit by the fence, you can walk around us as if we are invisible.

Crip Camp shows the world a lot of things. It shows that disabled people aren’t that different than nondisabled people. It shows that disabled people have been ostracized simply because of the perception we are different. It also shows that when push comes to shove, if a person needs to be heard they will make sure their needs are met any way they can.

If you’re inspired by Crip Camp, that’s fine. Honestly, with as much work as it takes to make a film, everyone should be in awe at all of the films that are being put out by anyone, disabled or not. However, if you’re inspiration convinces you to remove our disabilities for your comfort, you need to re-watch the film because I am certain that was not the intention.

In closing, I urge those of you that saw the film and are proud of the work that disability activists have done to go do a little research on the subject because the job isn’t done. The ADA isn’t all-inclusive. Society doesn’t treat us like we are human because we demand our rights. We’re the “vulnerable” and as such our rights are almost always the first to be cast aside. Sure, we have the ADA, but we still have streets without curb cuts, buildings without ramps, homes without accessible bathrooms, and not enough PCA hours to get through the day. We make it work if we’re lucky because we’re just like everyone else. That’s not to say that we’re not disabled. It’s just to say, we’re human.

Image Description: a screenshot from the film Crip Camp shows a white disabled man being carried by black disabled man outdoors in the camp in upstate New York in the 70s. There are other disabled people in the background including a man in a manual wheelchair. The photo is black-and-white. Photo credit to Netflix and Crip Camp

March 7, 2020 0 comment
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Two men in wheelchairs face each other while inside a house. They are speaking to one another in a screenshot for the film, Come As You Are
Television

Come as You Are Doesn’t Live up to Its Name

by Admin March 3, 2020
written by Admin

What could go wrong with a story about three disabled guys that hire a nurse to drive them across the border to lose their virginity at a brothel? Apparently, a couple things. Check out the trailer and we will go from there.

Things start off easily enough. A police officer rolls up on three disabled guys. Two are in wheelchairs and the third is Blind. The officer doesn’t know what to report as he calls in a sit rep, so one of the men states “people with disabilities.” The officer reports “two persons with a disability and a Blind guy.” This prompts the other man in a wheelchair to state, “visually impaired,” so that the officer has to correct himself once more. As this is a trailer, it doesn’t take long to learn that these guys have a hard time when it comes to romance. One even goes as far as stating, “I’m 24 years old. Besides my mouth, about the only other thing that works on my body is my junk.”

On the surface there isn’t anything wrong with a buddy comedy about three guys trying to get laid. The problem here is that these “persons with a disability” aren’t disabled at all. As the synopsis puts it, these three guys are taking a trip to “lose their virginity and embrace their independence.” Since the goal of the movie seems to be to get these guys laid, it’s safe to assume that the two events (virginity and independence) are not mutually exclusive, or at least not for them.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that we’ve seen this story before. We’ve seen the disabled man wanting to lose his virginity and being shunned by the women around him. It’s considered a comedy in most cases, because apparently the situations involved in paying to get someone to touch you are hilarious.

The sad thing is there is nothing wrong with paying for sex, but if this is the only message people are getting about disability they believe it’s the only way we can get sex. To start, it would’ve been better if these characters were not played by Grant Rosenmeyer, Hayden Szeto, and Ravi Patel. They should’ve used actually disabled actors instead. You can’t get authentic portrayals of disability if the actors are not disabled. From brief moments in the trailer, it does appear that there are disabled people in the movie, which makes it all the worse. It is unfortunately reminiscent of American Horror Story: Freak Show, which employed some disabled actors, but the main characters in the Freak Show were non-disabled.

We often say nothing about us, without us, but making us background characters in our own story is often as bad as not including us at all.

Further, it’d be nice to see stories about disabled people losing their virginity that don’t always involve us having to pay for it. It’s becoming a central theme where this seems to be the only way disabled people can get laid. There are many disabled people involved in long-term relationships, short-term relationships, polyamorous relationships, one-night stands, booty calls, and casual sex – just like nondisabled people. There are others who prefer to abstain from sexual activity Because actually disabled people were not cast as the main actors, these actors have no idea of the harm they are causing. For example, part of the punchline above is that they insist on using people-first language to correct the officer. What they don’t realize is that more and more of us are starting to use identity-first language. The real joke of this film is that this isn’t what disabled people want. Nobody but disabled people understand the nuance of telling our stories.

This one misses the mark, in so many different ways. It’s just more about us without us, and in the end it doesn’t even do the disability community justice.

March 3, 2020 0 comment
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A screenshot from the show This is Us. A photo showing the character of Baby Jack in his bassinet, with his mother, Kate's hands reaching in towards him to lift him up.
Television

This is Us Shows Us Why Representation Matters

by Editor March 2, 2020
written by Editor

Since its inception, This is Us has been heralded for its honest and authentic portrayals of everything from family life to the human condition. The show also offers various types of disabled representation, from Randall’s anxiety and mental health disabilities to Kate’s PCOS. In the most recent season of the hit NBC show, Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby (Chris Sullivan) have a baby, not surprisingly named Jack.

Jack is Blind. In terms of representation, Jack is seen as a baby and then as an adult in flash-forwards, where he is played by actor Blake Stadnick. Stadnick is Blind in real life, which is refreshing as most disabled characters are not played by disabled actors. That said, just because a disabled actor is cast does not make the representation good.

As we’ve said a thousand times, representation matters. One of the reasons that it matters is because people absorb what they see on TV. They learn from what they see, create assumptions, and learn behaviors based on what is presented to them. Kate and Toby hire an intervention specialist to learn how to help their son. The show details a scared couple learning to deal with their child. Kate goes all in and is most concerned with her son, but Toby has an inability to cope with or connect to Baby Jack.

The problem isn’t necessarily Toby not being able to connect with Jack. The problem is that this is an overwhelmingly common response to parents having disabled children on television. These storylines when shown in abundance, give the idea that these feelings are acceptable and expected. Often they are because media like this legitimizes this response as healthy and acceptable.

A reddit user points out the dangerousness of this storyline by saying:

“Some people need time to mourn the loss of the expectations they had for their child.”

Another user posts:

“ …Toby might need some time to accept the reality of the situation after he spent nine months talking about how he was looking forward to watching Star Wars with his kid.”

Or:

“That is a hard thing for a parent to admit, but every parent would have a grieving period of what could have been for a child with special needs. Especially since the child is still new in their lives, and they got the news that his condition would not likely improve.”

Sure, these feelings do occur in some parents, and yes, statistically speaking parents of disabled children are more likely to divorce, but part of that is because of how media represents disability on television and elsewhere. Perhaps This is Us is using the event of having a Blind child for dramatic effect, or maybe they just want to represent the parents who do feel this way, but when this is the only narrative we see, why would anyone expect society’s response to a real disabled child to be any different?

Just once, it would be nice to see parents love their child no matter how they are born. Toby wanted to watch Star Wars with his child, but apparently, that event would somehow be less enjoyable knowing that Jack cannot see the movie. This goes against all the Blind/Low Vision folks who talk about enjoying movies. This ignores the fact that movies can be made accessible with things like audio descriptions, which should be included with every television show and movie.

Not only that, but this portrayal expresses that Toby had a child to fulfill something in him – that Jack exists to fill that need. When Baby Jack is unable to fulfill this dream the way Toby expects him to, Jack then becomes a disappointment. It’s common for parents to put unrealistic expectations on their children before they are born, but it’s not really healthy to do so. It’s not really fair to that child.

There’s an expression, “don’t mourn the living…” We constantly see disabled people being mourned, as they live their lives across all forms of media. Instead of mourning a child that’s alive, parents need to celebrate all that their child is. Every person has worth. Portrayals of disabled babies and children need to start showing that.

Maybe if television showed more parents loving their children and not mourning the loss of something they never had people would have a more tolerant view of raising the next generation of disabled children.

Image Description: A screenshot from the show This is Us. A photo showing the character of Baby Jack in his bassinet, with his mother, Kate’s hands reaching in towards him to lift him up.

March 2, 2020 0 comment
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FilmHollywoodNewsTelevision

Congrats Liz Carr: Infinite Comes out in August 2020

by Editor March 2, 2020
written by Editor

After the last two remarkable series of the award-winning Silent Witness, it was bittersweet to learn that Liz Carr, who has played Clarissa Mullery, Jack’s personal lab assistant, since 2012, would be leaving the show. While good representation is hard to come by, Carr brought a necessary authenticity to Clarissa as she tackled subjects like institutional bias, disabled abuse, and children caring for their disabled parents. While we will be sad to see her leave the show, we are thrilled to report that Carr will be starring in her first Hollywood Blockbuster.

Infinite, directed by Antoine Fuqua, will be released to theaters in August 2020. The plot is largely being kept under wraps. The available plotline for Infinite states:

“A man learns the visions he’s been having are actually memories of his past lives.”

The cast includes heavy hitters Mark Wahlberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rupert Friend, and of course, Liz Carr! Carr will be playing a character by the name of Garrick, though who that is and what happens to them is currently unknown.

When speaking on the BBC Ouch podcast, Carr had to say this about the role:

“It’s a great role. I’m ecstatic.”

That said, she did admit she was surprised to get the part in the first place

“I thought, I bet they’re going to audition wheelchair-users and then they’re going to give the role to Tom Cruise.”

While we all know how often the inaccurate casting of nondisabled actors in disabled roles, we couldn’t be happier to see that Tom missed out and that Liz snagged this role!

We’re looking forward to this upcoming summer sci-fi blockbuster.  Catch Infinite and Liz when it comes out this August!

Image Description: A photo of Liz Carr as Clarissa on Silent Witness. Clarissa, a wheelchair user, is facing Jack, as they speak to one another. They are in some type of computer lab, working.

March 2, 2020 0 comment
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A variation on the original FilmDis logo. Purple to white gradient text reads "FilmDis." Above the text is the image of an old school projector projecting an image of the wheelchair symbol on to a screen. The background of the projection screen is a purple to white gradient color. Under that is green text that reads, "nothing about us, without us"
HollywoodNewsTelevision

FilmDis Releases Its First Research Study – Disability Representation on Television

by Editor March 2, 2020
written by Editor

The media monitoring organization, FilmDis, a company started by Dominick Evans and Ashtyn Law, disabled, queer filmmakers and activists just released its first study into disability representation! For the last year, Dominick, Ashtyn, and Chronic Loaf founder, MaeLee Johnson, watched 180 television shows. They examined shows airing between March 2018 and March 2019. The goal was to look for disability representation, in all its forms and document things like gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, and type of part. They also noted whether actors were actually disabled or not, to create a better idea of where inclusion is happening.

What they discovered is that out of 180 television shows, 151 of them feature some form of disabled character. There are 708 characters, total, but 406 of those are Bit parts. Only 115 or about 16% of those 708 disabled characters are Lead roles. The majority of disabled roles, not surprisingly, are actually played by white cisgender males, 261 of them to be exact. Out of that number 159 are heterosexual, 91 have unknown sexuality, 7 are gay, and 4 are bisexual.

When it comes to inclusion by race and ethnicity, Black characters are less than half the number of white characters. There are 489 white characters, 115 Black characters, and 83 IPOC characters. Additionally, there is one character from a fantasy race, played by Black actor, Peter Macon, as the alien, Bortus, on The Orville. Black females have a slight majority over Black males with 65 Black females and 60 Black males. IPOC representation includes 43 Latinx/Latin, 16 Asian, 5 Hawaiian, 5 Middle Eastern/Arab, 4 BIracial, 4 Indian, 3 First Nation/Indigenous, 1 Punjabi Muslim/Pakistani, and 2 people whose race/ethnicity is Unknown. There are also 5 Jewish characters, one of whom is a Black man.

LGBTQIA disabled representation is abysmal. Only about 5% of those 708 disabled characters are LGBTQIA. That accounts for 36 characters. There is only one trans character, and she is a Biracial, Afro-Latina woman, Blanca Evangelista on Pose. There is 1 non-binary, 1 gender-nonconforming gay man, and 1 intersex woman It’s pretty clear that television does not think that disabled people can be LGBTQIA, but the disability community knows differently.

One of the most disappointing aspects of this study is the fact that only 70 of those 708 characters are played by actually disabled people (that we know of). This is around 10% of disability representation specifically. Disabled representation is still only a small part of inclusion on television, so to have only 10% of that played by actually disabled actors, it’s clear that erasure of disabled performers is continuing to happen on a large-scale in Hollywood.

FilmDis and its founders are imploring Hollywood executives, studios, and independent filmmakers and creators to start including disabled actors, but not just as plot lines and props. Everyone becomes disabled eventually if you live long enough. Disability is a natural part of human existence. Including disabled actors and creators would go a long way towards decreasing the stigma and fear many nondisabled people have of becoming disabled themselves.

To read the full report: FilmDis White Paper on Disability Representation on Television: Examining 180 TV Shows from March 2018 to March 2019

Image Description: A variation on the original FilmDis logo. Purple to white gradient text reads “FilmDis.” Above the text is the image of an old school projector projecting an image of the wheelchair symbol on to a screen. The background of the projection screen is a purple to white gradient color. Under that is green text that reads, “nothing about us, without us”

March 2, 2020 0 comment
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A rainbow background with natural fiber texture is behind text in black that reads, "FilmDis White Paper on Disability Representation on Television: Examining 180 TV Shows from March 2018 to March 2019"
NewsTelevision

Help Support Future FilmDis Research by Donating to Our Crowdfunding Campaign

by Admin March 2, 2020
written by Admin

The media monitoring organization, FilmDis, has announced its first study into the representation of disability on television. The study features a look at representation after watching 180 television shows that aired between March 2018 and March 2019. The organization, started by disabled and LGBTQIA activists, Dominick & Ashtyn Law was done out of the pockets of these individuals. They applied for grants for their research study but didn’t receive anything.

They have already started their 2019 to 2020 study and could use your help. The duo started a Go Fund Me to assist in their research. You can donate to the study by visiting the GFM for the project: HERE.

Due to the influx of streaming services, there are now over 600 shows debuting between March 2019 and March 2020. In order to better understand exactly where representation is the duo plan to watch every show, and also hire an additional person or two since it’s going to take most of 2020 to watch everything.

This study is the first to truly give an intersectional look at representation. The television study currently offers statistics on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity/culture, nationality, age, role type, and whether the actor is disabled or not. Funding will go towards paying for a wide variety of streaming services (many new services like Peacock are set to debut, while other new services like Disney+ are available with new content that will be included in the 2019-2020 study. Additionally, it will allow them to focus on the study since they both have additional full-time jobs – Ashtyn working as a full-time writer, and Dominick editing media.

Your help will not only ensure that they can continue this important and groundbreaking work, but it will also allow them to create a regular podcast talking about representation on television. Eventually, they hope to hire additional staff to help with further studies and other forms of media including film, video games, theatre, and more!

You can check out the current study by visiting: FilmDis White Paper on Disability Representation on Television: Examining 180 TV Shows from March 2018 to March 2019

March 2, 2020 0 comment
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Recent Posts

  • Reviewing a Review: We’re Not Your Inspiration
  • Come as You Are Doesn’t Live up to Its Name
  • This is Us Shows Us Why Representation Matters
  • Congrats Liz Carr: Infinite Comes out in August 2020
  • FilmDis Releases Its First Research Study – Disability Representation on Television

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Recent Posts

  • Reviewing a Review: We’re Not Your Inspiration

  • Come as You Are Doesn’t Live up to Its Name

  • This is Us Shows Us Why Representation Matters

  • Congrats Liz Carr: Infinite Comes out in August 2020

  • FilmDis Releases Its First Research Study – Disability Representation on Television

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