When I was in film school, nobody would work with me. That is, unless they were forced to work with me. One of the women in my class once told me that no one would work with me because the other students did not think I was capable of helping…
Disabled Black folks say that comparing blackface and disabled mimicry harms them, and we should listen.
The disability rights movement changed my life. I have been benefiting from legislation fought for by disabled activists who came before me since I was a young child. Like Mike Ervin and various other activists, I am a former poster brat, a kid pimped out for profit by the machine…
Society has always looked down on those who are different. It is not hard to imagine a world where we have tried to eradicate every type of difference. History actually shows that we have, and continue to do so. While the United States fights over allowing those with differences to…
Split debuts in theaters across the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain on January 20! 1. Write a blog post highlighting the problems with the ableism in the trailer for Split. Address the portrayal, and/or the cripping up by James McAvoy. You might want to highlight the dangers of treating people…
I have watched many films that feature disability and disabled characters in some form or another, and what I have learned is that if the trailer is ableist, there is a HUGE chance the entire film is embedded with ableism, as well. Ableism hurts the disability community. One of the…
The disability community has a very difficult journey towards attaining equality in many aspects, one of which is finding authentic portrayals. A major way to work towards better, more authentic representations of disabled characters is to cast actual disabled actors. I have unfortunately realized that most people have no comprehension…
Hollywood can be cruel, especially to people who are different. We have all seen what the film portrayals and casting have done to those who are actors of color, and those who are LGBT, especially transgender, but seldom do we hear about the unjust treatment of actors with disabilities. It…
While many believe that a film’s main purpose is to entertain, films do much more than that. They educate us. They empower us. They make us feel a plethora of emotions. Films introduce us to characters and worlds we may not know or understand. I’m an existential filmmaker. As such,…
The disability community has long been excluded from Hollywood and the Academy’s president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, reinforced that when she mentioned every marginalized community in the Academy’s diversity efforts… but the disability community.
