Chaz's Journal | Roger Ebert: Hollywood just doesn’t seem interested in telling unique disabled stories in general, and the only narrative they do regards men who become disabled. "Where the women at?," to paraphrase “Blazing Saddles.” When I saw “The Shape of Water” last year I had to smile. The movie has its flaws from a disability standpoint, but seeing a mainstream Hollywood feature about a woman with a disability from birth, who is a sexual being, who is independent, and who leads her own story, felt revolutionary.
6 comments:
What a thoughtful article. I feel as though this article examined some really strong points about a huge flaw in our industry. There is very minimal representation of physically disabled women in film. The fact that there is only a singular statistic about representation of disabilities in general within the film industry provides insight into the lack of information that exists. In addition, the article examined the representation of non-physical and physical disabilities. I think I can only recall three movies I’ve watched in my lifetime with women who are disabled, maybe a few more with men disabled, however the majority of those movies were about men/women who were mute, deaf, or blind. Physical disability is much less represented. While I know that many different minority groups are not represented in the film industry, I hope that with the release of movies like Black Panther and Wonderwoman, people will begin to consider the need for all different minorities, whether race of disability or other, are equally represented in the entertainment industry.
I agree with Ella's comment above that this article provided great insight into a minority group that not only gets left out of the film and entertainment industries in general, but that we often do not even talk about being a possible group that we ever see on screen at all. In the opening of this article, the author cited Guillermo del Toro's "Shape of Water" that rung in the Oscars this year as a movie that finally portrays a woman with disabilities that she has had from birth. It did not really strike me until this article how much "Shape of Water" was about a female character with disabilities, but I can of course see that that is a central idea to the story and lesson of "Shape of Water"-- two being finding each other despite being so different from the outside world. I also agree with this article that it was fantastic to see such a liberated and independent woman in a romance story, not to mention that this woman also had disabilities. I hope to hear more from this community about how best to include women with disabilities on screen, and am glad to have the insight that this article highlighted.
This article brought light to something that I really have not had much exposure to. There simply isn’t much coverage on disabled women in the entertainment industry, and this article definitely has piqued my curiosity on the topic, and I would like to learn more. Another part of this that I really had not considered is diversity in terms of what disabilities are shown in movies and TV. Many disabilities that are shown are ones that can be overcome and adapted and accommodated. In most situations, the woman who experiences that disability is saved, often by a male counterpart. There are very few instances in film and entertainment where disabilities are not solved, and the character has to learn to cope and move forward. Physical disability is such an important thing to have in mainstream media because it creates space for role models to emerge for those who might be struggling for whatever reason. It can create spaces for communities to develop, and the greater community to flourish.
I had never really thought about how many disabled womxn I had seen in movies but now that it's pointed out to me I realize that it is zero. I am coming from a place of privilege in this area because I am not disabled. Able bodied people simply cannot understand the issues adversity that disabled people, especially womxn face.
Through the commentary in this article I came to a very disgusting conclusion: people like to fetishize disabilities when the disabled person is a womxn. The rates of sexual violence toward disabled womxn that were provided in this article are extremely upsetting. Rape culture which condones taking advantage of people who are deemed as weaker and less able to fight back by society is perpetuated by popular culture. Hollywood needs to be working against that culture not for it. The erasure of disabled womxn in film perpetuates ignoring their stories.
If erasing this negative culture around this intersection means every movie I see for the next 10 years has to be ab. lout disabled womxn, I'd be perfectly happy with that.
I had never really thought about the roles disabled women play in films and how that affects the social standards surrounding disabled people in real life. I loved the representation of Sally Hawkins in the Shape of Water because there are some parts of her life that make sense in being disabled, like she has a friend at work who helps her communicate and a friend at home that helps her communicate, but ultimately she’s pretty self sufficient. In other movies portraying women with disabilities has been all over the map but others I didn't find too offensive include May from Secret Life of Bees, an autistic woman who thrives in her family home and makes beautiful art however she is not portrayed as a powerful sexual being, though she does show signs of sexual desire and the need for love in her life. Overall, few movies do show women with disabilities, but I hope the Shape of Water helps others make breakthroughs.
This article is full of truths I have never considered or dug deep enough to discover. I have not been very close to anyone with a disability in my life, and, having no disabilities myself, I have very little experience with them in general. I never realized how vastly underrepresented this group of women is in cinema and media in general. I think the author makes a great point that we should try to reverse and erase the “disabled damsel in distress” trope by putting disabled women in roles of power, freedom, individuality, confidence, and strength, but we should also include them as side characters as well. The key here is the word “representation.” Just as with other minority groups, we just need to see these underrepresented people more, in every different type of role. We need to desensitize our institutionally trained brain and eyes from being repelled by images of people with disabilities, people of different skin colors, women with body hair, the list goes on.
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