www.broadwayworld.com: After a year on Amazon Prime, SoulStir Creative has just released ABLE, which aims to fill a gap of missing conversations within the entertainment world, on Youtube. In a series of episodic interviews, the hosts Kallen Blair and Alie B. Gorrie join various individuals with disabilities to discuss their experiences in all corners of the entertainment industry.
2 comments:
Ableism is an issue that is not nearly considered enough, and it can be found everywhere. People seem to be so unsympathetic to disabled people, and just refuse to put in the work to make everyone feel more comfortable and accommodated. People frequently infantalize disabled people, think they don't understand them, can't think for themself, and so on, and it causes some terrible dehumanization and discrimination. A lot of accommodations that disabled and neurodivergent people ask for are also incredibly simple. For example, trigger/content warnings are lifesavers for anyone who could potentially need them. People who say "real life doesn't have trigger warnings" simply don't understand the point of them. Sure, real life doesn't have trigger warnings, but a lot of people use social media as a form of escapism to make them feel better, and being faced with something that triggers you can cause someone to spiral even further.
Out of all the professional spaces I have had the opportunity to look closely at, I can confirm that the theater is the industry that is the one least accommodating to disabled people. Ignoring the architectural constraints and the core functions of a job, there is still a lot that can be accomplished if people just bothered to try to find a solution to it. Sure you can’t demolish every single theater that has a steep and narrow staircase, but you could probably get settled somewhere and in a position where using those stairs is not essential. One could think about utilizing the literal spaces reserved for wheelchair users instead of blocking them off as a waste of space. I know that personally, I am terrified of wanting to go into a job only to be told that I am wasting time or even worse be treated as such. I think that acknowledging the problem exists is the first step toward finding ways of fixing it, so if anything I’m just glad we are starting to have conversations regarding ableism.
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