This module you're learning about representations of disability (physical and psychiatric impairments) in film. You watched either the film Rory O'Shea Was Here, or As Good As It Gets (or a film of y

America on Film Chapter Information/Outline

Chapter 16: Cinematic Images of (Dis)Ability

Introduction to Part VI: What is Ability?

• Americans with Disabilities Act

• Medical Model of Disability vs the Social Model of Disability: the former focuses on individuals’ impairments and medical treatment, while the social model focuses on how society and institutions limit people and create disability

• Ableism and the normalization of the nondisabled; however, considering the length of our life spans, many people may become disabled at some point in their lives

I. Early Cinematic Images

• Early movies included snapshots of interesting people’s lives, including the disabled

• Early American cinema came about during the era of the “freak show” and sometimes mimicked this style of representation of treating people who are disabled with suspicion and fear

  • Comedy (e.g. wooden legs as part of slapstick comedy)

  • False cripple or con man

  • Criminal roles and the crime genre

  • Horrific roles and the horror genre

  • Obsessive Avenger image

    • Disabled or disfigured man

    • Takes revenge on “normal” society

    • Generally in crime and horror genres

• Sometimes people with impairments were cast as characters

  • Little people often used but generally as supporting characters

    • Stunt doubles for children

    • Sidekicks to villains

    • Fantasy and science fiction characters within costumes

II. Romanticizing Disability in Classical Hollywood Melodramas

• Influence of medical model of disability, disability viewed as disease or genetic condition

• Sympathetic disabled characters

  • Sweet Innocent image

    • Undeserving of hardship

    • Invites audience pity

    • Often poor

    • Sometimes an example of the negative conditions poor and working class experienced during the Industrial Revolution

    • Almost saint-like, very kind and cheerful versus angry and complaining

    • Practically opposite of Obsessive Avenger character

    • Commonly represented as a blind woman needing help of a man

  • Saintly Sage image

    • Wise

    • Commonly blind or deaf

    • Shown to have other senses that are heightened

    • Insightful or has knowledge others may lack

III. Disability in War Movies and Social Problem Films

• Images of disability increase after World War I (note with technological advances more injured people survived warfare in life outside the cinema)

• More disabled veterans represented after WWII, due to increase in war movies and social problem films

  • Noble Warrior image

    • Dominated films made during the war

    • Wounded Veteran

    • Normally male

    • Takes disability in stride

    • Often in pro-war movies

  • Tragic Victim image

    • Used more after the war, and also in more recent anti-war films that show disability as consequence of militarism

    • Embittered disabled person

    • Often in anti-war films

    • In social problem film era, characters are presented as complex and self-reliant

• Social problem films after the war

  • Sometimes dealt with issues facing disabled veterans

  • Films showed how disabled men can still be masculine

  • Some films showed how disability intersects with other forms of discrimination

  • Disability not represented as frightening like before, although perhaps still pitiable

  • Recognition of realistic options, rather than miraculous cures or tragic ends

  • Suggests recovery and reintegration possible

  • More complex, intelligent, and strong characters

*Note that even as films worked to move past older stereotypes, they were still drawing from them.

IV. Disability and the Counterculture

• Influence of the counterculture and more enlightened representations

  • Use of disability to symbolically question aspects of society, such as the Vietnam War

  • Focus on the larger society with minimal connection to lives of individuals with impairments

• Although past stereotypes continued to remain as well, e.g. disabled as freaks, their abnormalities signifying moral corruption

• Some films continued to romanticize disability, e.g. love stories where able-bodied partner helps disabled person overcome limitations finding love and/or redemption; they rarely acknowledge societal discrimination

• Activism! 1970s People who are disabled demand access and opportunity

  • Social Model of Disability

    • This model claims disability has to do with how people are treated in society. It originated in movements by people who are disabled and was popularized in the 1980s and 1990s. It has had a real impact on policy (think Americans with Disabilities Act that prohibits discrimination). This perspective argues that people can face a variety of impairments. But it is the context in which they live, their surrounding physical and social that makes these impairments into disability.

“In our view, it is society which disables. … Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society.” (http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/UPIAS-fundamental-principles.pdf)

• • More complex characters who are disabled

  • More indictment of those who exploit and stigmatize them

V. After the 1980s: A More Enlightened Hollywood?

• Many Hollywood films cast able-bodied actors in disabled roles

• Controversial questions about assisted suicide

• Ableism: ideologies or institutions that favor the able-bodied over people with disabilities

• Films that use disability in metaphorical terms, like Babel

• Today’s superhero comics and movies often suggest that being differently abled is positive

• Important trend where films are not explicitly about the characters’ disabilities….so characters have more to life than being disabled

• Controversial use of humor

VI. Far From Hollywood: Documentary, Activism, and New Modes of Television

• Documentary films with more complex portrayals

• Disability activism more prominent

• Social media has made it easier for people to share their stories and experiences

• Cripface, a term referring to the practice of hiring able-bodied actors to play disabled parts

• The importance of considering intersectionality

• Outlets like cable and streaming platforms include some representations of disability and have hired some people who are differently abled