The Impact of Disability Inclusion in the Media

By Guest Blogger Dominick Evans, Film Director, Writer and Activist

I am a filmmaker, and movies and television are my life, so I planned to spend this entire article discussing disability in film and television specifically. However, in the vast and diverse disability community, something media-oriented exploded across the Internet recently. It involves a popular and well-funded website that says its mission is to support people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Unfortunately, the website often fails to accurately include the voices of individuals with disabilities themselves within its framework.

I mention this because what is happening with the website in question is a microcosm of the kind of treatment people with disabilities receive in their everyday lives as a result of media representation. How disability is portrayed can greatly affect how people treat those with disabilities and how we are treated by others leads to even more stigmatizing and oppressing narratives about disability in all forms of media. Disability narratives without the inclusion of actual individuals with disabilities are missing a central part of the dialogue – the people such narratives affect the most.

In all forms of media, the diversity of the disability experience is lacking. Most messages are meant to invoke pity, fear or an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and inspiration. Rarely do such stories fall somewhere in between these accounts. People with disabilities are seldom included in the actual storytelling. Stories are told about disability, not about people with disabilities. These stories tend to only be focused on disability, with little intersection on issues like race, sex and sexuality.

From news stories that promote the idea that “the only disability in life is a bad attitude,” to iconic representation in film, such as the moment Klara takes miraculous steps in the film Heidi, people who are disabled have been inspiring, brave and courageous figures since the early days of cinema. What many fail to realize is that such tales are often inaccurate to the majority of disability experiences. They also tend to minimize the actual challenges and access barriers people with disabilities face on a daily basis.

Disability activist Stella Young is often quoted for her response to the idea that the only disability is a bad attitude. She stated, “No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshelf and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into Braille.” By removing disabilities from individuals who have them, not only are we ignoring a central part of their identity, but also it allows others the ability to fail to accommodate the needs of these individuals. People with disabilities face real challenges and real barriers that need to be accommodated.

More common is the narrative of pity. While we need to acknowledge that disability exists, we must also not forget people with disabilities are people. We have many of the same needs and wants as every other human being. The pity narrative, which we see in many popular movies, including The Theory of Everything and Million Dollar Baby, does little to forward the movement for equal rights for the disability community. In fact, this narrative makes it much harder for people with disabilities to be treated with decency and respect. There is nothing equal in the idea of being pitied. It allows for us to be “othered” and treated as though we are worthless.

Additionally, media that invokes fear and pity can make it harder for people with disabilities to receive essential services. How we are treated can affect a multitude of necessary services including access to healthcare, education, housing, transportation, and even legislation. Overall, there is a negative perception of disability in our society, and that is largely a result of how disability is portrayed in the media. Individuals with disabilities have written about being treated poorly on a consistent basis, especially the more visible their disability is. Those with less visible disabilities face such intense amounts of stigma that they hide their disabilities, and that is especially true in Hollywood.

One major problem with portrayals of disabilities in both film and television is the lack of authentic casting. While the Screen Actors Guild reported in 2005 that more than 1,200 actors self-identified as having a disability, only a few saw any type of significant work. This study on performers with disabilitiesfound that they worked, on average, only 4.1 days per year. Most believed discrimination played a central role in the lack of work they received. Part of this was due to a lack of roles being offered to disabled actors. Little has changed in the 10 years since the study. Less than 1 percent of characters on television currently are characters with disabilities. This is a decrease from 1.4 percent in 2014 and accounts for just eight characters on 376 shows.

Lack of access to any roles is just one of the problems performers in the disability community face. In most cases, casting directors won’t even see actors with disabilities. If they cannot audition, they cannot be included. Actors with disabilities provide an authenticity to disabled roles nondisabled actors cannot provide. Instead, they consistently rely on harmful stereotypes and problematic tropes that do little to move the conversation about disability forward.

There is a saying in the disability community, “Nothing about us, without us.” Activists recently started shortening this to simply, “nothing without us.” The media continually fails to include an accurate depiction of disability, and that is largely because we are not included anywhere in the industry – not in front of the camera or behind it. The way to advance disability rights starts with the inclusion of people who are actually disabled in all aspects of media. The more people see us, and accurately learn about the stories we have to tell about our lives, the greater chance we have of being included within society.

About the Guest Blogger

Dominick Evans is a film director, writer and disability and LGBT activist who lives in New York with his screenwriter girlfriend/partner. He has a BFA in Film from a Midwestern university, where he spent a lot of time making films, watching films and analyzing portrayals of disability, along with inclusion of disabled performers and filmmakers in the industry. He is the founder of the Saturday night Twitter chat, #FilmDis, which explores issues of disability and the media and he has been invited to speak about disability in film, television, and gaming at a variety of places including NYU, CUNY and NY Comic Con. You can find him on twitter at @dominickevans or at his website,dominickevans.com.