The New Hollywood
Is Tinseltown Changing the Way It Looks at the Disability Community?
With two new sitcom pilots that prominently feature characters with disabilities being produced for the upcoming TV season, is Hollywood's attitude changing?
It would be nice to say yes, to say that Hollywood’s attitude toward the disability community is changing for the better just as it changed toward the black community in the 80s and the gay community in the late 90s.
But the truth is that the attitude is pretty much the same as it always has been. It has improved over the years – most disabled characters that are seen on TV and in the movies are no longer objects of pity or something to be laughed at - but characters with disabilities are still blended into the background and only mentioned as an afterthought.
There are a few exceptions, however.
The most notable exception to this rule is the Oscar-winning movie My Left Foot, the biopic of Irish artist Christy Brown, who had cerebral palsy and could paint only with his left foot. My Left Foot received its share of criticism for not using a disabled actor, but it also received praise for Daniel Day-Lewis’ very realistic portrayal of cerebral palsy.
There have been a number of other Hollywood-produced movies featuring characters with disabilities, most of them portrayed by actors without disabilities. The Waterdance features Eric Stoltz in an adept performance as a paraplegic, Dustin Hoffman turned in an award-winning performance as an autistic man in Rain Man and Marlee Matlin, deaf since the age of 18 months, won an Oscar for her performance in Children of A Lesser God.
The television medium has not overlooked the disability community. Television shows as far back as the classic Little House on the Prairie to today’s AMC original Breaking Bad have featured characters with disabilities. Mitch Longley, a 25-year paraplegic, has been perhaps the most recognizable actor with a disability on TV today. From his yearlong stint on Another World to his most recent role as a surveillance expert on Las Vegas, Mitch has been an almost constant presence on television.
Though there has been no shortage of performers with disabilities over the years, there has not been an abundance, either. Value Added Script Services, founded by the vice chair of the Screen Actors Guild Performers with Disabilities Committee, is devoted to helping any writer or producer to seamlessly integrate a character with a disability into their project.
Although the Hollywood attitude toward actors and characters with disabilities hasn’t changed much over the years, V.A.S.S. is working hard to change that and bring characters with disabilities into the mainstream.
People with disabilities don’t make special appearances in the real world, so why should they in the fictionalized world of television and movies? Someday, a day that V.A.S.S. hopes will come soon, characters with disabilities will be just as common a sight on TV as the wacky next-door neighbor.
