Movies have probably been too important in my life over the years, both because my early lack of access to experiences in my formative years, and, probably as everyone has, the drive to enhance the ones they've had.Also, as somebody who's spent her life trying to tell stories, I've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't from my movie habit. John Hughes opened a lot of conversational doors for me, even though the closest to repping me in one of them was probably Joan Cusack's Girl With HeadGear in "Sixteen Candles" I watch a lot of disability content that, if I had my Activist Hat on all day, I might avoid...it's an old habit of my youth like frozen pot pie. I'd been thinking I might not write about this because I've been feeling a bit "If you don't take the class, they won't let you do it," about some of my writing in here lately. But as the conversation about "The Upside" carries on a bit, I have some questions and comments.
1. Why do women have such a problem understanding the disability rep. conversation?
I can't be the only one who gets psyched about the occasional romcom with a snarky heroine in it who wears a top kind of like something in my closet(only that costs more than my van payment) and the climax is kind of nutty and you watch the ending and ask your friend "Who DOES that?" but movie women do. Only picture instead of being half the world, you're a tenth of the world, and a poor tenth at that, that doesn't have its own cable channels or hair salons. Make sense now...What if there were so few women, we went back to Shakespeare style acting and plopped a wig on a teenaged boy's head?
It's not about the famous actors.
(although they often don't help their causes by being defensive and by proving they never think about disabled people as active consumers of the stuff they make) But being frustrated about this is not about wanting to take the brie from Cranston's mouth...it's just, if America finds us so fascinating(and it seems like it does), then why doesn't it want to see and hear from us? It's not about Cranston and it's not about the next teen hearthrob in gimpface on-screen. It's about being excluded from crafting our own image, especially in one of the most persistent sub-genres in cinema. I like Cranston and Hart, and I'm human, right? My criticism might be more full-bodied if this movie featured an actor I didn't like, but the problem goes deeper than that.
3. Abled people do not know what ableism is.
Or else maybe they wouldn't be so quick to assume that there are no talented writers or performers with disabilities. I think, if pressed, most white Americans would agree that making fun of a disabled child on the playground is wrong. or something like that and that is pretty much where awareness of disability discrimination starts and stops. It's ableist to search our stories for post-holiday pathos and call us bitter when we complain. It's ableist to assume out of millions of Americans, there wouldn't have been one paraplegic actor that couldn't do great at playing this part, even if he didn't help us learn "Life is unfair!" back in the 90s.(Yes, Cranston is a name, and that is a foundation of the business called show, but he wasn't born that way.) Why doesn't it bother America more that there are maybe 50 bankable(bangable?) faces in TV and movies?(and that they don't look like most of us)How neccessary is it that every set put in an eighteen-hour day? would we notice, really notice, if they didn't?
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