Saved! And Other Thoughts

Aug 02, 2010 09:43

Wow, this community is pretty cool. I'm glad I found it ( Read more... )

saved!, ab actors playing disabled characters, wheelchairs

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kaowolfie August 2 2010, 17:07:49 UTC
I would be bothered less by crip drag if disabled actors were being hired at rates which reflected our presence in the population. Since we aren't, yes, it hurts to see able-bodied people cast to play us.

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lara_everlong August 2 2010, 20:26:55 UTC
Yeah that makes a whole lot of sense. It doesn't bother me so much to see someone in "crip drag" as it does to see vitually NO disabled actors ever, or only very, very rarely and on minor, token-ish roles ( like the guy on that one ep of glee)

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elettaria August 3 2010, 08:01:21 UTC
There's our presence in the general population, and our presence in the acting population. The second will be a lot smaller. The next issue is the proportion of disabled characters on screen, and how that relates to the first two numbers. It'll certainly be far lower than real life, between Hollywood's preference for its nice little narrow definition of Beautiful People, lack of accessible facilities, the genuine reason that many disabilities make acting very difficult or even impossible (there's absolutely no way I could act, even though ironically I look perfectly healthy), and the fairly genuine problem that even without prejudice, a director will want the best actor for a part and will want a reasonable amount of actors to choose from, which isn't going to happen unless we get huge numbers of disabled actors appearing. I suppose the reason why I'm not so bothered by this is because it seems too far off to expect that sort of improvement just yet, just as there's no point campaigning for same-sex marriage in a country where it' ( ... )

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pandorasblog August 3 2010, 11:07:05 UTC
This is the kind of list I wanted to make when I first commented and was trying to work out what it'd take for us to get a real change happening. I salute your thoroughness and agree 100%.

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kaowolfie August 3 2010, 17:03:36 UTC
This is a really awesome list. I had some of the parts knocking around my head yesterday, but apparently I have a shiny new sulfa drug allergy and can't brain good when I can't breathe. (Now I get to suck down prednisone, yaaaay.) You're absolutely right that some disabilities would preclude acting, or make it super hard... My trigeminal neuralgia and weather triggered migraines would preclude me, for sure. I suspect other variable chronic pains would too.

Also, sadly, it doesn't surprise me that that hospital pretends the visually impaired don't exist. :( A lot of hospitals are where the worst forms of ableism (and homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism and classism... kyriarchy bingo?) are perpetrated and perpetuated, after all.

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lara_everlong August 3 2010, 18:27:41 UTC
These are all really great points! Helps to put words to a lot of ideas I've had kicking around, anyway.

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