Commentary: Open doors to actors with disabilities
December 11th, 2009
Writing in the Huffington Post, Lennard Davis takes Hollywood and Broadway to task for regularly casting actors without disabilities to portray characters with disabilities, as when Abigail Breslin (left) was selected to play Helen Keller in the upcoming revival of “The Miracle Worker.” An excerpt:
The media helps to shape and define how society at large thinks about disability. The more that television, films, theater, and other forms of performance reflect a world filled with diverse peoples and bodies live, the more egalitarian and fair our society will be.
The one way to achieve this goal is have not just characters with disabilities appear regularly in the media but to know that people with disabilities play them.
Lennard Davis is professor of English, disability studies, and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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December 15th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I think that having non-disabled actors play the part of disabled characters is fairly non-controversial and rather appropriate. After all, acting is…well, acting! But I also think that by allowing and casting actual disabled people to play disabled characters, producers are influencing society’s views and attitudes towards disabled people in a positive way. The fact that a disabled person is capable of performing on such a prestigious production as Broadway says a lot to a biased world where non-disabled people are the norm.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I think Lennard Davis makes a really important point. Having non-disabled actors play the part of disabled characters doesn’t make much sense. Opening up acting to people with disabilites would be a huge step in a new direction for the US as far as self-image goes. I agree that if television would be more accepting of disabilities and diversity, people would then be more accepting. It only makes sense to have someone with a disability play the part of a disabled character. I can think of so many films that have used someone non-disabled to play a disabled part, and I have to say that I have never thought about the irony until I read this article.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:18 am
It is great to have movies that reflect the diversity that exists in the world, but I agree that it is sad that we do not have more actors with disabilities playing the role of characters with disabilities. I have faith that this will improve with time, but as consumers we are responsible to go see movies that we think further the cause. When movies do have disabled actors playing disabled characters it is important for us to support those films financially.