He just wrote a really cogent, beautiful response online. Didn’t fight with anybody, didn’t call anybody anything, didn’t judge anybody. And he compl… - disability

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He just wrote a really cogent, beautiful response online. Didn’t fight with anybody, didn’t call anybody anything, didn’t judge anybody. And he completely opened my eyes to a perspective I never thought of. He said, “I understand what an actor is. I, too, am an actor. But I’m an actor in a wheelchair, and I never see parts that are leading roles for a person in a wheelchair. And so the one time I see a role where there’s a person in a wheelchair, I think, wow, this could be it. This could be the moment where I have all of the tools necessary to play this part. Do I get a shot at playing it?” And he was like, “Because when you think of it on the flip side, they never call people with wheelchairs in to play able-bodied people, and they’ll get able-bodied people to play people in wheelchairs.” I never thought of it like that. My perspective, obviously, as someone who is not in a wheelchair—I just never thought of it that way. And I sat there and I was like, it’s powerful because you don’t think about representation, you don’t think about how important it is for people to see themselves onscreen in a real way. And at the same time, I don’t think Bryan Cranston did anything wrong. I don’t think everything has to be a fight. It’s just, like, a moment to be like, hey, maybe next time people in Hollywood can look at that and go, maybe you can get a relatively unknown actor to play that role and then put an A-lister opposite them and maybe this becomes their breakout. Maybe this becomes the thing that blows them up. And that’s where you realize how powerful representation is, because if you’re a person in a wheelchair, how many movies come along where the lead character is in a wheelchair? There’s virtually none. And even myself, I was like, oh man, I have to try and understand that a little bit more. It was eye-opening.

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About disability

A disability is the consequence of an impairment that may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental, or some combination of these. A disability may be present from birth, or occur during a person's lifetime.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: handicap disabilities
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Advocates are also wary of plots that go out of their way to portray disabilities as inconsequential, in a way that minimizes the genuine challenges they pose. When Netflix launched a show based on Marvel’s Daredevil character, a New York Times reviewer wrote that the central superhero “is sightless but not blind to crime.” In fact, he doesn’t seem blind to much of anything, including women or agile villains.

There are days when I am shocked that I am still alive. Like millions of disabled, chronically ill, and older people, I spend an extraordinary amount of effort just existing. Beyond the efforts to keep our bodies from falling apart, we face existential threats from a society that actively silences, diminishes, excludes, and eliminates us.

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