Wonderfully evil
Charismatic cripple, half Mosley, half Goebbels
Cripple on the make
Ian McKellen's Richard III
The quotes in the box above are some of the critics' descriptions of Ian McKellen's Richard III, as he cheats, marries and murders his way to the throne. Millions of people who have never seen the Shakespeare play will see this film and have the oldest stereotype of disabled people as evil graphically reinforced. The film is therefore problematic from disabled people's perspective, despite excellent acting and high production standards, which make Shakespeare's play gripping and accessible.
Shakespeare's Richard III drew heavily on a distorted history that sought to demonise Richard, the last Plantagenet King, and justify the usurping of the throne by Henry Tudor (Henry VII). Accounts of Richard III written in his lifetime don't describe any impairment. Portraits painted from life were altered later to give him a 'humpback'. Thomas Moore invented a 'limp' and 'withered arm'. Someone supposedly capable of such monstrous crimes was made into a monster.
Some modern historians believe that Richard was a just king, but too trusting of those around him, who had shown themselves capable of betraying him. These historians don't hold Richard responsible for the string of deaths that led to his accession to the throne, and think it's unlikely that he had the Princes in the Tower murdered. This myth became the basis of Tudor propaganda, written some years after Richard's death.
Shakespeare's Richard, despite embodying the distorted Tudor view, is a rounded and complex character. The film version directed by and starring Laurence Olivier (1955, UK) relies more on Shakespeare's text and lays less emphasis on Richard's impairments. In the Loncraine film, this distorted history becomes caricature.
Ian McKellen is a deeply thoughtful actor who does not consider Shakespeare's text to be sacrosanct. In his book about making Richard III he states,
Before 1990, I had long dismissed the play as not fit for modern consumption.... once modern psychology had questioned the cruel assumption of Shakespeare's contemporaries that physical deformity was an outward sign of some inner moral turpitude.
However, by studying the play, he decided that Richard's wickedness was a result of his reaction to other people's dissatisfaction with his physical appearance, especially his mother's. Even if this interpretation is possible, the script doesn't seem to support it as there is no indication of his mother rejecting him until after he has killed several people she loved, which is explanation enough for her anger and insults.
The film provides powerful visual images of a vengeful, ambitious 'cripple'. McKellen also adds a visual impairment in one eye and a sagging face because of Richard's reference to being 'half made-up' (which, instead, could be interpreted as Richard's internalised oppression). By taking it literally, the power of the big screen re-creates the enduring link between disability and evil.
By displacing the setting historically, the film also badly misrepresents the growth and effects of fascist movements, which need to be discussed seriously in a proper historical context with students. Rather than 1480s England, the film is set in London in the 1930s, with fascistic rallies, black-shirted stormtroopers and Nazi look-alike regalia with white boar insignia (Richard III's coat of arms). Fascism was fundamentally a 20th century phenomenon, which occurred during a time of economic turmoil. It was about capturing the hearts and minds of the mass of people in an industrialised, capitalist country to counter the mass appeal of socialism. Building a mass fascist movement required intolerance to all those labelled as different - Jews, Slavs, gypsies, Communists, gays and disabled people were all targeted.
Make sure you prepare the ground by covering the material in the Introducing disability in class guidelines before looking at issues in any specific film.
