Introduction: Why study moving image media?

In the late 20th and the 21st centuries, moving image media dominate the environment in which young people grow up. These media include cinema, television, video/DVD, computer games, CD-ROM, the internet and so on. They represent a shared understanding of the world and society around us, rather like that of the Aboriginal 'dream world'. They form a repository of images and a huge, and growing, visual lexicon, that are not reality but are very influential on people's consciousness. How we make sense of the world outside our family, our emotions, our social responses and culture are all deeply influenced by this image world.

The composite of images created by filmmakers forms a complex mirror of how we gain a sense of morality and self. Filmmakers, in the main, reflect and reinforce prevailing stereotypes that dominate society. This site deals with one aspect of this distorted stereotyping, that of 'difference' due to disability. There are many ways in which people can be different:

• through culture and ethnicity;
• through social class, power and resources;
• through belief and religion;
• through gender and sexuality;
• through physical and mental impairment.

There is an overlapping of prejudices towards characters who are different in two or more ways in many films. Learning how to 'read' moving image media, and analyse the potentially distorting effects of the techniques of filmmaking, is an essential part of being a citizen in today's world. Therefore, this site is of key interest to teachers for aspects of Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE), as well as for Media Studies in schools. Much of the work outlined in the Suggested activities and Detailed lesson plans is also relevant to English and sometimes other subjects, such as History or Biology.

Inclusion

There is growing inclusion in UK schools, meaning that disabled children/students expect, and are expected, to take part fully in the curriculum and social life of mainstream schools (DfES Action Plan 1998). There are increasing numbers of disabled children in every class who need to see themselves reflected positively in the curriculum and the moving image media around them. It's important that they and their classmates and teachers learn to be aware of how oppressive many portrayals of disability in moving image media are, and how they reinforce negative attitudes.

Beyond this, teachers in the UK all have a duty to challenge negative stereotypes of gender, race, ability and disability in the curriculum materials they use. In England, this duty is laid out in the General Inclusion Guidance of Curriculum 2000. The Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly have introduced similar requirements.

Aims of this site

This site supports the short films and film clips on the bfi DVD Disabling imagery?, available directly from bfi education. It also deals with a range of mainstream films that are readily available on video/DVD. The aim is to help teachers inform and educate young people about film and disability; and, drawing on their sense of fairness, to develop their critical ability to challenge negative portrayals of disability and the attitudes they reinforce.

The site aims to:

• Examine critically how commercial, Western - predominantly Hollywood - cinema, has portrayed disabled people;
• Develop some ways of thinking about disabled people from a human rights-based approach as part of schools' wider approach to equality;
• Look at some examples of how disabled people and their allies have portrayed disability in a range of non-Hollywood or non-commercial films.