Distorted images?

The portrayal of disabled people in moving image media has been persistently distorted. From the first silent movies, where disabled people featured as figures of fun, evil or pity, to the present day, when non-disabled actors portraying a disabled character receive Oscar nominations, moving image media have failed to show the reality of disabled people's lives. The negative images of disability in these media, although false, have become so familiar that people believe they show the reality of disabled people's lives. The non-disabled audience accepts unquestioningly these false images because it is more comfortable to do so than to face their deep-seated fear of difference.

One disabled commentator examining Western culture said:

Disability in film is most commonly viewed as being 'not normal' physically or mentally. Disability is seen as an impairment of the body or mind caused by the loss or long-term non-functioning of a physical, sensory or mental part or system. Films usually show an individual response to disability, with the disabled person:

• struggling to overcome the impairment;
• finding a cure;
• being an object of pity;
• being a passive victim;
• having a chip on his or her shoulder and becoming an evil, aggressive avenger.

This view of disability is known as 'medical model' thinking. There is an alternative, 'social model', which considers disability to be the organisational, environmental, social and attitudinal barriers that prevent people with impairments being included in mainstream society. This 'social model' view is rarely seen in moving image media. You can find out more about these different models in 'Medical model' v. 'social model'.

The reason why disability is represented in moving image media in the sterotypical ways listed above is suggested by Paul Darke:

In moving image media, disabled people, or disability, are often used to convey visual metaphors. These help to build up distorted views of disabled people's lives which, in reality, are as ordinary and diverse as everyone else's.

Disability and moving image genres

Think about films that you know. How many feature disabled people? What sort of picture do they paint in the collective consciousness of what it is like to be a disabled person in Western society? Here are some examples:

• Horror films Many key characters have an impairment, for example: the monster in Frankenstein (1931, James Whale, USA), the evil alter ego in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941, Victor Fleming, USA); burned Freddie in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven, USA); the amputated apparition in Candy Man I (1992, Bernard Rose, USA); hare-lipped Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon (2002, Brett Ratner, USA/Germany). In these films, having an impairment seems to be synonymous with bad deeds or evil.
• Thrillers What messages are the disabled characters in thriller films used to convey? Think of Dr No (1962, Terence Young, UK), with his two false hands; Bloefeld or Jaws in Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton, UK); The Penguin, The Wriggler or Two-face in the Batman films; Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1956, John Huston, USA), or blind Suzy Hendrix in Wait Until Dark (1967, Terence Young, USA). Being disabled in these films seems to signify either a flawed character, or being a victim.
• Dramas In many disability-focused films, disabled characters are used to demonstrate their triumph over the personal tragedy of having an impairment. The disabled person is made to manage on non-disabled or 'normal' terms. His/her ability to do so creates a feel-good factor in the able-bodied viewer; or the character's inability to cope reinforces negative thinking and arouses pity, for example: Reach for the Sky (1956, Lewis Gilbert, UK), with Kenneth Moore as Douglas Bader - a double amputee; The Theory of Flight (1998, Paul Greengrass, UK), featuring Helena Bonham-Carter as someone with motor neurone disease; Shine (1996, Scott Hicks, Australia), where Geoffrey Rush is David Helfgott, a musician with mental health issues.
• 

  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick, US)

  Comedy In the early days of film, disabled people were used as the fun factor in numerous one-reelers. More recent examples include: Dr Strangelove (1963, Stanley Kubrick, USA) - demonic, and a wheelchair-user, whose own hand frequently tries to strangle him; A Fish Called Wanda (1988, Charles Crichton, USA) - stuttering; Dumb and Dumber (1988, Charles Crichton, USA) - people with learning difficulties; See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1988, Charles Crichton, USA) - a blind man and a deaf man. Disabled people's impairments and the situations they get into are a cause for mirth.

Person or plot device?

There are exceptions. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell, UK) is a comedy which includes a disabled person as a central, rounded character, not a stereotype (the Hugh Grant character's deaf brother). Coming Home (1978, Hal Ashby, USA) is largely shot from a wheelchair-user's point of view and is empowering for disabled people. Frida (2002, Julie Taymor, USA/Canada) showed the artist living her life and expressing herself, with her impairments as part of her personality and art.

Despite these good examples, the vast majority of films that include images of disabled people use them simply as a plot device (in other words, to serve as the pretext for the story, the 'explanation' for a character's personality or actions, or to arouse a particular emotion), often reinforcing negative stereotypes. The consequences of this are far-reaching and damaging to the lives of disabled people.

The discrimination disabled people face in employment, leisure, housing, education, relationships, sex, transport and in the media in general can't all be laid at the door of moving image media. However, outdated and distorted ideas about disabled people are continually recycled in these media and bolster the negative attitudes that lead to discrimination, eg in the six months after Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame was released in the UK, disabled people reported the word 'hunchback', which had gone out of use, was being used in a derogatory way towards them. The British Scoliosis Society wrote to the then Minister of Disabled People, Nicholas Scott, complaining that since the film came out there had been more than a hundred attacks on people with scoliosis. In the six months previously, there had been none.