The history of attitudes to disabled people

Moving image media continually draw on attitudes and representations of disabled people from the past, which have been fossilised in myths, literature, theatre, folklore, biography and history. Having a clear understanding of where thinking about disability has come from is important in order to see that underlying negative attitudes and stereotypes have been reinforced by society and religion over many centuries. Here, you can read about some of the historical attitudes to disability which have shaped the prevailing attitudes of Western society today. These attitudes have been perpetuated in many cultures around the world.

Historical outline

• Ancient Greece and Rome
• Feudal and Medieval Europe
• The Renaissance
• The 19th Century
• Early 20th Century
• The Third Reich
• 20th Century rights movements
• The 21st Century

Themes

• Olympic Games
• Witches
• The Bible
• Folklore
• Entertaining the crowds
• Pirates
• Supporters of Eugenics
• Some famous victims of Eugenics
• Cartoons
• Character assassination
• Charity
• Propaganda films
• Themes today
• The Disability Arts Movement

Historical outline

Ancient Greece and Rome

In the West, ideas about the human body have been dominated by Ancient Greek and Roman ideas of the 'body beautiful'. This ideal, represented by the perfect physique of classical sculptures, such as the discus-thrower, was widely admired, particularly amongst the patrician (ruling) classes.

The philosopher, Aristotle, advised getting rid of a child if it was imperfect. Greek law even dictated that a newborn baby was not really a child until seven days after birth, so that an imperfect child could be disposed of with a clear conscience. From these beliefs arose the enduring idea that 'good' looked beautiful and the deformed and disabled were 'bad'.

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Feudal and medieval Europe

In feudal and medieval Europe, most disabled people were accepted as part of the family or group, working on the land or in small workshops. But at times of social upheaval, plague or pestilence, disabled people were often made scapegoats as sinners or evil people who brought the disasters upon society.

One reaction to this was that during times of plague, thousands of people, called flagellants, wandered around Europe beating themselves to try to make themselves more 'holy' so they didn't get the plague. It was believed that if you were penitent you would not become ill or disabled. This horror of becoming disfigured or different was extremely powerful. If you were different you were somehow marked and this strong prejudice continues to the present day.

In the 15th century, black magic and evil forces were felt to be ever-present. Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism, speaking of congenitally impaired children, said:

"Take the changeling child to the river and drown it."

In 16th-century Holland, those who caught leprosy were seen as sinners and had all their worldly goods confiscated by the state so they had to be supported by the alms of those who were not stricken. If these penitent sinners were humble enough, it was believed their reward was heaven after they died.

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The Renaissance

The Renaissance, based on Classical Greek and Roman ideals, resurrected the idea of the body beautiful. Thousands of paintings showed idealised human forms with perfect complexions, even though many people had impairments and most would have been scarred by smallpox.

One example is the Duke of Urbino. There are several well-known paintings of him, all showing the same profile. It is known that the other side of his face was disfigured.

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The 19th century

The 19th century saw greater segregation of disabled people. The workforce had to be more physically uniform to perform routine factory operations. Disabled people were rejected. They were viewed as 'worthy poor', as opposed to work-shy 'unworthy poor', and given Poor Law Relief (a place in the Workhouse or money from public funds). Disabled people became more and more dependent on the medical profession for cures, treatments and benefits.

In the last part of the 19th century, a growing number of scientists, writers and politicians began to interpret Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection for their own ends. These 'eugenicists' believed that they could improve the quality of the human race by selective breeding. They argued that people with impairments, particularly those born with one (a congenital condition), would weaken the gene pool of the nation and reduce competitiveness.

Increasingly, disabled people were shut away in single-sex institutions for life, or sterilised. Separate special schools and day-centres were set up that denied disabled and non-disabled people the day-to-day experience of living and growing up together.

Eugenicists campaigned for and won these measures using false science. Mary Dendy, an active eugenicist campaigner in the 1890s, in Feeble Mindedness of Children of School Age, asserted that children classified as mentally handicapped should be:

"detained for the whole of their lives" as the only way to "stem the great evil of feeble-mindedness in our country."

This led to a Royal Commission on Mental Deficiency, which was taken over by eugenicist thinking.

These theories became important at a time when industrialised countries, such as Germany, France, Britain and the USA were competing to create empires. It was important to empire builders to feel superior to other races.

An International Congress in Milan, in 1881, outlawed Sign language, as it was feared that deaf people would outbreed hearing people.

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Early 20th century

In the first half of the century, eugenicist ideas, along with charitable initiatives, led to increased institutionalisation or sterilisation of disabled people. In 37 states in the USA, born-deaf women and anyone with an IQ (Intelligence Quotient measured on a biased test) under the age of 70 were sterilised in the 1920s and 1930s. Seventeen states still had these laws on the statute book in the 1980s.

The UK Mental Deficency Act of 1913 firmly categorised disabled people, as follows:

Idiots - persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness of such a degree that they are unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers.

Imbeciles - persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness which, though not amounting to idiocy, is yet so pronounced that they are incapable of managing themselves and their affairs or, in the case of children, of being taught to do so.

Feeble minded - persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness which, though not amounting to imbecility, is yet so pronounced that they require care, supervision and control for their own protection or for the protection of others. Or, in the case of children, that they appear to be permanently incapable by reason of such defectiveness of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary school.

Moral defective - persons in whose case there exists mental defectiveness, coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities and who require care, supervision and control for the protection of others.

50,000 children with communication and physical impairments, and more than 500,000 adults were incarcerated in institutions in the first half of the 20th century (many were released in the 1980s). Children with significant learning difficulties were deemed ineducable and those with less significant learning difficulty went to educationally sub-normal schools until 1973.

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The Third Reich

In Germany, during Hitler's Third Reich, there was a series of propaganda films to show how disabled people were 'useless eaters', a burden on the state, and should be sterilised or got rid of.

Feature films, such as Ich klage an (I Accuse) (1941, Wolfgang Liebeneiner), which won a prize at the Venice Biennale, played a crucial role in justifying to the German population the concept of 'mercy killing'. This film was seen by 13.5 million Germans by 1945 and was very influential, though it is recorded that a minority did not agree with its message. See more about propaganda films in Themes.

140,000 physically and mentally disabled adults were murdered in 1939-40 at the hands of the doctors of the Third Reich. The killing of adults was reduced by riots in Germany, led by Archbishop Galen of Munich in 1940, but continued more clandestinely. The killing of disabled children went on until 1945, with over 100,000 dying. These programmes were led from Tiergarten, 4, Berlin and so were known as T4.

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20th century rights movements

From the 1890s, disabled people have struggled for their rights, for human dignity and just to be included. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were hundreds of thousands of First World War veterans with no rights at all in the UK, campaigning for the 'Right to Work' through the National League for the Blind and Disabled. They formed the first disability movement in this country, through which disabled people organised collectively against discrimination.

In the 1920s, unions of disabled war veterans were formed all over the UK. They held sit-ins in order to get legislation enacted to ensure their right to employment. As a result, the government brought in a 3% quota system which forced employers to take on registered-disabled employees. This was replaced by the Disability Discrimination Act in 1996.

In the 1990s, disabled activists in the USA campaigned against euthanasia and assisted suicide under the slogan 'T4 Never Again' (see The Third Reich, above).

The last 30 years have seen the growth of the Disability Movement, arguing for an end to segregation, and many parents campaigning for human rights for their disabled children. Generally, these movements for social change for disabled people's rights have not been shown in mainstream films and are hidden from the public gaze.

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The 21st century

Disabled people are still struggling for the right to use public transport, get into buildings, go to school or college with their friends, or to get a job. Although civil rights legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) or the Disability Discrimination Act (UK 1995), have helped, disabled people still often feel that the dominant culture sees them as different from everyone else because of persisting stereotypes of disability.

Anyone can, at any time, become disabled, or develop a physical or mental impairment. Perhaps people's need to distance themselves from this harsh reality makes it convenient to rely on received negative attitudes and historical stereotypes of disability. These stereotypical images are less troubling than accepting the individuality, the joy, the pain, the appearance, behaviour and the rights of disabled people. This could explain why disability equality has been called 'the last civil rights movement'.

What disabled people want more than anything else is to be accepted for who they are and to have their rights guaranteed in law and in practice.

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Themes

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games, held in Ancient Greece, celebrated physical prowess and perfection, as they still do, today. The Greek gods were supposed to live on Mount Olympus, near Athens, and the games honoured them.

Today, a separate Paralympics is held, which, although it celebrates the achievements of disabled athletes, is still segregated from the Olympics.

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Witches

In medieval times, witchcraft became linked with disabled people. During the 'Great Witch Hunts' of 1480-1680, the Malleus Maleficarum, a book also known as 'The Hammer of Witches', went to 70 editions in 14 languages. It told how to identify witches by their impairments, by 'evidence' of them creating impairments in others, or by them giving birth to a disabled child. Between eight and 20 million people, mainly women, were put to death as witches across Europe. A good proportion of these were disabled.

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The Bible

The Bible has been one of the most influential books in Western culture and it contains many negative references to disabled people, eg: the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 21, says that if you are a disabled person you can't be a priest or take communion; in the New Testament, it says renounce sin and you can 'take up thy bed and walk' (Luke, Chapter 5); and disability is seen as a punishment from God, 'be cured if you sin no more,' in John, Chapter 9.

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Folklore

Ideas linking disability with evil fill the folklore of Britain and Europe. The Brothers Grimm collected the oral stories of northern Europe and turned them into their Fairy Tales. For example, the witch in Hansel and Gretel is deformed, blind and ugly, with a stick. Images shown to us early in our lives are bound to affect the way we see and relate to disabled people in later years. This story is still widely read by young children. Many films for children, such as The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner, USA), draw on these tales.

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Entertaining the crowds

In Ancient Rome, the games at the Coliseum included throwing disabled children under horses' hooves, blind gladiators fighting and dwarfs fighting women.

Disabled people have historically been figures of fun. Court jesters, such as Henry VIII's William Somner, were often disabled, and dwarfs feature as freaks in many court pictures.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, 'ships of fools' containing 'mad' people sailed from port to port, where the public paid to come and laugh at them. The 'fools' were then abandoned at the end of the tour. In 18th century London, people visited 'Bedlam' (the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem) to laugh at the insane.

Circuses and freak shows continued the tradition. A Freak Show is still in operation on Coney Island, USA. This curiosity/fear of the different confirms the non-disabled viewer in the security of his or her own 'normality'. The highly successful horror film genre is founded on this phenomenon.

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Pirates

Originally accepted for their part in plundering treasure to help build empires, by the 19th century pirates were considered to be unacceptable robbers and raiders. At this time, they were often portrayed as disabled and evil, with eye patches, wooden legs and hooks, for example R.L. Stevenson's Long John Silver, or J.M. Barrie's Captain Hook. In fact, pirates had a simple social security system long before anyone else. They all had shares in the crew's common purse so, if one was injured and disabled, he was given money for his needs and was unlikely to go on seafaring.

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Supporters of eugenics

Winston Churchill MP was a supporter of the British Eugenics Society, as were Sidney and Beatrice Webb, founders of the Labour Party, and many other influential intellectuals of the left and right. As Home Secretary at the time the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 (see Historical outline, Early 20th century, on the left) finally became law, it is recorded in Hansard that Winston Churchill said:

Other eugenics supporters included authors D.H. Lawrence, H.G.Wells and Aldous Huxley, and the economist John Maynard Keynes.

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Some famous victims of eugenics

Under the Mental Deficiency Act, two of the Queen Mother's cousins were incarcerated, as was the 'lost prince' - the Queen's uncle. (The 2002 BBC TV film, The Lost Prince, by Steven Poliakoff, told his story). As a boy, he was diagnosed as an epileptic and shut away from the rest of the family until his death.

Similar laws in America led to President Kennedy's sister being kept in an institution and then having a frontal lobotomy. This led Kennedy to bring about reform during his Presidency, allowing people with learning difficulties to live in the community.

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Cartoons

With the development of the printing press in 1480, when most people couldn't read, cartoons became a popular way to make political and moral comments. Over the next 500 years, personifications of evil, moral weakness and powerlessness were shown as caricatured disabled people.

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Character assassination

At various times throughout history, if people wanted to denigrate someone's character, they attributed various impairments to them. An early example is when the Tudor monarchs wanted to discredit Richard III, having usurped him from the throne, and fearing a popular uprising to restore his heirs. Tudor historians created elaborate propaganda of Richard as a disabled and vengeful mass murderer. The portrait of Richard that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery has been X-rayed and it was proved that his hump was added to the picture sixty years after his death.

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Charity

One of the basic precepts of the Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions from earliest times is charity. Charity is normally considered to be a good thing and in some ways it is, but the attitudes that charity has bred in the past have led to some enduring legacies that disabled people find offensive. The idea that giving charity was a way of achieving God's grace led to pitying or patronising attitudes towards disabled people, and the founding of institutions to care for the less fortunate away from society gave rise to unwanted segregation. Today, disabled people, although some still rely on charity, demand 'Rights not Charity'. Many of the large charities run by non-disabled people persist in using patronising promotional material.

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Propaganda films

Hitler's Germany used film to great effect to reach the masses. As well as feature films, film was used as documentary propaganda. The Racial and Political Office made five films:

• Sünden der Vater (Sins of the Fathers, 1935)
• Abseits vom Wege (Off the Path, 1935)
• Alles Leben ist Kampf (All Life is a Struggle, 1937)
• Was du ererbt (What you have inherited, 1929)
• Erbkrank (Heredity, 1936). This film, intended to criminalise, degrade and dehumanise the mentally and physically impaired, was silent and shot in black and white. The victims were manipulated to make them appear horrific, with superimposed captions of the cost of keeping them alive. Using direct interviews with disabled people, cleverly lit and staged, filmed from below and cut to make them appear very different from ordinary workers, it made the audience sympathise with compulsory sterilisation and, later, mercy killing. By Hitler's order, it was shown in all German cinemas.

Opfer der Vergangeheit (Victims of the Past, 1937), reworked Erbkrank in a more polished and professional style.

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Themes today

Many of the prejudiced attitudes that still exist today have their foundations in these longstanding historical influences.

Various aspects of medical treatment and care in the UK, USA and Europe are causing great concern to the disability movement, eg:

• Cut-backs in the welfare state, rationing health care;
• 'Do Not Resuscitate' policies (decided by medical staff) for some disabled people;
• Growing demands for voluntary euthanasia which, in some cases, can be misused to dispose of a 'burdensome' disabled person;
• The prospect of designer babies, using the knowledge gleaned from the Genome Project, further marginalising people with impairments.

A list of people in history who might not have existed if such policies had operated in the past would include:

Beethoven (deaf)

Toulouse Lautrec (short stature)

Stephen Hawking (motor neurone disease)

Einstein (dyslexic)

Byron (club foot)

F.D. Roosevelt (polio in both legs and unable to walk unaided).

Winston Churchill (depression)

Helen Keller (deaf, blind)

Tanny Grey Thompson, athlete (spina bifida) ... and many others.

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The Disability Arts Movement

This movement has produced a counter-culture over the last 30 years to give expression to the disabled people's movement. A number of the short films on the bfi DVD Disabling Imagery? that accompanies this site have come from disabled filmmakers who would view themselves as part of this movement. As yet, no commercially distributed feature films have been made from this perspective.

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