Disability stereotypes in movies and stage continue in outdated cliched ways

The vast majority of characters with disabilities, whether they’re played by actors with disabilities or not, continue to represent the same outdated disability stereotypes in movies | Photo Credit: Romy Block / Behance CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Magda Romanska, Emerson College

The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have forced Hollywood and other artists and filmmakers to rethink their subject matter and casting practices. However, despite an increased sensitivity to gender and race representation in popular culture, disabled Americans are still awaiting their national (and international) movement.

“Disability drag” – casting able-bodied actors in the roles of characters with disabilities – has been hard to dislodge from its Oscar-worthy appeal. Since 1947, out of 59 nominations for disabled characters, 27 won an Academy Award – about a 50% win rate.

There’s Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”; Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Christy Brown, who has cerebral palsy, in “My Left Foot”; and Dustin Hoffman’s role as an autistic genius in “Rain Man” – to mention just a few.

Despite these developments, the issue of representation – what kind of characters these actors play – remains mostly unaddressed. The vast majority of characters with disabilities, whether they’re played by disabled actors or not, continue to represent the same outdated disability stereotypes in movies. Hollywood cannot help itself but to continue to roll out the same stock-standard disability tropes in movies.

As a professor of theater and media who has written extensively on the elements of stage drama, I wonder: Are writers and directors finally poised to move beyond these disability stereotypes in movies?

In a 1916 essay, Sigmund Freud pointed to Richard as an example of the correlation between physical disabilities and “deformities of character.” The trope of the evil cripple is rooted in mythologies populated by half-man half-beasts who possess pathological and sadistic cravings.

More recent examples of the evil cripple include Dr. Strangelove, Mini-Me from “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and Bolivar Trask in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

Then there are inspirational cripples whose roles equate to what disability rights activist Stella Young calls “inspiration porn.” These stories center on disabled people accomplishing basic tasks or “overcoming” their disability. We see this in “Stronger,” which retells the story of Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman.

In the inspirational narratives, disability is not a fact of life – a difference – but something one has to overcome to gain rightful sense of belonging in society.

An offshoot of the inspirational narrative is the redemptive narrative, in which a disabled person either commits suicide or is killed. In movies like “Water for Elephants,” “Simon Birch” and “The Year of Living Dangerously,” disabled characters are sacrificed to prove their worth or to help the protagonist reach his goal.

These disabeld characters serve as dramaturgical stepping stones. They are never partners or people in their own right, with their own drives and ambitions. They are not shown as deserving their own stories.

The persistence of these disability stereotypes in movies underlies the urgent need to reevaluate the makeup of writers and production teams. Who writes these parts is perhaps more important than who acts them.

There’s a reason these formulaic disability stereotypes in movies and stage are so prevalent.

For much of the past century, Hollywood storytelling has operated according to the hero’s journey, a dramatic structure that places the white male able-bodied character at the center of the story, with atypical characters serving as “helpers” to support his goals.

This narrative model has conditioned audiences to see the helpers as purely functional. The disability tropes in movies based on this framework define the categories of belonging: who is and who isn’t human, whose life is worth living, and whose isn’t.

The one narrative journey that historically allowed the disabled to play a central role depicted them as working toward the symbolic reclamation of their dignity and humanity. In tragic narratives, this quest fails, and the characters either die or request euthanasia as a gesture of love toward their caretakers.

“Million Dollar Baby” and “Me Before You” are two good examples of films in which disabled characters choose voluntary euthanasia, communicating the socially internalized low value of their own lives.

But what if disabled characters already had dignity? What if no such quest were needed? What if their disability weren’t the thing to overcome but merely one element of one’s identity?

This would require deconstructing the conceptual pyramid of past hierarchies, one that has long used disabled characters as props to illuminate conventional heroes.

Carrie Mathison in the series “Homeland” can be thought of as representing this new approach. Carrie, played by Claire Danes, struggles with mental illness, affecting her life and work.

But it is not something to overcome in a dramatic sense. Overcoming the disability is not the central theme of the series – it’s not the main obstacle to her goal. Carrie’s disability gives her some insights, but these are not magical and come at a price.

“Homeland” further breaks the mold by giving Carrie a helper, an older white male – Saul Berenson, played by Mandy Patinkin.

As we move towards greater gender and race inclusivity at work and in the arts, disability should not be left behind. More complex stories and representations need to replace the simplistic, outdated, and cliched tropes that have been consistently rewarded at the Oscars.

Disability stereotypes in movies and stage continue in outdated, cliched ways is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0