Why We Need to Talk About Disability in Film

I remember going to the movies as a kid to have a little fun and being confronted with the harsh reality of inaccessibility. In my case, people might and have said that my disability is "light”; I was born blind in only one of my eyes, so I can still see something. However, I am unable to see 3D movies.

As a kid, you see all your friends screaming and excited about what the screen is showing them through the 3D glasses, and you just don’t understand why they are reacting like that, because you literally don’t see it. This was very powerful and confusing at the time. With other ableist events all together, it formed a snowball that later led me to feel depressed and anxious.

It was not until I was studying film in my undergraduate studies that I remembered these events in a movie theater. I remember feeling considerable discomfort seeing villains with eyes that resembled mine, blind as well. They were the bad guys, the ugly ones, the ones that the hero was trying to kill. Why couldn’t I identify myself in movies?

This lack of representation did me harm, and I am sure it is the case for many people with disabilities. But this not only harms us, but reinforces an ableist society that seems to think that accessibility is a privilege, not a right.

Disability is everywhere. Whether misrepresented in mainstream films or authentic crip representation through accessible mentoring. People with disabilities have always been here, but not always listened to. Cinema allows disability scholars to analyse in depth this representation and provoke a challenge to the audience’s fear of non-normative, slow, raw narratives, the so-called crip time, as Alison Kafer writes.

Today, I make films and write about those whom I believe need to be rediscovered through a crip lens.