Incidental Disability

[dwgism]

The discussion of transexuality in film was a spur to some thoughts I was already having about the portrayal of disability in film. There are at least three aspects to the way film deals with disability that we need the media industry to make progress on if we are ever to consider ourselves to be getting equal treatment. Those three points are

Comments

[dwgism]

Just one disabled character could potentially meet the Incidental Disability test, but it just occurred to me that there is an even rarer phenomenon, and thanks to Elettaria for mentioning the Bechdel Test in the Transsexuality thread, which made me think of it.

The Bechdel Test is a test for a film's watchability popularised in Alison Bechdel's 'Dykes to Watch Out For' where a character says that for them to watch a film:
It has to have at least two women in it,
Who talk to each other,
About something other than a man

Is there a crip equivalent, and do any films pass the test?
It has to have at least two crips in it,
Who talk to each other,
About something other than disability

[elettaria]

The West Wing would get to the second of those, as the President (MS) and Joey Lucas (deaf) do talk to one another, but it's about how he should come out as having MS. Bear in mind that this is a 7-year TV series rather than a single film.

Doing a direct translation of the Bechdel test seems a little harsh, since women are 50% of the population, but it's an interesting exercise to see if anything at all passes all three stages. I'd guess the best bet would be films which focus directly on disability, not that anything is leaping to mind right now, and even so there is likely to be difficulty with the third stage. Oh, hang on, I've got one. Regeneration, based on the novels by Pat Barker about soldiers with PTSD in WW1. PTSD is the biggie there, of course, with symptoms including mutism, acquired stammering and hysterical paralysis, but you also get medical problems such as developmental stammering and asthma. Naturally there is a lot of talk about PTSD, as it's set in a psychiatric hospital where they've all been shipped for

[dwgism]

>> Doing a direct translation of the Bechdel test seems a little harsh, since women are 50% of the population, <<

True, but we're a fairly sizable chunk of the population ourselves, comparable in size to many of the ethnic and religious minorities, and I can certainly imagine applying a variant of the Bechdel test to the representation of ethnic or religious minorities in film, say looking for non-stereotyped interactions.

And we can also think about it mathematically. If women are 50% of the population, then 1 in 4 random pairings of people are both women. If disabled people are 1 in 5 of the population, then 1 in 25 random pairings will be both disabled. So all other things being equal, there should be roughly one fifth as many (actually 4/25) films that pass the disability-Bechdel test as there are films that pass the normal Bechdel test. That doesn't add up to many, but it should add up to some.

[dwgism]

I've just been thinking about Jed Bartlett. He doesn't meet the Incidental Disability test within the overall story arc of West Wing, because his MS is very much a major part of the plot -- looking back now it's hard not to draw comparisons with Roosevelt's efforts to conceal his disability that I probably didn't know enough to make at the time.

But, and this is a luxury that an extended series has that a film doesn't, they could have individual episodes in which his MS was incidental to the episodes' plot. Not that I can actually think of any good examples.

And because it was relapsing remitting MS, they could ignore its existence for weeks at a time, which is a nice little luxury for the screenwriters, though not perhaps so good for us.

[lisy_babe]

Doc Robbins in CSI. The DNA guy in the first 5 eps of CSI:NY. Sarah in season 3 of Lie to Me. (All played by disabled actors too.)

[elettaria]

Hands up anyone else who took quite a long time to notice that Dr Robbins was disabled? I think it must have been half a season at least, at which point I looked up the actor and discovered that he's a double amputee. (He plays the Medical Examiner, so is mostly seen standing behind an autopsy table.) CSI has managed to piss me off with its handling of disability in quite a few ways, but this is one example of where they do it well, I think. I'm halfway through season 5 now and I can only think of two incidents when his disability was even referred to: one when he was pulling on his prosthetic feet and just said something while he was doing it, and the other when he was attending a crime scene and someone cautioned him to be careful as the ground was uneven.

[dwgism]

I noticed straight-off, but the reaction was more on the lines of 'cool crutch, I want a pair' so it was a symbol of disability I'm tuned to notice. I also came into CSI several seasons in, so if it was any less obvious in his first few episodes I wouldn't have been around to not notice ;)

[elettaria]

I don't think the crutches turned up at all for most of the first season.

[elettaria]

The thing about incidental disabled characters is that disability is of course under-represented amongst actors, and I don't think it occurs to screenwriters to throw in random disabled characters just to make it reflect true life better. Especially since there's such a focus on pretty people, with characters mostly being slim and probably averaging a taller height and so forth, and disability is still seen as fairly taboo.

1 in 5? Seriously? Any idea what proportion of those are invisible disabilities, or semi-invisible (e.g. you look fine but you have a speech impediment)? Or people who don't get out, come to that? Because if you go to, say, an average supermarket, it doesn't appear like anywhere near 20% of people are disabled, and even if you go somewhere where everyone there actually talks to you, it's unlikely to be that high. I'm curious as to what proportion of people actually show up as disabled in an obvious way in standard social situations.

The Joey Lucas thing: it's funny, elfbystarlight and I were both saying that we must do a

[dwgism]

>> there's such a focus on pretty people, with characters mostly being slim and probably averaging a taller height and so forth, and disability is still seen as fairly taboo. <<

Which is pretty much my point ;)

>> 1 in 5? Seriously? ... )

[elettaria]

More actors with disabilities in TAB roles: Gary Burghoff in the M*A*S*H series has a deformed hand, which would be enough to prevent him from being in the military. They never show his hand fully, it's why he tends to be carrying a clipboard.

There's another one I know, but I can't remember who it is at the moment.

(Incidentally, I feel uneasy using the term "deformed" but I can't for the life of me think what is a good term in that instance. Anyone?)

[dwgism]

Better deformed than malformed, but I know what you mean.

[subluxate]

My partner and I are MASH geeks. Just double-checked with her, and it's either that he is missing parts of fingers or is missing a finger. I know he was self-conscious about it during the filming of the show and was the one to insist his hand never be fully visible.

[subluxate]

I'm hearing, so someone who is D/deaf can and should feel free to correct me, but I'm going to tentatively disagree with you using her interpreter as a qualifier for why she might not count. As a general rule, hearing people don't sign, and it takes too long to write everything down--the conversation rolls on while you're trying to make your point, or else it comes to a halt while people wait, which just feels awkward. (I have TMD and have bouts of being unable to speak because of it, for personal reference on this one. Roger Ebert also has a very moving post on communication when you can't speak verbally here.) In a fast-paced world like the White House, an interpreter seems a natural aid to a Deaf person, in a way like my wheelchair. It draws visual attention, yes, but it's what allows her to "just get on with it".

[elettaria]

Not to mention that the character in question lipreads and can speak, but her speech isn't terribly clear, so again this wouldn't really work in that fast-moving environment. It would be horribly awkward if people kept having to ask her what she'd just said, and she'd end up missing a great deal of the conversation because of people moving around.

It seems like a big thing with being unable to speak is having the tools to communicate; that post by Roger Ebert was indeed very moving and great food for thought, as was a comment on it by someone who stutters. I occasionally am unable to speak due to episodes of collapsing (I have severe ME/CFIDS), and in those situations I don't have the option of any alternative methods of communication. A means of communication whereby everyone can understand one another, and the speech-impaired person remains in control, sounds excellent to me.

[dwgism]

Joey speaks and lipreads in West Wing, so doesn't absolutely need an interpreter, however I think people are making a very good point that in a very verbal position, both for getting her message across and for dealing with situations where there may be multiple speakers, having an interpreter would make sense, so I'll withdraw that qualification.

[subluxate]

I just checked with my partner, who is partly deaf. (She was asleep when I made my previous comment, so I couldn't consult with her then.) She says it can be very easy to mistake what people are saying when lip-reading, since so many sounds look alike. There's also the issue of having everyone be face-on for Joey and making sure she knows who's speaking at a given point in a conversation with multiple people.