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

[gehayi]

Incidental disability--Joe Dawson on Highlander. Not only was Joe a scholar, a complete badass, a loyal friend and a complex person in his own right, but no one ever made a fuss about the character being (like Jim Byrnes, who played him) a double amputee. The audience knew that he limped and that he wore prosthetic legs, but it was just another fact about the guy. In fact, Joe was on the show for two seasons before the audience was given any information about how he'd lost his legs; his being a Watcher and a friend to the protagonist, Duncan MacLeod (not to mention a few other Immortals), as well as being a good singer and guitarist, had a hell of a lot more to do with his characterization.

[choirlass]

One more. In the TV series Las Vegas, they had a character in a wheelchair in the security center of a casino. Since his job was sitting and watching camera monitors, it didn't matter and they never made a big deal about it. I don't know the actors name, but I believe that he is truly disabled. I've seen him on other shows, again, as an incidental disability that had no impact on the plot.

[dwgism]

Just browsing through the suggestions and it strikes me that with the exception of MASH -- and I think the efforts taken to conceal Gary Burghoff's disability disqualify that as any sort of positive portrayal -- they're all comparatively recent, mostly post-Millennium.

Signs of improvement, or just a case of better recall of recent shows?

[dwgism]

I'll go with better recall of what we've seen recently, but I'm more iffy on age -- my perception is that there has been a significant change in programming in recent years compared to pre-Millennium, just not enough of one.

[charlotterhys]

I'm here from random LJ looking, and it's a few months since this post, but I felt the need to comment with one.

In the movie Find Me Guilty, the lawyer/one of the lawyers (it's been a while since I watched the movie) is played by Peter Dinklage, who is a dwarf. I don't remember in strong particular comment on that, except maybe once or twice. It was a role that just as easily could have been played by a normal sized person.

*fades back into the wilderness*