Let’s talk about the lack of disabled actors on television.
Cher_Scope
Community Team Posts: 2,795 Disability Gamechanger
What’s happened?
Social media this weekend was busy responding to a news article written by the actress, Sally Phillips. In the Telegraph article, 'Cripping up' is just as unacceptable as blackface’, Sally talks about the low numbers of disabled actors on screen. She also describes the casting of non-disabled people for disabled roles as ‘cripping up’ and says:
These comments received a backlash from people who thought Sally was wrong, and that non-disabled people should play disabled character roles. For instance, @PiersMorgan said on Twitter:
What’s the bigger picture?
Looking at the statistics, disabled people are the most under-represented group on TV. The Diamond Report 2020, produced by a collaborative team monitoring diversity on TV, found:
Positively, change is happening albeit slowly and disabled actors are playing more high-profile roles. For instance, Ryan Stocks on Emmerdale is played by James Moore who has cerebral palsy, while Isaac a character on the Netflix show ‘Sex Education’ was played by a wheelchair user. This, and other examples, are only a small indent though and much work remains to be done on achieving equality with non-disabled actors.
How are disabled people shown on screen?
It is also important that where disabled people do appear on screen, their characters don’t portray disabled people inaccurately, or add to stereotypes of impairment being a tragedy, a joke or scary. A good article on this and historic representations of disabled people on screen is Inclusive utopias – old and new visions of disability on screen. This article shows how programme-makers need to learn from the past and portray the everyday reality of living with an impairment to reduce disability stigma.
What do you think?
What is your opinion about how disabled people are shown on screen? Let us know in the comments below!
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Replies
(i notice that in Call the Midwife there is an actor with Down’s syndrome (Daniel Laurie) for example. That part would be nigh on impossible to be played by someone who wasn’t born with Down’s syndrome surely. )
But I do agree there is a distinct minority of disabled representation in TV unless it is a programme about disabled, but it has improved over recent years
First, please could producers rid themselves of the lazy notion that a token wheelchair is the beginning and end of inclusion?
Second, please could just the general casting be inclusive, such as if they need to cast twenty extras and minor characters, they could lean over backwards to select disabled actors, to correct the imbalance, just as they would if they noticed not a single actor was Bame?
Third, instead of making the disability the 'issue', could they make sure they automatically keep open minds about using disabled actors in all and any parts, again, just as they would re-jig the script if at all possible to include a Bame actor, or to give a specially good woman a part originally intended to be a male character?
Fourth For that purpose, there's no objection to using a non disabled but otherwise ideal actor, who has the knowledge and skill to depict a disabled character. You wouldn't refuse to watch Dame Dench, if she either had an accident and needed to play on crutches or in a wheelchair, or even if she or the director has taken a whim to make things a bit more interesting by tinkering with the usual way the character is shown.
She would have a triumph no matter what, maybe using a visible hearing aid, or showing impaired sight even if a stage hand had to walk at her side because she could no longer see the stage. (I vaguely think she does in real life have reduced vision) I would guarantee that someone of her calibre would be so thorough and painstaking that if she was cast to portray C.P., or Parkinson's, or Alzheimers, or many other conditions, she would get it right. There are only a handful of truly great actors, so for a really major part, you couldn't guarantee casting a genuine Japanese Japanese, or a genuine disabled disabled. It's true, actors act, that's why they are called actors.
I doubt that the general perspective of most people will ever understand what disability means and how difficult it is to get work once disabled especially in high profile markets such as television.
The young lady was on the fringes of a good career and was also hedging her bets with training to be a nurse when she became very ill and would never walk again.
TK
I know @newborn touched on it, but what do you think to the current representation of disabled people on TV? Do you think it tends to portray disabled people negatively? Also, have you seen anything and thought how refreshing it was in showing the realities of disabled life?
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I notice lately how producers, advertisers and such are trying to comply by including more and more black people in them and rightly so.
But I still don't see disabled people being represented in the same way. We are just as much in the real world and should be noticed, instead of being 'brushed' under the carpet.
Of course disabled people should get those roles. It seems a no brainer. To me anyway.
If society doesn't bother with large examples of discrimination why would they bother with a minority issue.
I'm not against this subject but I do think that it's most likely a waste of time making a big issue out of it. It is, after all, a relatively minor issue and only affects a minority.
TK
Created by Collier Young. With Raymond Burr, Don Galloway, Don Mitchell, Barbara Anderson. Wheelchair-bound detective Robert T. Ironside battles the bad guys on the streets of San Francisco.
This was the first tv hero who acted in a wheelchair I believe. In real life there was nothing wrong with his legs at all. A very engaging series actually and after a while you barley noticed the wheelchair at all.