Are people with disabilities represented fairly, and accurately in popular media throughout history? I do not think so. Disability is not always misrepresented. However, disabled people are disproportionately misrepresented in popular media. Furthermore I don’t aim to analyze media which uses disability as a comedic crutch, even though that has its own problems in and of itself. This essay is going to analyze the media which makes an attempt to portray disability in a serious manner. Finally, I am attempting to analyze immensely popular media, and avoid more niche coverages of disability.
Reading and watching Hamlet a few select scenes caught my eye. Characters being written off for their mental illness is a glaring theme in this play. One scene that sticks out to me is when they send Hamlet to England. This is important, because it shows that Hamlet is a problem that Claudius needs to get rid of. Furthermore we see the idea that disabled people are a problem and need to be disposed of reinforced late in act 4, scene 5.
In this scene we are presented with Ophelia Manically singing, and being crazy. Later in act 4, scene 7 we learn that Ophelia has died. However we learn this from one of the people who was there for her big freakout, and is a member of high royalty. This in my opinion motivates her to get rid of Ophelia. There are multiple clear instances of mentally ill people being written off purely for their disability.
This is a theme that I think shows up quite often in the media which we have consumed throughout the years. Another obvious example of disability being framed as a problem is the Character Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Lennie is framed as causing trouble for his friend George throughout the entire story. Shown most glaringly when George has an outburst. He tells Lennie how good his life would be if he didn’t have him, and he says “I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the worst. You get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out.”(Steinbeck p.4). At the end Lennie is discarded for causing one too many issues. However there is another common theme in these two stories. That theme being complete disregard of the disabled characters feelings. When Lennie is killed it is framed as something which must happen, because he accidentally killed a woman.
This is similar to how Hamlet acting out in previous scenes allegedly justifies Claudius sending him to his death. This is a dangerous approach to take when trying to represent disabled people in a helpful manner. People with disabilities aren’t always killed off in modern media, but they are still framed as a problem. However, not everyone subscribes to my interpretation of Ophelia’s death.
For instance Carroll Camden hypothesizes that Ophelia was driven mad through her love for Hamlet combined with the loss of her father. She explains her thinking for why and how Ophelia died with the following quote. “Ophelia exhibits many of the classical symptoms of passio hysterica brought on by erotomania. She is mad, cries ‘hem’ to clear her throat because of a feeling of choking or suffocation, beats her heart to relieve the sensation of oppression around it, weeps, prattles constantly, sings snatches of old songs, is distracted and has a depraved imagination, and ends her life by drowning. It is possible that the drowning may not have been deliberate, but at least Ophelia made no attempt to save herself.”. Camden’s callousness in the way they describe Ophelia’s death, and mental state is interesting to note here. The way it is phrased specifically referencing that Ophelia, “…is distracted and has a depraved imagination…”, this works to frame her as unfit for high society and irreparably dysfunctional. Camden goes on to blame Ophelia’s death on herself by stating, “Ophelia made no attempt to save herself.” after referencing that she may not have meant to kill herself.
That thought pattern does nothing to help struggling individuals like Ophelia, and in my opinion reinforces the idea that an unwell character must be killed or cured. Coverage like this concerning people with disabilities is not only seen in this article though. It is especially peculiar when those who are covering people with disabilities are attempting to do so in good faith. We see similar inaccurate representation of people with disabilities in contemporary media far too often. One case of misrepresenting disabled people in modern media, while trying to represent them well is the movie I am Sam.
I am Sam is a movie about a developmentally disabled father who is framed as being a severely flawed but fit parent. I want to focus on how Sam and his friends are represented rather than the general premise of the movie. Sam is framed as a problem. One scene which stands out where Sam is treated like a problem is the shoe shopping scene. He takes his daughter shoe shopping, and the worker is helping Sam pick shoes for his daughter.
The entire time Sam’s friends are framed as wasting the workers time, and a bother to him. After Sam and his friends cause all of this strife, he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the shoes. His friends decide to all start pitching in what they can to help Sam pay for the shoes. This scene really only seems there to make able bodied people feel good about themselves. That seems like a theme that resonates throughout the entire movie.
We also see I Am Sam cover an interesting scenario. Sam is approached by a prostitute, and she strikes up a conversation with him. This part is actually quite wholesome. Sam is working on a puzzle, and she is helping him with it. This does feel like another spot where it’s meant for able bodied people to feel good about themselves. The scene depicting the arrest shows Sam as childlike and unable to comprehend what the officer is doing, similar to how he is framed just seconds before when the prostitute approaches him. I think they take it a bit far when the officer is checking Sam for weapons. Sean Penn pretending to be mentally impaired, and exclaiming about the officer touching his private parts seems like they’re punching down at disabled people.
Seeing Sean Penn pretend to be mentally impaired for two hours and twelve minutes left a bad taste in my mouth. Who do we blame for the bad performance when a perfectly able bodied and minded person portrays someone with a disability? Lennard J. Davis argues that it is the fault of the casting directors and writers. He states in the book Culture – Theory – Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, “Although disability can provide acting opportunities, on television, at least, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s survey for the 2011 season, which noted out of a total of 600 repeating characters on US prime time television shows, only six were characters written to have a disability. And of those, only one was actually played by a disabled actor (Hollywood Reporter). Most of the supporting roles in movies will be played by non-disabled people. And the default status for the stereotypical roles – the best friend of the main character, the mother, father, siblings and so on – will all be conceived of normal and not disabled.”(Davis 44). I for the most part agree. Non-disabled people wouldn’t have the added chance to misrepresent disabled people if they weren’t casted.
In conclusion, I don’t know if that’s enough evidence to conclude that disabled people are always misrepresented in our media. I think Walter Jr. is not a very problematic character, accurately representing people with cerebral palsy. However there is a plethora of media leading up to the modern day, which does not represent people living with disability in a good light. The media we consume has essentially been littered with misrepresentations and jokes about people with mental or physical impairments. I think the safe conclusion to make is that there is definitely a pattern in the way people with disabilities are represented in the media we have consumed for centuries.
Works Cited
Byrne, Peter. “I Am Sam.” National Library of Medicine, vol. 324, no. 7347, 2002, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1123184/.
Camden, Carroll. “On Ophelia’s Madness.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 15, 1964, pp. 247-255, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2867895.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A96ee1ac2d54c2a732600fbf7f6e3332d&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Penguin Books, 1937.
Davis, Lennard J. “The Ghettoization of Disability: Paradoxes of Visibility and Invisibility in Cinema.” Culture – Theory – Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, edited by Anne Waldschmidt et al., Transcript Verlag, 2017, pp. 39–50. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xxs3r.7. Accessed 27 Mar. 2024.
Sprockets and Springes 