{"id":20781,"date":"2020-07-16T12:40:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T19:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=20781"},"modified":"2023-08-25T12:13:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T19:13:33","slug":"the-evolution-of-disability-in-film-after-the-accolades-the-work-continues","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/the-evolution-of-disability-in-film-after-the-accolades-the-work-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution of Disability in Film: After the Accolades, the Work Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lawrence Carter-Long<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Once upon a time, <\/span>disability<\/span><\/i> was just a diagnosis. Through time, the word has evolved to encompass larger more expansive concepts like community, identity, and culture. In 2020\u2014thirty years after passage of the <\/span>Americans with Disabilities Act<\/b><\/a>\u2014anyone who still thinks of disability solely as a medical issue might not realize it but they\u2019re also increasingly signaling to the world at large that they\u2019re behind the times not just in theory but arguably by several decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Culturally, for a variety of reasons, both experiences and depictions of disability are receiving renewed interest and increased attention.\u00a0 Cinematically speaking, the complicated, messy, ever-changing relationship that viewers and creators have had with disability continues\u2014quite literally\u2014to play out before our very eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before we can truly move forward, let us pause a moment to glance back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As early as 1897, pioneering film-makers the Lumi\u00e8re brothers\u2019 Le Faux cul-de-jatte<\/i> (The False Cripple<\/i><\/strong>, 1897) opens with a shot of a vagrant begging on the street. A police officer enters the frame, checks the beggar\u2019s papers and gets suspicious. Fearing arrest, the huckster hops up and hurriedly dashes off into the distance with the cop in hot pursuit as a crowd gathers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Film historians use the short to illustrate the often-unpredictable nature of early cinema by noting that a stray dog wandered on to the set while filming, lifts his leg and urinates at the film\u2019s most pivotal moment\u2014unintentionally foreshadowing this writer\u2019s review over a century later. The gag, which was old by the time it was duplicated almost frame-by-frame just a year later by none other than Thomas Edison in his 30 second short \u201cThe Fake Beggar,\u201d was recreated yet again as recently as 1983 by comedian Eddie Murphy in <\/span>Trading Places<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n