#disabled life on film

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[enbycrip]

YES.

ALL OF THIS.

THIS is why this film still hits so hard after all these years.

It’s not some sugary BS about “you can think yourself out of suicidal depression by just learning to appreciate what you’ve got”.

It’s about the fact that people who work really fucking hard for their communities experience active, targeted, criminal pushback from exploiters.

About the fact that caring, in all its manifestations, is incredibly physically and mentally taxing and is often done by disabled people - YES, George Bailey is a disabled protagonist. His impairment prevents him from military service and actively causes him chronic pain that, as a person who lives with it, *will* affect his energy levels and fatigue constantly.

Notably, IAWL actually has a bunch of disabled characters. Not only is George disabled, but I’d put money on his uncle who loses the money being ADHD and very possibly having other learning disabilities and the film *actively* flagging that fact to the audience, even if it doesn’t necessarily know what ADHD is.

Which casts a whole new light on its principal villain being disabled. Instead of Old Man Potter being a flat caricature of “disability = evil”, what he *actually* is is a fantastic example of the fact that marginalisation in one axis does not prevent someone being an active oppressor - and wealth and class privilege, in particular, tend to mean a person actively acting to oppress other people who share their marginalisation in order to privilege the interests of their own class as a whole. Sometimes even damaging their own individual interests to do so.

It’s also super interesting that the *material* miracle in the film is not the appearance of an angel to show George what life would have been like if he had never existed, but the *community solidarity* that saves him from jail and his family from penury. The supernatural intervention can change his *mindset*, and that is *incredibly* important, given it *literally* stops him killing himself, but the *material* intervention is mutual aid from his own community that he has given so much to.

Which is incredibly radical as a message. It’s not saying “faith is worthless”; it’s saying “faith can be an incredibly important factor in creating resilience in moments of despair, but we can’t, and *need not*, wait for a supernatural miracle to save us; we have the capacity to save ourselves and each other in our hands right now”.

[creekfiend]

whoever is elected president of the United States will immediately become a war criminal upon being sworn in if they are not one already and captain america was already about nationalism and if you didn't notice the MCU being racist about arabs in the very first fucking iron man film WHICH WAS SPONSORED BY THE US MILITARY I simply do not know what to tell you and I'm going to dunk all of you into a big old bucket of ice until you are damp and chilly

[hotwaterandmilk]

I'm still not well so this isn't going to be articulate, but I wanted to say something anyway.

In the wake of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (amongst other titles) being purged from streaming I've seen countless posts saying "This is terrible, we need to stop this practice -- they might purge a good show next!" and yeah, for sure a lot of titles being impacted by streaming purges/lack of physical media/a decline in archiving right now aren't going to be remembered for changing the world.

However, I think it is vital that we fight to preserve these titles for their own sake not just because "What if next time it's something we actually like?!" There is value is preserving things widely regarded as "bad" not just because I have firm beliefs about the absurdity of taste, but because who gives a shit if something is deemed "good?" Actual human people put their time and energy into realising these artistic visions. Even if the results are arguably not "good" or "popular", should the efforts of these artists be lost to the sands of time? No, no they fucking shouldn't.

I share a lot of art on this blog from titles very few people consider culturally important or valuabe. However, I don't look at the things I collect & share like that. Even some of the most objectively absurd titles I own are still pieces of art that were developed, published, and consumed by humans in the real world. Whether they've turned out to be broadly memorable or not is irrelevant because they existed and that in itself makes them worthy of preservation so that others can choose to familiarise themselves with them long after the original creative team is gone.

So yes, we should all be trying to preserve the media that's important to us and not let corporations try to stamp out every trace of a financial (though not necessarily artistic) misstep. However, it shouldn't take the threat of something we, personally, like being taken away to stir us into giving a shit.

Even the demise of less admired works should concern us and make us start to burn copies of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies because it might not mean anything to you or I right now, but to some kid in 20 years it could be a seminal experience that leads them to follow their dreams. Or it could become a cult classic that people reflect on at watch parties years in the future. Or it could continue to be a footnote in the history of television that nobody really cares about.

Ultimately I don't think it matters what level of value we arbitrarily assign to media now or in the future, we should be trying to preserve as much of it as possible so that generations from now people can enjoy the option of engaging with these titles should they so wish.

[lacefuneral]

i think it's funny when people irl tell me i should mentor young trans men when i can barely take care of myself

the trans man i am mentoring right now is me. maybe someday when i'm an old queen i can mother someone else. but today is not that day

[notallfay]

As someone who has epilepsy, and is a none Christian. I really hate films about exorcisms, but every so often I get tricked into watching one.

There's something extremely uncomfortable about watching the "possessed person" who actually is just having epileptic symptoms, being subject to abuse, and people telling Christian verses at them. Even the yelling and swearing is a symptom for certain types of epilepsy.

I hate them even more when the films narrative is look how right this abusive, ablist as fuck preist is. If the person dies, then their soul is saved at least BS.

Then there's the whole, some countries do this to actual disabled people, and not give people with epilepsy life saving medication.

Like why do writers still churn out this shit, and don't even use an ounce of creativity to question the issues with this? Or logical reasons to what a possession could actually be? Or what the preist is doing is fucked up, and not those mean, mean evil scientist and none believers stopping them from doing their job. Like seriously????

I know epilepsy isn't the only condition people will preform an exorcism on, but it's the one I spot because it's a lot more personal to me. I think it is pretty horrific actually.

[trans-cuchulainn]

okay i've finished rewatching pride now i will stop having feelings all over your dash

[clamorybus]

its insane how my small town of <10,000 is more diverse than the majority of hollywood productions that are set in major cities

[carlaseneca]

#repost @overlookentertainment The feature film 22-The Unforgotten Soldier directed by @sammedinaofficial is around the corner. The film was done to support US Veterans, their family & friends; and anyone suffering from disability, PTSD or suicide. Actors in the film are in majority veterans and the inspirational voice of @jockowillink transports you through the journey of our characters. Stay tuned and spread the word! For more info see @imdb link in BIO. #film #veterans #jockowillink #war #ptsd #disability #marines #soldier #Love #instagood #art #movie #film #like4likes #tbt #followme #friends #instalike #life #family #photography #motivation #photo #marketing @davhq @garysiniseofficial @military.surprises @veterantrashtalk @vettix @veteranfamilyusa @deptvetaffairs @coffee_withjulian @veteranswalkandtalk @theallveterangroup @marines @stronghopeprogram https://www.instagram.com/p/CkBdYtKOyxW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[interactiveolivermedia]

Door to Door (2002) The Impact of Relating over Inspiring a Community

Relatability Is The Bigger Impact Here The film Door to Door (2002) ends with a newspaper writing a piece on Bill Porter being a positive part of people’s lives and an inspiration.  Of course, Bill was against being highlighted. The context of why someone is inspirational matters to the disability community because it is not a given right to anyone.  Bill Porter’s story is not inspirational but…

[hashtagloveloses]

The headline is pretty awful but this is one of those things that gets worse as you read it:

The 14-page petition, filed in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him. Instead, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the petition says, the couple tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

"Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys."

Oher was a rising high school senior when he signed the conservatorship papers, and he has written that the Tuohys told him that there was essentially no difference between adoption and conservatorship. "They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account," Oher wrote in his 2011 best-selling memoir "I Beat the Odds."

But there are some important legal distinctions. If Oher had been adopted by the Tuohys, he would have been a legal member of their family, and he would have retained power to handle his own financial affairs. Under the conservatorship, Oher surrendered that authority to the Tuohys, even though he was a legal adult with no known physical or psychological disabilities.

While the [movie] deal allowed the Tuohys to profit from the film, the petition alleges, a separate 2007 contract purportedly signed by Oher appears to "give away" to 20th Century Fox Studios the life rights to his story "without any payment whatsoever." The filing says Oher has no recollection of signing that contract, and even if he did, no one explained its implications to him.

The [movie] deal lists all four Tuohy family members as having the same representative at Creative Artists Agency, the petition says. But Oher's agent, who would receive movie contract and payment notices, is listed as Debra Branan, a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition, the petition alleges. Branan did not return a call to her law office on Monday.

"Mike's relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent," Stranch said. "Their relationship continued to deteriorate as he learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie, and it was permanently fractured when he realized he wasn't adopted and a part of the family."

For years, Oher has chafed at how "The Blind Side" depicted him, saying it hurt his football career and clouded how people view him. He has said that based on the film, some NFL decision-makers assumed he was mentally slow or lacked leadership skills.

"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie," Oher told ESPN in 2015. "They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am."

"Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest."

[dcmcboxers]

My shout-out to queer youtubers

Hbombs list was great but obviously not comprehensive. I watch a lot of video essayists and wanted to give a little love to the smaller channels that fall under the radar. Please feel free to add to this list!

let's talk about stuff/Sarah Zedig

If you've seen Jesse Gender's videos on the Matrix movies you may already be familiar with Sarah. She does excellent film and culture analysis with a lot of great conversations on paratext and outside influence in engaging with text. Her video on Tunic is one of my favorites.

Pamphleteer

No one makes videos like hers, which has the side effect making them a bit hard to describe. I will link one of my favorites which describes the disconnected temporality of being older when you discover you're queer.

Turbo Queer

Really really under watched channel. Skylar covers a lot of topics from video games, to anarchist history and modern events, to autistic life, to current politics. For a fun one check out her video on the SpongeBob strike episode.

Kaz Rowe

Kaz does a fantastic job examining modern myths and manufactured history primarily pertaining to western Europe, Victorian & Edwardian England, and 1800-1900s US. And of course, talking about historical queerness in all its ambiguities and evolutions. I highly recommend their video on Weimar Germany.

drapetomania

drapetomania interrogates the politics of low class and high class art and entertainment from a queer and Black perspective. Their art history videos alone cover many angles of white supremacist history I haven't seen anyone else discuss and I'm very excited to see more from them. They are also a very under viewed channel that more people should see!

I am error

Evelynn's channel primarily discusses video games in a presentation style and voice most similar to Action Button reviews. There's something just a bit more personal here though. I hesitate to say cozy since that word has a bit of an infantilizing connotation, maybe comforting is closer. She puts an immense amount of thought and empathy into the experience of playing video games and the personal narratives we build with them.

Swolesome

For more transmasc perspectives there's Swolesome. He has a lot of interesting insights into the more traditionally masculine and "broish" communities like fitness as well as commentary on recent trans issues.

Shonalika

Music, disability, and aggressively non-binary. Their video on gender presentation in heavy metal was really insightful. I would also check out the video "Why I Wear Gloves" for more insight on invisible disabilities.

Vivian Strange

Vivian delights in being a bit of a contrarian- something I really appreciate. She's probably going to challenge you and you're probably going to disagree at times, which is what makes her channel so important. Her video on Marquis De Sade is powerful and a must watch (if you can stomach the subject material, although I would encourage you to try). I haven't seen her most recent video on Saw yet but I am extremely excited to.

[cy-cyborg]

People on the internet: they can't hire actors who are actually in wheelchairs to play wheelchair users in movies! What if there's a scene where they need to stand up? A wheelchair user can't do that!

Robert Rodriguez: hold my beer

This is a scene from spy kids 3 - a movie in a series famous for its shoe-string budgets, where Ricardo Montalbán's character is in a wheelchair, but spends most of his screen time in a digital reality where he doesn't need it. Ricardo Montalbán was actually in a wheelchair though in real life, so they just used a combination of VFX and camera tricks (and a dolly for a few shots) to film those scenes. Also if I remember correctly the movie ends with him back in the real world, fighting a mech with his jet-pack wheelchair lmao.

The disability rep is dated (as is the VFX lol) and does fall into a lot of tropes I personally dont like, but it's so earnest in their attempts, and the visible effort behind the scenes to include a real, disabled actor outweighs it for me - even as a kid who wasnt fully aware of why.

Bigger studios have no excuse.

I've linked the video I got these screenshots from, they talk a lot about how they handled Ricardo Montalbán's character being out of his wheelchair there. If if you like behind the scenes stuff for campy old movies, I highly recommend it!

[ID 1: a screenshot of the movie Spy kids 3D, showing Juni, the main character in a suit of yellow power armour, talking to his grandfather, who towers over him in red power armour. his grandfather is kneeling so he can be at eye level with him.

the caption underneath reads "where he kneels down and talks to Juni" /end ID 1]

[ID 2: a photo of the same shot but without the effects. Grandpa is shown to be in a wheelchair, and is being held at the needed height by a moveable platform his wheelchair is sitting on. Juni is wearing the armour, grandpa is not, and there are green screens behind them.

the caption underneath reads "but we just had him lowered in a dolly" /end ID 2]

[lorarri]

★ . . . 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐆𝐅 , 𝐋𝐇𝟒𝟒

summary , Junho has started dating once again and has decided to try a different approach on hoe to introduce your child to your new partner - safe to say Nana is pissed

pairing , step dad! lewis hamilton x fem! young teen! reader

pervious part | series masterlist | main masterlist | f1 masterlist | lewis hamilton masterlist | next part

DAD ❤️

hey sweetheart

pack your bags

I've talked to your mother

and your gonna stay with me

until your school suspension is over

Y/NNIE 🐰

she agreed to it?

DAD ❤️

yes

Y/NNIE 🐰

really?

DAD ❤️

yes sweetheart

now pack some clothes and what ever else you need

as well as your school stuff

Y/NNIE 🐰

why I'm suspended

DAD ❤️

doesn't me you have to fall behind on your studies

dw I asked your teachers to send all the work you will miss

and try my best to help you with your homework

and then we can go out a get ice cream or watch a film

just the two of us

like old times

Y/NNIE 🐰

what about your girlfriend?

DAD ❤️

mina understands that daddy daughter time is important

Y/NNIE 🐰

don't you want me to bond with her?

DAD ❤️

I do but I don't want you to bond with her because I forced her into your life

so take your time sweetheart

when you are ready to form a relationship with her

whether it be as friends or as family

mina will be waiting

and if you don't want to have a relationship with her and prefer staying at your mothers house

that's fine as well

what ever you decide to do we will respect your opinon

as long as your happy sweetheart

now I'll be there in an hour so get your bags ready okay

I love you and see you soon ❤️

Y/NNIE 🐰

love you too dad ❤️

yourinstagram

liked by lewishamilton danielle 73,923,984 others

yourinstagram when your third wheeling your dad and gf getting ice cream 😑

comments have been disabled

MOTHER

Y/N baby when are you gonna be coming home?

Y/N

hi sorry Y/N isn't here right now she's gone to get the popcorn

we are watching a movie right now

anything I can pass on to her?

it's mina talking by the way

MOTHER

oh um just ask her what day is she coming back

I wanted to have a girls night with her

just the two of us

before she goes back to school

Y/N

yeah sure I'll pass that message on

MOTHER

thanks

read

NANA (EX WIFE)

keep that bitch away from my daughter

read

[alethianightsong]

A Quiet Place: disability at the end of the world (I am still reeling from this movie)

Ok so like many apocalypses ignore what happens to the disabled or infirm during apocalypses and just have the main cast all healthy and able-bodied. Even FUCKING World War Z(where sick people were left alone by the infected) just ignored that aspect. Yes, someone will get temporarily sick/wounded or pregnant but I mean a lifelong handicap. A Quiet Place had a deaf girl in a world where making sound gets you killed. However, the sign language her family learned for her sake allowed them to communicate and bond in a silent world.

Now on to Day One. When Eric finds out Sam needs meds to handle the pain caused by her terminal illness, he doesn't ditch her. He doesn't go "you're an invalid, you're weak, I'm abandoning you to increase my own chances at survival." So many apocalypses push the Darwinian idea of "survival of the fittest" but the unique nature of the Quiet Place means that it doesn't matter how strong or ruthless you are if you don't know how to shut the fuck up. Later, when Sam is left incapacitated in the church from her pain, this would've been a prime time for a lesser writer to have Eric leave Sam a little note saying "Sorry, but you're dying so I'm outie bye" but nope! guy risks his life to make sure she gets her meds, comforts her, lifts her spirits when she's at the end of the world, her life, and just wants to experience the simply joy of a pizza.

On to Eric. Once again, a lesser film would make him a coward or unlikable. He's a white-collar worker (a bloodsucking lawyer-in-training) who couldn't build a fire or survive the rugged wilderness but they're in the city so food is everywhere just be quiet getting it. He just survived drowning in the flooding subway but goes back down cuz his new friend wants her maybe-last meal to be from her favorite place. Sam is not a liability to him. She's not a burden but a person trying to maneuver through disaster in her own way just like him. Some anthropologist somewhere said that civilization didn't really start until people started looking after each other, when healed bones were found cuz that meant someone cared for this person while they were weak. In the end, Eric's empathy & kindness secured his own survival.

[lizardsfromspace]

So I guess Film Twitter is apoplectic with rage over some people suggesting they have intermissions in long movies. Not over theaters adding one without the director's consent, but like, at the concept of them

...by which I mean, getting mad at disabled people daring to have complaints. There's a lot of "HAHA are you so STUPID you can't go beforehand? You can't HOLD it for three hours?" and implying you don't deserve to experience art if you can't

And, of course, because Film Twitter is a bunch of insular discourse-addled dipshits, they're tying this...to Marvel. Yes, people are only saying they have health conditions that make sitting still for a three hour movie is because...they're Marvel fans mad at Scorsese, or something?

Why is this complaint new? Well, bc runtimes are ballooning to the levels of the old epic filmmaking days of the 50s-70s. And those movies...had intermissions. Multi-act plays have intermissions. Bollywood films have intermissions. Intermissions were literally just abandoned so studios could cram in more screenings, not out of an artistic ideal. But anyone saying "this would make it easy for me to access this film I want to see" needs to be viciously shouted down and called a moronic, lazy child hating on Scorsese bc of "discourse"

I've seen that meme multiple times and Jesus, look at the bizarre disdain for your fellow human beings embedded in it. You dare still bodily exist during a Martin Scorsese movie? You have a disability I don't? Well, I have no problem just peeing beforehand and not buying popcorn or a soda (you should really just sit their quietly until it's done, when you can pull out your phone to log it on Letterboxd), so what's your problem?

Calling people who are into non-blockbuster films "film bros" is mostly untrue, but man, the hardcore Film Twitter types unambiguously check every box. They're certainly dismissive of anyone outside their little box; extremely insulting, in fact, of how anyone who disagrees with them even slightly must be a Marvel-addled hysterical artless moron. Because nothing says "artistic appreciation" like preemptively calling analysis of a movie's choices "discourse" ("Ugh, I can't believe the DISCOURSE about how a movie portraying a morbidly obese man portrays obese people" - what should they talk about, then, if the movie's subject is instantly off the table?) They think the idea that someone out there may have a disability that prevents them from sitting in one place for three and a half hours is a laughable thing made up by the internet; or when people pointed out that a movie only getting one or two screenings a city may be inaccessible to working people, and these bloggers and podcast hosts dunked on the idea that working class people may like art as a hilarious, made-up thing.

I don't know, maaaaaaybe classing the life experiences and complaints of anyone who isn't you as "discourse" and presuming it's made-up kvetching about nothing as a matter of course is bad, cruel nonsense, actually?