#matthew duckett

[noxexistant]

"Just hold on, kid."

video: @lasagnatrades

[honeyywoods]

haiiii I’m still on my bs it’s so crazy how all of them serve face all the time 24/7 365 days a year

[puppyvenom]

“dumb crip’s just too damn slow” not matthew’s crutchie. NEVER matthews’s crutchie. he was barrelling across the stage with purpose at all times. he could fucking MOVE. he did NOT come to fuck around he came to be speedy as shit and i love him so dearly

[theatreism]

THERE'S A LIFE THAT'S WORTH THE LIVIN' AND I'M GONNA DO MY SHARE.

[just-pot-over-here]

Ok, of course, yes please also tell us about your favorite Crutchie and why!

LETS FUCKING GOOOO OKAY

i have no problem with AKB as a person!! just getting that out of the way because i WILL shit on his portrayal of Crutchie swiftly and without remorse.

AKB is very good at playing the happy-go-lucky, innocent, wide eyed comedic relief character. he plays the same type of character in tuck everlasting as Jesse, and in the Dracula reimagining he's in now. he's a good actor and he plays that typecast well!

the problem is, that isn't Crutchie. i feel like AKB drastically sanitized the character that was written in the script. he made Crutchie into this pure and wholesome caricature of a disabled person, who gets pushed around and defended and is always upbeat about it. The general atmosphere of fan spaces in 2017 didn't help that at all either. I remember a lot of infantilizing Crutchie, all sorts of "smol boi ray of sunshine" shit. he was treated like this defenseless, needy little thing. he wasn't a person.

I really feel like Matthew Duckett (an actual disabled actor! almost like it matters!) read the same script as AKB, and got a person out of it instead of a pity sponge. Matthew's Crutchie is, to put it plainly, a little shit. He antagonizes the Delanceys, fights cops, slingshots his friends when he gets bored. He's playful and funny, but he's also whip-smart, fast on his feet, and will talk shit like it's nobody's business. his doubt about the strike isn't him being scared and worried about fighting, it's him being a realist and a strategist, recognizing flaws in their plan that jack isn't even thinking about. He isn't this defenseless little blob that the other newsies have to constantly worry about, but a competent and capable part of the community. one of jack's right hands and confidants, an intelligent and necessary part of the strike. it makes it so much more devastating when he's taken to the refuge. jack falls apart because he's lost his friend, brother, and equal, not because he let poor little Crutchie get captured by the cops.

and when Matthew's Crutchie gets back from the refuge, he is happy to be back and see his friends, but he is also angry. he's angry and hurt and has a lot of other emotions going on, which you can see when he cuffs Snyder. he doesn't just bounce right back, he is affected tremendously. like a REAL GODDAMN PERSON.

i love how Matthew Duckett gave Crutchie room to be a capable, emotional character instead of a clean-cut sunny blob. you can really see that he isn't just Crutchie, he's Sean (or Charlie or whatever name you prefer), the real person.

AKB made Crutchie a caricature, Matthew Duckett brought him to life.

[whoops-im-obsessed]

"Dumb crp's just too damn slow" sorry Jack inaccurate this is uksies and matthew duckett is on his way to mow you down

[itsgrapes-exe]

mr crutchie morris/sean hanlon/whatever

[baura-bear]

When Matthew misses his entrance for LFTR because he’s distracted by Immie’s live

[ill-say-anything-i-hafta]

Crutchie Morris: your headcannon 2024

[athousandboxjumps]

So it’s been established that Matthew Duckett is the Crutchie that gets to say fuck…

But I’d like to offer the other swear moment that I caught during tonight’s (Feb 18) performance of Newsies.

Also I only caught this because Matthew looked me in the eye when he said it and it killed me

So at the very end of newsies when Jack is offered the job to work as an illustrator and he says to Katherine that he’d be working for her father and Katherine replies “You already work for my father….”

Jack says “oh yeah…”

And Crutchie turned out to the audience and just muttered “Dumbass.”

So anyway, stan Matthew Duckett for giving us the feral Crutchie we deserve.

[chimeofthecomet]

my beloved cast members matthew bucket and ryan kobel

[noxexistant]

disney: okay, so here’s all the canon information we’ve created about crutchie—

matthew duckett:

[slingshotsandrosarybeads]

Someone needs to take that slingshot away from Matthew . He’s a menace 🤣

[undescribed1mage]

how. how did it take thirty years for someone in an official ver of newsies to go 'hey. aren't crutches supposed to be on the side opposite of the injury.' like.

[puppyvenom]

crutchie - akb vs matthew duckett !!!!

alternatively titled - cast disabled people jesus christ

listen i am having so many thoughts and feelings about crutchie and at the risk of annoying the fuck out of my partner i am putting them on here instead!

prefacing this by saying:

i do not speak for all cripples

matthew’s duckett was my first real introduction to crutch and yes i am probably biased because of it (because matthew was an absolute sweetie when i met him)

i do not actually hate AKB as much as i dislike his crutchie

★

i think the main problem i have with his crutchie (and i understand that it is not entirely his fault at all!!!!) is that it’s so sanitised in so many ways. it is so of its time and not really in a good way, it came about in a period where representation wasn’t a big focus and i very much understand that, but i also hate it.

it’s so easy for disabled characters to fall into this weird ,sanitised, almost infantilising position, where their struggles are shown (abuse from the delanceys that was directly because of his disability, the fact he’s more likely to be put in the refuge because he’s seen as ‘weak’), but they’re bound by this kind of happy-go-lucky persona where they don’t show any real anger or upset. it’s fuelled by the abled need to see disabled characters as some sort of inspiration porn. “he’s crippled but look how happy he is despite that!!!!!! if he can do it i can too!!” he has this air of innocence and can-do-no-wrong that kinda falls a little flat compared to all his friends of the same age, and whilst this wouldn’t be a problem in itself, it fits a repeating pattern of the innocent, docile physically disabled person that is shown so much.

i loved matthew’s crutchie so much because he was so much more than that. he was happy, he was kind and an big laugh, but he didn’t shy away from being truly angry or scared (in the finale when he is brought back and cuffs snyder) and he was still a bit of a dick, he felt a lot more like he truly belonged. one of my favourite examples is at the start of the show the first time we see katherine, he helps one of the boys (i can’t remember which one) steal something from darcy and keeps it on him through the rest of the show. he’s as playful and annoying as the rest of them, shooting paper balls at them with his slingshot (especially during the finale, i love him so much for that). he has an attitude. he has the energy of a boy who was raised on the streets and knows what the fuck is what.

and thats what i think changes him the most for me. it’s all the same script (?) but it’s all so different when you think about how smart crutch actually is. i think the biggest change is my idea of him specifically when he’s being so nice to weasel at the beginning, when all the boys are being annoying and dicks, crutchie is so sweet. i don’t believe he’s doing that because he’s just such a nice guy who can look past weisel and the delancey’s being assholes to them, i think he realised quickly how to play the game. he’s gonna get sympathy, he knows that, and he knows if he acts all innocent and is overly kind, that they’ll somewhat pity him and he can use that to his advantage.

i hate being pitied by most people, i hate being looked at differently, like i’m almost helpless. but i also know how to use it to help myself, i know when i can play the poor little cripple card to my advantage. and i fully believe crutch does the same.

edited to add because i forgot to add this entire section in sorry!!

when i say sanitised i also mean literally. as in they made him cleaner. specifically in the finale again when he’s brought back from the refuge, broadway crutch looks way too clean. he’s a little bashed up but he’s not dirty. he doesn’t look like he’s been battered and then subjected to awful conditions. it takes away the impact of his time at the refuge. when he got back in the uk production they actively were disgusted by how much he smelled, because he’d just got out of a place where he couldn’t look after himself for a multitude of reasons. he suffered in there, mentally and physically, and in more ways than one. he was not given nice clean clothes and a pat on the back, he was taken out and put right back into the mess without much time to check himself over, without any time to process or heal.

i just think it has a much bigger impact when you can see, from his actual appearance and the other guys’ reactions, how much he actually struggled in there. they were glad to have him back of course, but it really drove home the point of how badly it affected him.

and once again in that scene, you could see the fear on his face and the anger when he faced snyder and when he made a move at him. he was fucking scared of the man that had subjected him to all of that. even when he was being a little goofy and put on the hat to handcuff him, there was still that fear, and there was evidence to why.

(end of edit)

but like i said, i don’t think it is entirely akb’s fault or his intention, he almost definitely wasn’t aware of the way it came off and how it perpetuates stereotypes. but it’s just another reason why giving disabled roles to disabled people is so important. plus we know how to use mobility aids properly

★

shoutout to my beloved partner who proof reads my shit and also is the reason i am into newsies . thank u babie @fizzloves-blog <3