The disabled communitycarries inner and outer lives that are often taken for granted. Everyday tasks like brushing your teeth, sitting up straight, and walking, are the easiest things to do, sometimes without even thinking. The senses help us experience the world that we’re lucky to be alive in. A smile, a hug, or the lifting of a finger are almost impossible to do for some people with disabilities. They make up for it by capitalizing on their capabilities through mental and physical therapy.
For a lack of sight, there is touch, taste, and sound. Where there is limited mobility, there is a different way to move forward. Disabled persons remind us that we are not defined by our weaknesses, but by our willingness to thrive regardless of our weaknesses. Having a disability doesn’t make a person a lesser human being. Ableism has disavowed and misunderstood the trials and tribulations disabled people face daily and have overcome to celebrate life. Rather than demonize or ostracize the disabled community for not being able-bodied, we need to be sensitive to and accommodate their plights and humanity. How people with disabilities are portrayed in film should advocate the same.
11Nick Vujicic - The Butterfly Circus (2009)
Set during the Depression in 1930s America, a circus troupe known as the Butterfly Circus travels and performs for pedestrians. On their travels, they find a carnival with a freak show where they meet Will the Limbless Man. Will, played by Christian evangelist and motivational speakerNick Vujicic, was born with the rare disorder of tetra-amelia syndrome, the absence of legs and arms. Nick and his character learn to be a performer instead of being used as a freak, seeing the worth and potential he has when others didn’t. His pool diving act showed audiences how to look beyond appearance and celebrate the abilities, talents, and skills one has.
10Harrison Ford - Regarding Henry (1991)
Harrison Fordplays a greedy, self-involved, workaholic lawyer from New York City. He leaves home one day and stops to buy cigarettes at a convenience store where he is shot twice by a robber, once in the shoulder and again in the head. The bullets caused him to suffer cardiac arrest and anoxia or oxygen deficiency causing brain damage and retrograde amnesia. He forgets his past: his family, friends, and himself. Learning to retrace your steps, relearning who you are before and after a debilitating injury, is upsetting and harrowing. Ford’s personality transforms in bittersweet and existential ways that anyone could experience. Ford’s performance shows what every person with a disability longs for: the freedom to be yourself.
9Ian Michael Smith - Simon Birch (1998)
Based on the novelA Prayer for Owen Meanyby John Irving, the comedy dramaSimon Birchfollows the title character (Ian Michael Smith) who grows up in a 1960s small town with dwarfism. His religious parents hypocritically disavow him, yet have him attend church, for example. Simon, as a result, brings logic as well as faith to the church, but the Sunday school teacher as well as the priest equally dismisses him and his idea that God has a plan for him. He finds solace in his only friend Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello) and his mother Rebecca (Ashley Judd) as they accept him as he is, commending his innocence, heart, and strength in body and spirit.
8Billy Bob Thornton - Sling Blade (1996)
Autistic Arkansas manKarl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) was the child of abusive parents. Rehabilitated after murdering his mother and her lover with a sling blade, he is released from his stay in a mental hospital and befriends 12-year-old Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black). Frank fears his mother’s boyfriend and Karl, despite his mental and social disabilities, understands the trauma and angst he had as a little boy that him and Frank share. Karl is a simple man, but his proclivities have not deterred his newfound independence and intellect as he commits an act of friendship and sacrifice.
Related:Skyler Davenport: ‘See For Me’ is a ‘Step in the Right Direction’ For Characters With Disabilities
7Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything (2014)
Eddie Redmaynestars as the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in his biographical drama. The film follows Hawking’s studies and breakthroughs in physics as well as his relationship with his ex-wife of thirty years, Jane. The biggest cosmological theory from Hawking is that a black hole created, and will destroy, the universe. During the writing of his thesis, he begins to suffer from muscle failure, which he later discovers is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Redmayne’s performance was heartbreaking and hopeful in every movement and breath he took.
Related:Disney Developing Disability Dance Drama Titled Grace
6Jodie Foster - Nell (1994)
Jodie Fosterplays Nell, who lived with her mother and twin sister in a cabin in the woods. She learns to speakher own language, an acute form of English in which she mispronounces words, giving them similar sounds and meanings. The film is inspired by the playIdioglossia(bearing the same character) and the story of identical twins Grace and Virginia Kennedy (each calling themselves Poto and Cabengo, respectively) who invented their own private language due to isolation and emotional neglect. Foster makes the abstract world concrete as she faces society for the first time and tries to acclimate to the changing world out of the woods.
5Cuba Gooding Jr. - Radio (2003)
Cuba Gooding Jr.portrays James Robert “Radio” Kennedy, a mentally-disabled man from South Carolina, with a love of the radio and football. He gets the attention of coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris) who invites Radio to help the football team and take part in activities at T.L. Hanna High School. Radio faces racial and mental discrimination from the town, objecting to the relationship Jones has fostered with him. Jones steps down from coaching to honor Radio for his pure-at-heart humility for others, showing that being selfless and kind is within all of us to have and share.
4Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump (1994)
Tom Hanksplays Forrest Gump, an Alabama man with low intelligence and a previously curved spine from childhood who regains the ability to walk and run. He lives his life throughout 20th century America, experiencing each important decade from the fifties to the eighties. Hanks and Gump bothbring emotional intelligenceto many facets of life that resonates with all races, colors, and creeds.
3Dustin Hoffman - Rain Man (1988)
Dustin Hoffmanplays Raymond Babbitt, the savant brother of car salesman Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) with the former inheriting the family fortune. Charlie, feeling cheated, decides to get custody of his brother and the millions of dollars he has. In the process, Charlie learns to love and care for his brother, truly understanding Raymond’s proclivities and propensities while treating him as his equal. Hoffman is unrecognizable in and sensitive to his role.
2Robert De Niro - Awakenings (1990)
Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) studiespatients with encephalitis lethargica, or “sleeping sickness”, who survived its epidemic from 1917 to 1928. Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro) was in grade school and is a grown man, trapped in a speechless or motionless state until Sayer discovers patterns unique to each patient that reawaken their mental and physical functions. The tireless efforts and undying spirits of the medical staff and patients, the realism that Williams and De Niro both match, are tear-jerking performances that humanized the disabled community.
