Disabled people need people who alive in privileged bodies to do meliorate.

People with disabilities make upward a significant per centum of the population — by some measures, a full quarter — and still, despite aggressive, ongoing ableism, we are almost always left out of discussions of diversity and disinterestedness in theatre & moving picture. Nosotros're rarely hired and our stories are rarely told — when they are, they're almost always told past abled people, for abled people, with abled people. Abled people are centered in virtually everything nigh united states.

Throughout this mail, I've included pictures and information nearly disabled actors, directors, writers, producers, & designers. Run into actor Melissa Salguero. Melissa is represented by Gail Williamson at KMR.

The centering of abled people routinely takes the form of ableist tropes that present the lives of disabled people through an ableist lens. In these tropes, the disabled body is used as a container for the emotions able-bodied people take about disability.

You'll recognize all of the following ableist tropes; you've seen them all numerous times. I am hardly the first person to write about these, and this isn't fifty-fifty the first time I've written most them. All the same somehow, no matter how often nosotros write or speak about this, ableism never seems to be taken seriously, and our concerns are minimized, dismissed, ignored, or outright rejected. Disabled people demand people who live in privileged bodies to do ameliorate.

TEN ABLEIST TROPES TO JETTISON IN 2021:

i. WE ARE NOT SYMBOLS. I can't tell yous how many times I've seen scripts with a disabled person who never appears on stage, only appearing in the play as a topic of chat, a problem that must be solved by the athletic characters. I've seen scripts where a disabled person is on phase, simply never given any lines or whatever meaningful activeness, frequently partially concealed — dorsum to the audience, or partially backside a screen, for example. In each of these cases, the disabled person is a symbol of something affecting able-bodied people. When a silent disabled graphic symbol appears on phase all the same is marginalized from the activity, the disabled torso is minimized, a prop rather than a human being. And those silent roles, removed from all meaningful activity, are nearly always played by able-bodied actors, which renders disabled people voiceless, powerless, and entirely invisible. The voiceless, powerless, disabled body is framed as a burden, an object of ridicule, an object of disgust, or an object of pity. An object, never a bailiwick.

Our disabilities are not ABOUT YOU. We are not a "symbol of oppression," a "symbol of willful ignorance," "a symbol of the voiceless," "a symbol of the futility of linguistic communication," "a symbol for our burdens," or whatsoever of the other dozens of explanations I've been given when I signal out that the disabled character is reduced to a prop.

two. Practice Non INFANTILIZE US. When you depict your able-bodied characters treating your disabled characters like children, you lot're echoing generations of oppression and marginalization we have endured. And these issues are intersectional. When yous infantilize a disabled graphic symbol who is neither male nor white, that infantilization is intensified past the white infantilization of BIPOC and the male infantilization of women, as well as trans, enby, and genderqueer people.

Disabled adults are adults. Needing assistance does not brand us children any more than an able-bodied person's need for assistance makes them children. Anybody on the planet requires the aid of another person each and every day. Unless you live as a hermit, abound your own food, generate your own electricity, brand your own clothing from material you arts and crafts from raw materials; never use the internet, the post, retail stores, roads, healthcare, or sanitation services; never read books, listen to music, watch films, take classes, or take partnered sex, you are being assisted past others.

Adults with disabilities are adults. We have adult bug, concerns, joys, fears, relationships, hopes, ambitions, plans, and desires.

three. Nosotros ARE Not HERE FOR You TO Relieve. Ane of the almost popular tropes is the "heroic" narrative in which an able-bodied person "saves" a disabled person past "curing" them, didactics them something (to walk again! to utilise speech communication!), or showing them life is worth living. The disabled person is securely minimized, presented (once again) as a problem for the able-bodied person to solve. The disabled character is often entirely reduced to "disabled and sad," "disabled and angry," or "disabled and bitter." Disability is presented equally a dragon for athletic people to slay while the disabled character sits by passively, and then showers the able-bodied graphic symbol with gratitude when they are "cured." The worst part of this trope is that it'due south often presented every bit "the heroic medico who stops at nothing to detect the diagnosis, treatment, and/or cure" when in reality, medical professionals routinely disbelieve us, avert the states, refuse to give us needed tests and medications, misdiagnose usa, or give up after their starting time gauge proves incorrect. And this gets much, much worse if you're besides in whatever of the other groups that doctors treat with the utmost skepticism — if you lot are a woman, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, poor, or fat.

4. Nosotros ARE Non Here TO INSPIRE YOU. You may have already seen this i referred to equally "inspiration porn." We're not here to inspire you; nosotros're just trying to live our lives. We accept however bug y'all do, plus our sometimes stubborn & disobedient — and beautiful, and sexual, and blithesome — bodies. Ane specially egregious version of this trope is the MANIC CRIPPLED DREAM Girl. Her illness or inability is always invisible and she'south always played by a thin, conventionally cute, young athletic white adult female. She teaches the able-bodied hero to dear, or to discover himself, or to "appreciate the dazzler of life," while she bravely "overcomes" her disability to graduate, or travel "one last time," or enter the big ballroom dance competition or whatever. She and then conveniently dies, but non before her Final Inspirational Words, which are, of course, all about HIM. She dies (prettily) and he lives on, eternally inspired. In that location are many other versions of this trope, such as:

  • "NO EXCUSES" ("a almost worthless disabled person tin do this amazing thing, and so why tin't you lot, with all your royal abledness?")
  • "SUPERCRIP" ("information technology should be impossible for this disabled person to do this thing, but they are the literal best in the world")
  • "THE ONLY Real DISABILITY IS A BAD Mental attitude" ("look how positive this weak and worthless disabled person is; suck upwardly your problems, majestic abled")
  • "HOW Beautiful! THEY Recollect THEY'RE PEOPLE" ("these poor, useless cripples go one shining moment to pretend to be homo through the selfless, heroic work of athletic people who staged this event").

Extra, author, and poet Love Lace. Email ciarayvonnelovelace@gmail.com for booking inquiries.

At that place's an like shooting fish in a barrel mode to depict disabled people doing cool — dare I say inspirational — stuff and avoid sliding into inspiration porn. Simply write the disabled character exactly the same way you would write an abled character doing the same matter. Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One is a great example. What prevents him from falling into the "Supercrip" category is the fact that able-bodied characters throughout the series are similarly depicted using the forcefulness to accomplish seemingly impossible things. Imwe is a valued member of a collective. He has a well-developed personality. His loving, long-term relationship with Baze Malbus is i of the most enjoyable relationships throughout the entire genre. Draw disabled people and our lives equally varied and as full equally anyone else's and you won't go incorrect.

5. OUR LIVES ARE NOT ABOUT Inability. OUR PERSONALITIES ARE NOT "Inability." People with disabilities are wonderful people. We are too petty bitches, selfless heroes, cruel gossips, hardworking activists, aggressive entrepreneurs, first-class parents, terrible parents, and everything else. Condign disabled didn't modify annihilation about me. I walk with a cane and accept to manage chronic pain merely I was the same irreverent, nerdy, overeducated disbelieve Dorothy Parker both before and after I acquired this disability. If "disabled" is your character's only clarification, you need to start over.

Singer, director, actor, and writer Osiris. Email cuenosiris@gmail.com for booking inquiries.

half-dozen. OUR LIVES ARE WORTH LIVING. One of the ways in which able-bodied people comfort themselves in this pandemic is to tell each other, "Most of the people who die have pre-existing conditions." This is equivalent to maxim, "Your life is worth so footling that your death is less serious than mine would exist." When a disabled character dies, other characters should not repeat this kind of sentiment by saying things like, "At least he's not suffering anymore" unless he was in excruciating daily hurting. Sure, there are ways in which disability tin can limit what we can practise, simply even if we tin can't do a ten-mile hike or run across a painting, trust and believe our lives are as full of joy and pleasure as yours is. Nosotros have spouses and children; we brand and consume art; we brand and swallow food. To quote your aunt's kitchen wall, nosotros "alive, express mirth, dear" as much as anyone else.

seven. DISABILITY DOES Non MAKE US DIVINE ORACLES. This trope is thousands of years onetime and deeply enmeshed in western literature. Sophocles, Shakespeare, and anybody else who wrote prior to the 20th century gets a free pass. Yeah, I'one thousand not thrilled about "At present that he is blind, he can Actually Meet" or "This nonverbal person tin can literally BLESS Y'all," but no ane is seriously proposing that we set burn to classical literature. We're only asking for an acquittance that these tropes dehumanize u.s. and a pledge to practise ameliorate at present that you know. A blind human being has no more (or less) psychic, prophetic, spiritual, or metaphysical talents than a sighted human. A nonverbal human is non an "angel." People with disabilities are people, no more or less oracular than anyone else. Disabled people share this tired trope with BIPOC (the "Magical Negro," the "Magical Native American," the "Magical Asian") and nosotros're all asking you to do meliorate. How exercise you know if you've written a "Magical Cripple" as opposed to a absurd character with special powers? Does the disabled grapheme accept whatever goal, purpose, objective, or concerns other than helping an athletic character? If not, information technology's time for a rewrite.

Director Chloe Kennedy specializes in acting theory, improv techniques, and queer performance. Email chloenkennedy@icloud.com for booking inquiries.

8. Disability DOES NOT MAKE United states VILLAINOUS. This trope is too thousands of years former, and based on ii purely ableist bits of nonsense: "Disabled people are bitter and angry at the world, and their hate and jealousy lead them to commit unspeakable acts," and "A plain-featured trunk reflects a plain-featured soul." Again, no one is asking y'all to detonate every existing copy of Richard Three. We're asking you to admit the issue and pledge to do ameliorate in your 21st-century piece of work as a writer. Allison Alexander has a great slice on this trope. Read it here.

9. DISABILITY DOES Not MAKE US INNOCENT. One of the issues widely discussed in medical ableism is the fact that doctors often assume disabled people practice non take sexual practice. Information technology can be a struggle to become STD testing, birth control, or useful, sexual practice-positive information. This issue is exacerbated by the portrayal of people with disabilities as innocent, asexual beings. Let's face it, even people who are genuinely asexual aren't celestial innocents. No one is. This trope is also expressed as characters with cognitive disabilities who are "too innocent" to recognize abuse or crime, the "cute mute," and characters with physical disabilities who are automatically assumed to exist incapable of evildoing.

x. We ARE Non FAKING OUR DISABILITIES. This trope does significant real-world harm. I of the virtually common problems people with disabilities face is beingness disbelieved. We're considered unreliable narrators of our own lives by medical professionals, by our families, past coworkers, and even past random strangers. Near every disabled person — certainly everyone I've ever met — has been accused of exaggerating or outright faking either their symptoms or their unabridged disability. Ambulatory wheelchair users and people with invisible disabilities are particularly favorite targets of ableist bullying. This trope causes immediate and immense real-world harm whether the character y'all're writing is deliberately faking a disability or has a psychosomatic inability that magically resolves when they learn to have that the Large Accident was Not Their Fault, or when they learn to dearest life again, or when they acquire the true meaning of Arbor Day. (Bonus points for the able-bodied characters smugly smirking backside the Fake Disabled person's dorsum when he forgets to limp because they accept successfully distracted him).

The only possible way around this is to include at least one well-rounded, fully adult disabled character. You can argue all you similar that people fake disabilities in "existent life," but "real life" also includes far more examples of actual disabled people, then without that weigh, your script is just ableist.

Ableism is rampant in playwriting and screenwriting. It's 2021, writers. Information technology's long past time to practise better.

Thespian, writer, and consultant (specializing in mental wellness, gender positivity, and disability) Griffyn Gilligan. Contact his agent, Simon Pontin, at castings@thesoundcheckgroup.com.

MORE DISABLED TALENT TO HIRE AND SUPPORT:

Michaela Goldhaber is a playwright, director, and dramaturg who heads the disabled women's theatre group Wry Crips.

Author Jack Martin runs the pic review website Film Feeder.

Michelle Eastward. Benda is a freelance lighting designer for theatre, trip the light fantastic toe, and opera. See her portfolio here.

Sins Invalid is a "disability justice based operation project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and LGBTQ / gender-variant artists as communities who take been historically marginalized." Sins Invalid is run by disabled artists of color.

Access Acting Academy is an actor grooming studio for blind, depression vision, and visually impaired adults, teens, and kids. They offer classes in New York and worldwide via Zoom. Access is headed by actor, writer, manager, and motivational speaker Marilee Talkington.

And of course, yours truly. I'm currently available for consulting, dramaturgy, workshops, and classes. You can as well become a Bitter Gertrude patron on Patreon.

This article was originally published on Bitter Gertrude and has been reposted with permission. To read the original article, click here.

This post was written by the writer in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this commodity are the writer'south own and do non reverberate the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.

This post was written by Melissa Hillman.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.