Disability Portrayal in Film and Television: A Barrier to Inclusion?

Abstract Although people with physical, mental and sensory disabilities are appearing with greater frequency on both the big and small screen, portrayals of these characters leave a lot to be desired in terms of providing realistic examples of the human condition through the eyes of a person with a disability. This paper examines the literature relating to disability portrayal in film and television, and discusses how these images can both act as a barrier to, and a facilitator of, inclusivity. Ingesting Images Australians are avid consumers of film and television media. According to 2006 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the use of audio/visual media is the primary way in which free time is utilised by Australians. Breaking this down even further, it was found that Australians dedicate a large portion of this free time to watching television, watching DVDs/videos and seeing movies at the cinema (179, 109 and 129 minutes per day, respectively). Subsequently, it can be assumed that most Australians have relatively high exposure to content on both the big and small screens. This high consumption of film and television media prompts the questions (a) what kinds of messages and images are being conveyed and (b) what effect do these messages and images have on the viewing audience? For many years, these questions have been asked by minority groups in relation to gender, sexuality and ethnicity (Harnett, 2000), however it is only in the last twenty years or so that the same questions have been asked by disability scholars (Safran, 1998a; Safran, 1998b). Much of this research and commentary has American and British roots, however, given the proliferation of American (and to a lesser extent, British) content on Australian screens, it is relevant to apply these discussions to an Australian context. The kinds of messages being conveyed about disability in film and television will be discussed in further depth later in this paper. As for the effect that these messages and images have on the viewing audience, the jury is still out. However, much of the research and commentary supports the notion that film (Norden, 1994) and television (Cumberland & Negrine, 1992) may have a substantial impact on public attitudes towards people with disabilities (Safran, 2001) and that media portrayals reflect, define, or perpetuate ways of thinking about disabled persons (Susman, 1994, p. 18). Additionally, and more importantly for educators, some authors have identified that children have difficulty discriminating between fact and fiction in film (Lawson & Fouts, 2004). In terms of research, the results have been mixed but generally support the idea that film and television may influence viewer attitudes. A 1989 study by Wahl and Yonatan Lefkowits examined the attitudes of college students towards mental illness and community care following the screening of three different films. The first film was a prime time television film that featured a killer with mental illness. The second group saw the same film paired with an informational trailer explaining that violence is not characteristic of people with mental illness. The control group saw a film unrelated to mental illness. The study revealed that students who saw both films relating to mental illness demonstrated less favourable attitudes towards people with mental illness following the screening. This suggests that the messages and images conveyed in film are powerful devices that can overwrite factual information. The authors suggest that this is because: ". . . entertainment media, especially visual media, present more than information. They draw the viewer into the portrayal and involve them emotionally with dramatic acting, music, and cinematography. If such presentations are successful, they involve the audience emotionally as well as intellectually (Wahl & Yonatan Lefkowits, 1989, p. 525)". In contrast to these findings, however, was a study conducted a decade later by Hall and Minnes, which again investigated the attitudes of college students following film screenings, but this time

focused on a character with Down Syndrome. This study, which compared the effects of a documentary, a drama series and a control program on attitudes and behavioural change towards a young male with Down Syndrome, found that although attitudinal and behavioural change occurred in both the documentary and drama groups, it was the documentary that was the more influential format. The authors suggest that this may be due to a number of factors, including the inclusion of direct information regarding the causes, characteristics and potential of people with Down Syndrome (Hall & Minnes, 1999, p. 73) as well as the power/authority and credibility of the documentary presenter (Triandis, 1971). Although the findings of these two studies differ in some respects, it may relate more to the nature of the disability i.e. that the depiction of a killer is more emotionally provocative than a depiction of a person with Down Syndrome. Additionally, the quality of the factual information that was presented may have been more in-depth in the latter study. Still, both studies did reveal that film and television generate attitudinal change towards people with disabilities. Widening the Lens While some researchers continue to examine the effects of film and television portrayal on attitudinal change in viewers, others have already adopted a minimal effects stance (Entman, 1989, p. 348). Even within this approach, however, it is widely accepted that the media can play a much larger role in telling us what to think about, if not what to think (Lau and Erber, 1985, p. 60, emphasis added). This framework implies that public discourse is influenced more by the frequency of portrayal and less by the quality of portrayal. This notion is supported by the findings of Eichinger, Rizzo and Sirotnik (1992) which determined a positive relationship between the number of movies viewed about people with disabilities, and discussions at school and home, as well as with positive attitudes towards people with disabilities. It is difficult to determine how disability fares when it comes to the frequency of portrayal in film and television, due to the relative scarcity of quantitative research (Safran, 1998a; Safran, 1998b). In terms of film, studies that have been conducted indicate that the percentage of disability portrayal in film is on an upward trend, and is starting to reflect the percentage of people with a disability in society. A series of quantitative studies conducted by Byrd and colleagues examining feature-length films from 1977 to 1988 found that the number of disability roles has increased over time, from 11.5% to 17.5%. (Byrd & Pipes, 1981; Byrd & Elliot, 1985; Byrd & Elliot, 1986; Byrd, 1989). Although 17.5% is just shy of the numbers generated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (2003) which indicates that 20% of the Australian population has a disability the figure is slowly but surely making its way to a more appropriate reflection of society. Additionally, Byrds figures are only representative of films made up until 1988, and as there is no current data to examine, it may well be that this trend has continued to rise in that time. However, a more recent analysis by Safran (1998b) that specifically examined Academy Award nominated films also indicated an increase in disability roles. This study looked at films which had won Best Picture, Best Actor or Best Actress categories since the inception of the awards in 1927. Earlier decades (1927 1969) showed a modest increase, with 2.6% of awards in the first decade escalating to 13.3% in the latter decade. However, in the decades following the civil rights era of the 1960s, the frequency of disability portrayal increased dramatically, with 30% between 1970 1979 and an astounding 42.8% from 1990 1996. Although these figures indicate an increased willingness of film-makers to widen their lens and incorporate disability roles into their pictures, the same cannot be said for their television counterparts. A brief analysis of an television soap opera in Ireland by Harnett (2000) revealed that only three characters out of approximately two hundred and forty characters were portrayed as having a disability - a mere 1.25 percent. This is a far cry to the published Irish figures of ten per cent of the population having a disability. Similar inequities were discovered in a survey of television programs in the UK by the British Standards Council (n.d.) in the early 1990s, which found that only 1-2% of all programs featured people with disabilities or disability issues. Unfortunately, no such comparative data exists that examines the frequency of disability portrayal on Australian television screens. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . . . but Wheres the Reality?

While it can be argued that the frequency of portrayal is useful for encouraging public discourse, most of the literature surrounding the portrayal of disability in film relates to the quality of said portrayals. The quality of disability portrayal in film has improved over time (Bogdan & Taylor, 1988), moving from the magical cure and disfigured madman themes of the early 1900s to more realistic portrayals depicting independent living in the 1960s and beyond (Safran, 1998a). Despite this improvement, filmmakers no doubt driven by the dramatic (Safran, 1998b) and/or comedic currency of many disabilities are still reverting to age-old stereotypes, that is, depicting people with disabilities as exotic spectacles of otherness (Ferri, Connor, Solis, Valle & Volpitta, 2005, p. 63). Thus, not only is the able-bodied audience presented with a skewed view of disabled life, but the perceptions that people with disabilities have of themselves can be affected (Norden, 1994) resulting in a sense of isolation, as captured in a comment by Deborah Kent, a woman with a disability (Ferri et. al., 2005, p. 63): The disabled woman, searching as I did through my growing up years, will find few positive role models . . . There arent many of these characters I would like to get to know in real life; there are even fewer I would ever want to become. Various scholars have defined the most common disability stereotypes in different ways, however most of the literature refers to seven common stereotypes, as defined by Nelson (1994). These include (a) pitiable and pathetic (b) supercrip (c) sinister, evil and criminal (d) better off dead (e) maladjusted / his or her own enemy (f) a burden and (g) unable to live a successful life. Some of these stereotypes have no doubt been formed with good intentions to portray people with disabilities in a positive light or to engender a sense of empathy in the viewer. To borrow and adapt a term from Bogdan (1988, p. 108) in his work on the evolution of freak shows, this as the aggrandised mode of presentation, where despite particular physical, mental, or behavioural conditions, the [character is] an upstanding, high status person with talents of a conventional and socially prestigious nature. The most poignant example of this is in the supercrip scenario - where the person with a disability triumphs over the tragedy of their condition, against all odds (Harnett, 2000). One of the most cited examples of this phenomenon is the movie My Left Foot a movie based on the autobiography of the artist, writer and poet, Christy Brown, which Brown, himself, describes as my plucky little cripple story (Barnes, 1992, p. 12). However, some disability critics view this sort of portrayal as problematic, as it only values the contributions of people with disabilities when they are exceptional, and does not reflect the day-to-day reality of most disabled people (Shapiro, 1994, p. 17). Critics adopt a similar argument when examining another positive portrayal of disability that is, the development of misconceptions about extraordinary abilities attached to particular disabilities. For example Safran (1998a) states that although the movie Rain Man accurately depicts some common elements of autism, such as echolalia and resistance to routine change, the movie may also cause people to assume that all people with autism are savants, prompting them to search for unfound genius (p. 468). Other examples cited by Safran in the same article include a sixth sense or second sight that seems to be a common attribute of characters with visual impairments, along with the skill of face feeling as popularised by Helen Keller (p. 474). Not all portrayals of disability in film and television are simply misguided attempts at positive portrayals. To again borrow and adapt a term from Bogdans (1988) work on freak shows, some characterisations are simply created to appeal to the spectators interest in the culturally strange, the primitive, the bestial and the exotic (p. 105), for example the scarred, deformed and physically and mentally handicapped monsters that commonly appear in horror films (Safran, 1998a; Bogdan and Biklen, 1977). In fact, physically and mentally impaired characters are regularly used as easily identifiable personifications of evil (Harnett, 2000, p. 21); take, for example, the various physical disfigurements of the villains in Batman and James Bond films. Additionally, it seems that a negative association with disability has the potential to be developed from a very young age. A study of 34 Disney films by Lawson and Fouts (2004) revealed that 85% of the films contained verbal references to mental illness, designed to denigrate or ostracise the characters that were being targeted by the language.

So if these common stereotypes are not portraying people with disabilities in a suitable way, how should they be portrayed? Harnett (2000) provides a number of recent examples where disability portrayal has occurred in a positive, realistic manner. The first example is in the movie Boyz n the Hood, which includes a character in a wheelchair. According to Harnett, the character named Chris - is first introduced sitting at a card table, engaging in a card game with his friends. It is not until the end of the scene that his wheelchair is revealed essentially making it a person first portrayal. Throughout the film, Chris is regularly seen out of his chair, thus dismissing the notion that he is wheelchair-bound. Another example provided by Harnett is the character of Shabnam, in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral who is firstly a brother, a good friend and he also happens to be deaf (p. 22). Again, this is a person first depiction. However, as Harnett states, these films are the exception; The disabled mothers, brothers, friends and business people that make up ten per cent of the population and lead ordinary lives rarely appear in television or film fiction (p. 22). A Barrier to Inclusion? As can be seen, Australians are frequently exposed to film and television portrayals of people with disabilities. Additionally, few of these portrayals are conducive to the formation of realistic and positive perceptions of people with disabilities. Naturally, it could be assumed that fears and misconceptions generated by inaccurate film and television portrayals may create a barrier to inclusion, particularly for those with little interaction with people with disabilities (Safran, 1998b). This is evidenced in a hypothetical situation described by Black (2004, p. 37), in which she details a situation involving two people discussing autism. One party, Mary, states that she doesnt know much about autism, and her friend, Bill, provides her with the example of Dustin Hoffmans character in Rain Man. Black states that this is a case of two people using a movie to define a disability and its characteristics a reasonably common occurrence. Black then goes on to explain how Mary then attends a Parent Teacher Student Organisation (American equivalent of P&C Meeting) where inclusion was being discussed, and that she votes against inclusion based on her understanding of autism gleaned from the film Rain Man. This wasnt a malicious move as the movie had made her believe that students with autism should be kept away from too much stimulation but instead was a misguided belief built on a single film experience. In an Australian context, the laws protect such outright exclusion (Disability Standards for Education, 2005), however these laws do not protect against attitudes the real barrier to inclusion. Despite this obvious attitudinal barrier to inclusion that may stem from negative and unrealistic film and television portrayals, some argue that these roles can in fact be instrumental in promoting inclusion, and that film and television, despite their inaccuracies, can be a major information source on disabilities (Safran, 1998b) and allow for sanctioned staring that would be impossible in real life (Hall & Minnes, 1999). In this respect, even the poorest portrayals may enlighten audiences about the attitudinal and environmental barriers that people with disabilities encounter every day. For example, Safran (1998a) cites the potential of the film Coming Home as an educational medium through which to provide access to issues relating to accessibility, rehabilitation and sexuality for people with physical disabilities (p. 467). Additionally, authors such as Safran suggest that the many negative examples of disability portrayed in film and television can become useful educational tools if they are the subject of deconstruction. Typical disability stereotypes, as mentioned earlier, can be examined and their accuracy evaluated. This approach provides an excellent avenue for teachers to integrate critical literacy skills with the development of more positive attitudes towards people with disabilities a stepping stone to inclusion. Some media organisations, such as the British Film Institute, have devised teaching resources to encourage this evaluative process, which would no doubt be an effective tool in promoting an inclusive classroom, school and community atmosphere. Discussion and Further Research Global research clearly indicates that people with disabilities have been presented in distinct, pigeonholed categories in film and television since the medias inception, and that very few of these stereotypes are of a positive nature. However, given the growth of critical analysis relating to disability portrayal in film and television over the past two decades, this is starting to change. Additionally, this growing awareness of misrepresentation has allowed for educators to counter media fallacies through the use of deconstruction as well as providing students with more positive and realistic examples of disability portrayal in film and television. So although these depictions may act as a barrier to

inclusion, there are ways to counter these effects. In terms of further research, this area is desperately in need of both quantitative and qualitative examinations of disability in film and television in an Australian context. Despite a high proportion of Australian film and television content being sourced from overseas, it would be interesting to see if the cultural nuances that are so revered in Australia such as the fair go and the concept of the classless society are reflected on the nations big and small screens, and how the population responds to these images.

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