Since the early days of film, disability portrayals on film have gone through many changes. Jenni Gold’s provocative and entertaining documentary takes a close look at the evolution of portrayals of disability in entertainment through vivid clips from some of Hollywood’s most beloved motion pictures, TV shows and interviews with actors, directors, studio executives and historians.
Director Jenni Gold, who has muscular dystrophy and has been in a wheelchair since age 7, explores how disability portrayals in the media impact our society. Do films and TV shows play a role in transforming how people see the disabled? Can a more enlightened understanding of disability have a positive impact on our world? CinemAbility is hosted by actress Jane Seymour and features interviews with a range of award-winning industry professionals including Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, William H. Macy, Marlee Matlin, Geena Davis, Beau Bridges, Gary Sinise, Kyle MacLachlan, Taylor Hackford, the Farrelly Brothers, Camryn Manheim, Ken Howard, and Peter Bogdanovich, to name just a few. I talked with Jenni Gold in Los Angeles.
Danny Miller: This film covers such a serious topic but it’s also a lot of fun to watch. I love all the great old film clips you found. Did the sheer breadth of the project ever give you pause?
Jenni Gold: I’ve been thinking about making this film for many years. I hesitated at first because I didn’t want to get pigeonholed as a disabled director who only works on films about disabled people. Film is my chosen profession — I love it and I want to do it all. I’d love to make thrillers and romantic comedies and blow stuff up and tell all sorts of stories. But with maturity, I began to realize that this was a story that definitely needed to be told, and that I was someone who could tell it well.
The points the film makes about visibility are so important. The analogies to how the entertainment industry has helped to change the public’s perceptions of various ethnic groups and gay people over the years are fascinating.
I really believe that movies and TV shows can have a real impact on society and can help create a tipping point for attitudes about people with disabilities and what they can do.
I know that disability is a huge umbrella term and that each community has its own issues and concerns. Did that ever worry you?
Since our whole theme was inclusion, we tried to cover everybody but, of course, that’s not really possible. We recently had someone comment that we didn’t touch on schizophrenia — of course there are going to be specifics that don’t get addressed. On the other hand, we only had a very brief mention of autism, but we heard from parents of autistic children who were over the moon about the film — they got the big picture and understood what we were trying to say.
I was stunned at the number of talented folks who appear in the film — from host Jane Seymour to people like Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, Marlee Matlin, and Geena Davis. How did you manage that?
You know, I just chased them down wherever I could! Some of them we knew or had connections to, but when we explained what we were doing, a lot of people were just really interested in the topic.
I also appreciated how you show different points of view about contentious issues such as the idea of able-bodied actors playing disabled people. I realize there are many examples of such casting that I never thought twice about, but for some reason, from the moment the TV series Glee started airing, I was shocked they didn’t cast someone who was really in a wheelchair for the role of Artie.
I know — especially since they were going for an unknown. You’d think they could have found someone.
With all due respect to actor Kevin McHale, who is very talented, it’s an interesting discussion — and there’s a remarkable moment in the documentary when the casting director from Glee admits that he would do it differently today. How many times in Hollywood do you hear anyone admit they made a mistake?
I like having the different points of view expressed in the film. First and foremost I’m a filmmaker, and I want to show different sides of an issue. It’s a complicated discussion. In terms of non-disabled people in certain roles, we have some great examples of that in the film, like Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and Jamie Foxx in Ray. Those were amazing performances, but the real issue is that people in positions of power in Hollywood often aren’t giving the matter any thought and looking into whether they could cast someone who shares that disability in the role who would also be fantastic.
And it’s still happening. I was surprised to hear that Blair Underwood was recently cast in the reboot of the old series Ironside.
Exactly. Of course, you could say that Blair Underwood is a big name and a great actor, but the truth is that unless disabled actors get more opportunities for roles like that, they’ll never get the chance to become a big name.
But if they’re going to the trouble of redoing a series where the main character is disabled, why on earth wouldn’t they cast someone who is actually in a wheelchair?
At least give it a shot and see who’s available! I appreciate what Garry Marshall said in the film that sometimes you may want to find a disabled person for a certain role, but you just can’t find them. The difference is that you can at least make an attempt — you try to find the appropriate person for that character. For the most part in the past, I think it never crossed people’s minds.
There were certain parts that seemed like they just had to be played by a person who shared that disability, such as Marlee Matlin who won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God. But did anyone resent Audrey Hepburn playing a blind woman in Wait Until Dark? I don’t think so.
That was a different era.
And I guess it would have been a much more difficult shoot with an actual blind person in that role.
I doubt it — blind people learn how to navigate their world very well.
Oh god, you’re right, I’m just showing my ingrained prejudices — that’s exactly the kind of thinking we’re talking about!
We all do it and I think we’re all getting better.
Some of the opinions on this topic in the film are very strong — such as the woman who compared able-bodied people playing disabled characters to white actors donning blackface. Do you share that point of view at all?
I’d rather have the audience think about it and make up their own minds. I don’t like documentarians who hit you over the head with their specific agenda.
I thought it was interesting how many people in the film came down hard on the ending to Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby. I was surprised to see that criticism expressed so bluntly. Did you worry about presenting those very negative comments about such a popular, Oscar-winning film?
No. I thought it was an intriguing discussion and something that needed to be said.
Did you make any attempts to have Clint Eastwood or Hilary Swank in the film?
I tried to get Clint but he wasn’t available. We wanted to hear his side of it so we found a clip where he addresses the issue.
It’s tricky, because as many disabled people in the film say, they don’t want to be painted with one brush stroke. I can see the argument that this woman’s reaction to her situation was simply her story. But the reality is that the character’s actions in the film do leave the impression that it’s better to be dead than in a wheelchair.
Just this week there was a news report about a guy who fell out of a tree and was going to be a quadriplegic. Apparently his family woke him up out of a drug-induced coma and asked him if he wanted live that way — and of course he said no. They said if he struggled when they took out the breathing tube, did he want them to do anything about that, and he said no.
Wow, that seems a little premature.
I know! Give the guy a day to get used to the idea! So that’s the question — the value of him as a human being. He had a child, a job, his brain was intact, but his limbs would no longer function and they were basically suggesting assisted suicide right off the bat. Of course this guy’s immediate reaction was understandable, but I hope our film shows how people with such disabilities can lead very rich lives.
The discussion of people behind-the-scenes in the film industry was also very thought-provoking. I’ve been on a lot of film sets and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in a wheelchair.
One of the questions we asked everyone we interviewed that didn’t make the final cut was whether they’ve ever seen disabled people behind the scenes, and the answer was universally “No.” Beau Bridges talked about how he had it written into his contracts that there had to be people of ethnic diversity on his film sets, and now he says he’s going to do the same thing related to people with disabilities. Of course it has to start with the availability of training for such people.
I wonder if any film schools are actively recruiting people with disabilities.
One thing we’re trying to do with this film is establish a scholarship at my alma mater in Florida to help film students with disabilities. When I wanted to go into film, some of my professors told me that already being a woman it was very unlikely that I could ever direct, and being a disabled woman they said I was never going to work. My response was, “Look, this is oxygen for me! This is what I have to do, so damn the torpedoes, this is going to be my chosen profession!” I hope more people start doing that — there are many positions in the film industry that people with disabilities could do very well. Most diversity programs cover ethnic minorities but not disabled people. Which is kind of ironic because that is the one minority that anyone can become a member of at any time!
Click here for more information on Jenni Gold’s CinemAbility including upcoming screenings.