THE FIRST TIME I saw someone with a disability in a movie was when I was eight years old. I cried when I saw the movie Heidi decades ago. I remember watching the movie as a young child when I stayed home from grade school, suffering from the flu. My mom let me rest on our living room sofa one day, and I watched an afternoon movie.
Heidi is a 1937 American musical drama film based on the 1880 children’s story of the same name by Swiss author Johanna Spyri. The film is about an orphan named Heidi (Shirley Temple) who is taken from her grandfather (Hersholt) to live as a companion to Klara, a spoiled, crippled girl (Jones). Today, the term “crippled” would not be used! (The film is currently available on DVD, which features the original black-and-white and newly colorized versions of it.)
What I remembered most was that Klara used a wheelchair. I think it was the first time I saw someone using a wheelchair in a movie. It did not bother me, but rather surprised me that a young girl did not walk—Klara eventually stood up and could walk again, and that’s what caused my tears.
As the years passed, I found myself like Klara, in an electric cart (similar to a wheelchair) because of my multiple sclerosis. What I realized over the years is that film and other media have portrayed persons with various disabilities. I think that is good because we all need to see disability as part of mainstream life. Not everyone is physically perfect, and that is OK—nature is not perfect. Seeing disabilities in tv shows, films, and social media can do a great service of sensitizing people to those with disabilities, and perhaps even normalizing society to the fact that some bodies are not perfect.
I did not know that the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt used a wheelchair while in office until I was in high school. I bought a black-and-white picture of him in a rare public appearance while I visited his memorial in Washington, D.C. The photo showed him using a wheelchair at Top Cottage in Hyde Park, New York, in 1941. He was introducing his dog, Fala, to a little girl, Ruthie Bie, the granddaughter of FDR’s Hyde Park caretaker. Some critics of ability organizations feel that the president, not showing his disability, put the disability movement back many years. Why not show that someone can have a physical challenge and still work and run a powerful nation?
The depiction of disability in the media plays a major role in molding the public perception of disability.
Perceptions portrayed in the media directly influence the way people with disabilities are treated in current society. Media have been cited as a key site for the reinforcement of negative images and ideas in regard to people with disabilities.
As a direct response, there have been increasing examples worldwide of people with disabilities pursuing their own media projects, such as creating film series centered on disability issues, radio programs designed around and marketed towards those with disabilities, and so on.
In 1988, Sesame Street would introduce Katie, a Muppet character who used a wheelchair, but it wasn’t until 1994 that an actual child using a wheelchair would become a member of “the Street.”
“Art imitates life,” as the saying goes. And nobody’s perfect. When we see a person with a hearing aid or someone who has mental illness, has visual limitations, or is on the autism spectrum in a television show or in films, I think that is good. Movies are just including every person into the stories they tell. None of us has perfectly white teeth, nor does anyone have perfect hearing or healthy knees after 40 years of age. Telling stories about the “stuff of life” can make us all a bit more sensitive and aware that we are not perfect, and that is OK. Every one deals with some health challenges.
To this day, I ask to be included in pictures at events I attend. Sometimes, I tell the photographer that people with physical challenges need to be included. We might not be able to stand, but we are part of the group. I hate asking, and others might think I am an egomaniac, but let them. Having non-perfect people in photos is inclusive and might help normalize physical differences in us all. It represents life.
So, if you see someone with a crutch or walker, or wearing hearing aids, put your arm around them and ask someone with a camera to take a picture of you. It’s a great thing to do. And it might help society see that many people—one in four—have a disability.
We ought to be in pictures!
Sister Karen Zielinski is the Director of Canticle Studio. Canticle Studio is a part of the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, OH’s overall advancement effort and has a mission of being a creative center where artists generate works, products, and services in harmony with the mission of the Sisters St. Francis. She can be reached at kzielins@sistersosf.org or 419-824-3543. ✲
