Off The Map: Examples Of Disability In Film

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Disability in Film Disability in media often translates to reality and the way outsiders look at a disabled individual. Some media makes disability into a spectacle that is very disconnected from the able-bodied characters. However, there are striking examples of disability being brought up in progressive ways. There are disabled characters in five specific films that exhibit their own agency and are allowed to be a part of a conversation they would not necessarily be able to in reality. In some examples, there is no statement of disability— those being the most powerful statements of all. However, these films expose the issues disabled people face throughout their lives, one of the most important struggles being dealing with simple everyday life. Disabled people are often faced with ignorance from the outside world and struggle to find acceptance. This struggle is not always depicted through …show more content…
It is 1974 and Gordon family lives off the map in the desert landscape of New Mexico. They live far away from a town, so their life is separate from a modern life. Charley, the head of the family, is a hard-working man, but he is in the mood of depression. Arlene, who is his wife, works in her garden to raise vegetables that they eat. They have a daughter named Bo. She has been schooled at home. The family is three of them and they live with father’s depression. This is the basic information of the movie. The initial reaction of this movie is that the movie does not focus on depression much although this movie is about depression, and this might be because Arlene doesn’t see Charley’s depression as the disability. I think it is a social model that we talked in the class. The problem of the family is that Arlene doesn’t understand about depression, and a society has the same problem. Depression is the actual disability, but the society does not see it as one, and that’s why stigmatization towards depression is