People with disabilities have been discriminated against for as long as one can remember. Before the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) was created, those who had a disability were constantly dehumanized, ignored as members of society, and even sometimes placed in hospitals to try and “fix” them. The ADA has helped change America for the better, and allowed people with disabilities to finally be seen as worthy members of society. Peter Blanck (2019) explains that the modern view of disability has dramatically changed after the ADA was created, and is now seen to be a natural part of human life rather than to be “cured or pitied” (2019).
Due to the changes the ADA made in both people with disabilities lives and how the public treats these people, my research aims to find if there has been any progress made between 1960 and 2020 in how people with disabilities are portrayed in films. The American with Disabilities Act has definitely changed people’s lives for the better, but I wanted to know if it has changed the way people are portrayed in films as well. Since films are such a critical source of information for many people, when they attach stereotypes to people with disabilities, it definitely can have a lasting effect on how the public perceives these individuals.
Research Question & Variables
For my project, the final research question is; what is the effect of the American with Disabilities Act on media portrayals of people with disabilities in Hollywood films between 1960 and 2020?
The independent variable for my project is the American with Disabilities Act, while the dependent variable is the portrayals of people with disabilities. I observed twenty-six trailers of films total between 1960 and 2020, thirteen of those were from before the ADA was created, and thirteen were from after the ADA was created. Although not all of my films were Hollywood films, the majority of them reached a wide audience.
The American with Disabilities Act was made in 1990, and it prohibits people from discriminating on people with disabilities. Public places are required to be ADA compliant, so handicapped people are able to use their facilities. The ADA also includes having fair employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications, and access to different government programs (Mazumdar and Geis 2010).
I wanted to see how the creation of the ADA has affected how films portray people with disabilities, so I analyzed the representations of disability in film. This included firstly analyzing the basic demographics of the people represented in these trailers, and then analyzing the different positive and negative aspects of disability being portrayed.