After completing my qualitative data, I tried to record the amount of times a disability was seen as the main focus of the film. I found that in a lot of the ‘before 1990’ films when the person with a disability was the main focus of the film, it was often not positively portraying the person with a disability. People may assume that when a person with a disability is constantly present it is seen as a good thing, when in reality it is putting too much emphasis on the disability itself. People with disabilities are not any more or less special than a ‘typical’ person, therefore the disability should not be seen as heroic or seen as a villain.
There were many instances where the disability itself was the overall plot of the movie, rather than the disability just ‘being there’. This can be shown in movies such as Reach for the Sky (1956), A Child is Waiting (1963), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Being There (1979), The Boy Who Could Fly (1986), and Homer and Eddie (1989). For these films, the disability was either shown overly much in both good or bad ways.
Screenshot from Youtube, Reach for the Sky (1956) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzWUt2xrFBo
In Reach For the Sky (1956), the plot of the movie is revolved around a man who loses his ability to walk. He struggles to do daily tasks and he needs a lot of help from others. He is uncertain if he is ever going to fly a plane again, which is his dream. However, he ends up flying a plane and being the ‘hero’ of the story. It is important to note that I am not implying people with physical disabilities should not get any recognition for their everyday challenges. However, it is portrayed in an overly dramatized and heroic way. He ends up ‘overcoming’ his disability, which may set unrealistic standards for others who have the same disability.
Screenshot from YouTube, A Child is Waiting (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwBPOiA7X84
In A Child is Waiting (1963), the plot of the movie is about a child with autism who does not understand that his parents abandoned him, so he sits at the end of the block waiting for them every single day. This makes others feel pity for the boy with a disability, because the boy does not understand his parents are never going to return.
Screenshot from Youtube, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrcDonY-B8
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), the plot of the movie revolves around a man who gets transferred into a mental institution. Although the character is trying to rebel against the horrific conditions these patients are in, such as electroconvulsive therapy, the way he is portrayed negatively depicts a psychiatric patient. He is loud, violent, and unpredictable throughout the whole film.
Screenshot from Youtube, Forrest Gump (1994) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLvqoHBptjg
In Forrest Gump (1994) the plot of the movie is about the disability itself, and Forrest navigating the struggles that come along with having a disability. Although it is true that people with disabilities may have more struggles than the average person, the way Forrest is depicted makes him be seen as a laughing stock for the audience. This occurs throughout the entirety of the film.
Although there were many films in the ‘after 1990’ trailers in which had the person with a disability included as one of the main roles, I found that the disability itself was not central to the plot of the movie, it was just ‘there’. This occurred in movies such as, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011), Jack of the Red Hearts (2015), Me Before You (2016), Please Stand By (2017), and the Peanut Butter Falcon (2020). For example, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) was an accurate portrayal of a disability, while at the same time the main character was a young boy with autism. The plot revolved around this boy losing his father during the 9/11 attacks and learning how to live life without him. Although the boy had autism, the plot itself was not about the disability. In addition, Me Before You (2016) is a romantic film about a woman falling in love with a man who is paralyzed. The plot revolved around their love story, not the disability itself.
It is important to note that I am not trying to conclude that a disability should be completely ignored and pretended as if it does not exist. I am concluding that films that do not make a ‘big deal’ about disabilities are a more accurate representation compared to those who make the disability itself the main plot of the film. It is also important to note that there are some outliers in the ‘after 1990’ films, such as Forrest Gump (1994).