Disability's Affect on Gender

I am in agreement with you, Amophrast. I'd like to suggest that Hollywood and other organizations that dominate the American film and television industry undermine disability by casting able-bodied people in 'disabled' roles. I'm reminded of the outcry against FOX after Kevin McHale was cast in the role of Artie, the guitar-playing paraplegic wheelchair-ridden on Glee. There was quite an emphasis on his internal struggle with "getting girls" because of his 'disability' that I think the writers focused too much on for how seldom he was the centerpiece of a given episode. Aside from this, however, is a larger problem I held with his character, which is the point I mentioned above. Not knowing quantitative data, I hardly felt Glee (and other shows and movies) accurately reflected the vast number of people with physical and mental disabilities in America, on screen. That could definitely be said for races/ethnicities, sexual orientations, and other marginalized groups, but my focus and strongest frustration about people with physical disabilities in particular is the tendency to cast able-bodied actors and actresses to 'play' or embody them. That to me is a negative step beyond undermining gendered representations of people with disabilities. I'm reminded of an article I read my freshman year in the Huffington Post which gave a very fascinating picture of representations of people with disabilities on television and in film. I don't want to impress my reading of the article on you, Amphrast, or anyone else reading this, but I highly recommend you check it out. I will write I felt affirmed and then disappointed when I read the following excerpt: About one-fifth of Americans age 5 to 64 have a physical or mental disability – more than 50 million, according to U.S. Census figures. But fewer than 2 percent of the characters on TV reflect that reality, according to a 2005 study of Screen Actors Guild members conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles. While I thought about the ways in which people with disabilities were misrepresented and not even cast in roles as themselves, per say, I did not think about how UNREPRESENTED they are in general. I'd like to build into your question, Amphrast, by asking how anyone thinks film/television representations, misrepresentations and/or lack thereof create entanglement between disability and gender, especially in cases when those being represented are not (being allowed/offered the opportunity) representing themselves. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/glee-wheelchair-episode-u_n_352778.html