Film & TV – Time for a new type of film hero? – Our new film and TV critic Tracey Harding discusses the side-lining of characters with learning disabilities from film and TV tales. She wants to see challenges to this status quo and what the success of the film My Feral Heart might mean for the future.
Much is written every day about the content of film and television but the inclusion of people with disabilities, and particularly learning disabilities, often passes without comment. It would be naïve to think that the reasons for this are because people with learning disabilities are so much part of the fabric of creative media that there is no need to highlight or champion their achievements.
In reality, we know that people with learning disabilities are woefully under represented, both in front of the camera and in creative programming.
Although inclusive arts projects operate across the country, it will come as no shock that funding issues and streamlined services have meant that many of the opportunities for access to the media are hard fought for across the board, and often people with learning disabilities are side-lined or excluded.
Everyday life
The ways in which people with learning disabilities are portrayed on screen and stage can have a profound effect on how they are viewed by society, and ensuring inclusive representation still appears to be a problem for film and television makers. Often, characters with learning disabilities are displayed as ‘suffering’ or vulnerable, with programmes focussing on the character’s disability, rather than on their personality or everyday life situations.
Research from Mencap in 2016, found that just 34 per cent of the public said they had seen someone with a learning disability in a TV drama or comedy, and 12 per cent said they had seen someone in a film in the past six months.
I hope in the future to look at a range of film and television programmes, both past and present, which feature actors with learning disabilities. There are examples of positive steps forward that show that programmers, writers and producers are thinking positively about inclusion. The BBC programme Call the Midwife has featured actor Sarah Gordy who has a learning disability, in an episode where she fell in love with a man with a physical disability and they had a child together.
In an interview in the Huffington Post in February Gordy commented on the lack of opportunities . “TV bosses should use characters with a learning disability, doing stuff that has nothing to do with disability, just being part of life. Sometimes a small part, like the guy behind the counter at your sandwich shop – that’s how we’ll make disability seen as part of society.”
Last year, the BBC aired a six-episode show called The A-Word portraying a family with a 5-year-old son diagnosed with autism. The programme proved so popular that a second series has been commissioned.
Children’s television appears to be making more advanced inroads, with programmes such as Mr Tumble using Makaton sign language, and The Dumping Ground, which has many actors with a range of learning disabilities.
A great example of positive, inclusive film making is a recent offering, My Feral Heart, which has been shown at film festivals and special screenings across the country to great critical acclaim (see the review in Community living vol. 30 No.3 p. 26). Steven Brandon, an actor with Down’s syndrome, plays a young man forced into a care home after his mother dies. His independence is ignored but he gradually opens up to a care worker and forges friendships with a worker in the home’s grounds and a ‘wild girl’ he meets in the nearby woods. Brandon’s performance was much praised and last month he took home the award for Best Actor at the annual National Film Awards. This is an amazing accolade, particularly taking into consideration the competition he was up against, which included Michael Fassbender, Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne.
Challenges
Lynn Murray, spokesperson for the Don’t Screen Us Out campaign, said, “My Feral Heart illustrates how we all face challenges regardless of our background and genetic make-up. Its success as a film about ‘ability’ not ‘disability’ has meant that the international Down’s syndrome community, and especially Don’t Screen Us Out’s thousands of supporters, have connected passionately with the film.”
The film is showing at the Toronto Reel Abilities Film Festival although unfortunately, no further screenings are planned for the UK. The success of My Feral Heart shows it is possible to create accessible, popular entertainment with people with learning disabilities as central protagonists.
