It's been known for a long time that Oscar voters are suckers for portrayals of disability. Only this year, the nominees included an Alzheimer's sufferer (Judi Dench in "Iris") and a schizophrenic (Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind").
Sean Penn was also nominated for his performance as a man with the mental age of seven, in "I Am Sam". But what about the people with real disabilities? Do they benefit from Hollywood's attempts to shed light on subjects society is normally happy to turn a blind eye to?
The answer, it seems, is a qualified yes. Julienne Morrison, who teaches children with autism, told The National Autistic Society that "Rain Man" brought "autism to a really wide audience". And the downside? "The public think all people with autism are brilliant with numbers." The society's development officer agrees, saying, "It can be annoying and frustrating."
While the actors listed are all able-bodied, sometimes a studio will hire a disabled actor - like when the deaf actress Marlee Matlin was cast in "Children of a Lesser God" (winning the Best Actress Oscar in 1987). When you do that, says Lucy Franklin, production coordinator at the British Deaf Association, "you clearly have a far more accurate portrayal of deaf people compared to those where hearing people, with little if any prior knowledge of sign language and deafness, take on the role of a deaf person."
Schizophrenia is a widely misunderstood illness, but "A Beautiful Mind" got it about right. That was the opinion of Emma Harding in her review for the National Schizophrenic Fellowship: "It encourages people to rethink dangerous and non-productive stereotypes... the conclusion the audience reaches is that mental illness is a fact of life. It is not fun but it does not mean that all is lost - just that support, acceptance, and understanding are needed."
Unsurprisingly, Harding - who was herself diagnosed with schizophrenia - was more critical of the Farrelly brothers' "Me, Myself & Irene", starring Jim Carrey as a man with a split personality (a condition wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenia in the film). While she admitted that some moments were funny, it was "difficult to dissociate them from the blundering attitudes and sensationalisation of what is portrayed as 'lunacy'. The writers' tongue was less 'in cheek' than firmly poked out at people with mental health issues."
Still, it could be worse. In America, the National Federation of the Blind tried to persuade Disney to drop its plans to make "Mr. Magoo" (1997) with the same "bumbling, unaware, helpless" characteristics of the cartoon. Unfortunately for us all, they failed.
