Heroes and Holy Innocents

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Are these views held only by the politically correct? Not at all, says George Covington, who was a special assistant to the quintessentially non-PC former vice president Dan Quayle. Covington, who is legally blind, says, 'We're seen as 'inspirational,' and inspiration sells like hotcakes. My disability isn't a burden; having to be so damned inspirational is.'

Mainstream Magazine editor William R. Stothers says, 'If it was just entertainment, these images wouldn't worry me. But they help shape attitudes toward disability.'

Do disabled people want to take the entertainment out of movies? To turn films with disabled characters into 'eat your spinach' documentaries? No, says Mary Johnson, a former editor of The Disability Rag Resource, 'but they want to see their reality reflected on screen.'

Despite the stereotypes, some disabled people are hopeful about the movies. 'As actors and writers, and from behind the cameras, we're pushing Hollywood hard to portray us in nonstereotypical ways,' Stothers says.

Two recent independent films offer hope that this change can take place. When Billy Broke His Head, a dynamic documentary directed by Billy Golfus, has been shown on PBS and at film festivals. This film isn't (as Golfus himself says) an 'inspirational cripple story.' Instead the movie shows real-life disabled people: fighting for their civil rights, job hunting, and battling social service bureaucracies. Twitch and Shout, a touching but funny documentary directed by Laurel Chiten about people with Tourette syndrome, has aired on the PBS program P.O.V. and at film festivals. The film shows not only what it's like to have this disorder but what it's like to encounter disability-based discrimination. The movie presents its subjects not as superheroes or objects of pity but as fully human human beings.

If the spirit of these films could somehow be transferred to Hollywood, the disabled wouldn't feel left out of the big picture on the silver screen.

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