Why we need more disabled actors on screen
New York-based playwright Christopher Shinn says we must challenge our cultural fear of disability.
The actors who play disabled characters in films and TV shows should themselves be disabled, argues Christopher Shinn.
The acclaimed, New York-based playwright, who began using a prosthetic limb last year, joins guest host Piya Chattopadhyay to make his case. He argues that able-bodied actors don't understand the lived reality of disability, and that casting them as disabled people actually undercuts the power of their work.
More generally, he says, we must challenge our cultural fear of disability and interrogate our use of disability as a metaphor, rather than something that affects real people on a daily basis.
"If we happen to know definitively that the actor portraying a disability is not disabled in real life, there's, I think, something very comforting about that. That we know, okay, however difficult this is to watch, that person, that actor, is not dealing with that all the time," he tells Piya.
"And I think that produces a kind of comforting assurance that as bad as this looks, it isn't really real."
We must address our "primitive fear"
Shinn says he still understands the argument put forth that talented actors can convincingly portray disabled characters, but argues that there is a big difference between other minority roles going to those outside the group (like Nathan Lane's disagreement with gay roles only being played by gay actors) and disabled roles going to the able-bodied.
"Often disabled characters in the movies they appear in are about disabled experiences, so the disability is not secondary to the story, but it's the whole point," he says.
Shinn believes we will see a shift in the future when disabled actors will be embraced by stage and screen, but first our "primitive fear" of this particular minority must be addressed.
"I do think because there is always the threat of becoming disabled and joining this minority group, there maybe is a little more resistance that people feel towards dealing with disability as a subject," Shinn explains.
"I know from my own experience that there's nothing you can experience that prepares you for the pain and challenge of being disabled. And so anybody who's gone through it, is going to be able to represent it in a different way. I don't even have to say better way, it'll just be different and I think that difference is very important to acknowledge."
q: Do you agree with Shinn that casting able-bodied actors in disabled roles actually undercuts the power of the work? Would you like to see more disabled actors in film and on television?