Hollywood Inclusion

What does the ADA mean to you? In celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the disability advocacy nonprofit RespectAbility hosted a week-long summit including a day focused on working with the entertainment industry to advance authentic representation. To cap it off, the conversation focused on the importance of building a disabled industry pipeline for the future.

Hosted by the filmmaker and senior production advisor for RespectAbility Nasreen Alkhateeb, the panel spotlighted RespectAbility’s award-winning Hollywood Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities. [continue reading…]

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the historic Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility’s Lauren Appelbaum sat down with disabled journalists and nondisabled allies who have used their platform to shine the spotlight on stories important to the disability community to discuss the importance of disability representation and coverage in the media.

As it stands, disability inclusion does not get much attention in the media.

“People with disabilities are considered the invisible minority,” said Tim Gray, a senior VP at Variety. “I don’t think journalists are putting up a wall. I think it just doesn’t occur to them. Even now, with all the talk about diversity and inclusion, 90% of that conversation is about racial inclusion. Maybe the other 10% is about gender with women equality.” [continue reading…]

With one-in-five people having a disability in the U.S. today, the lack of representation – just 3.1 percent on-screen and even less in children’s television (less than one percent) – means that millions of people are unable to see themselves in media today. The national disability advocacy nonprofit RespectAbility has been honored to play a part in changing this, including consulting on an array of films and TV shows for a variety of studios and networks. As part of a week-long celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility highlighted examples of best practice in authentic casting and disability representation in Hollywood.

Moderated by actress and model Tatiana Lee, who also serves as RespectAbility’s Hollywood Inclusion Associate, one panel shined the spotlight on young adult entertainment media focusing on Ramy (Hulu) and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (Freeform).

Shows like these demonstrate Hollywood’s changing tide and push for inclusion of creatives with disabilities, both in front of and behind the camera. As research shows, only 3.1 percent of all speaking or named characters in film were shown to have a disability in 2020. Trends show these numbers will increase, and these talented individuals are at the forefront of this industrial shift. [continue reading…]

On the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, RespectAbility board member and co-founder of Bunim-Murray Productions, Jonathan Murray, hosted a panel of entertainment industry writers, producers, and executives to speak about the experience of the disabled community within the industry. Part one of the four-part “Fighting Stigmas with Hollywood” series, “Respecting the Ability: Ensuring Authentic Representation in the Entertainment Industry,” is about the importance of not only allowing but creating more supportive environments for people in the industry to tell the authentic and diverse stories representing all.

The lack of representation of the disability community in entertainment is vast. While one in five people in the U.S. has a disability, just 3.1 percent of characters on a primetime show have a disability – meaning that millions of people are unable to see themselves represented in media today. The shortage is one reason why RespectAbility is fighting for change; however, a change like this must be embraced from the top and have buy-in at every level. Studio heads, showrunners, producers, and writers must do their part to inflict change on the industry and showcase diverse people and stories. The participants shared why change is happening within the industry, and each has proven to be changemakers in their own right. [continue reading…]

“When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only afterwards do its details follow on. But for people with autism, the details jump straight out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image float up into focus.”

― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 5 – How do you see the world? Do you enjoy the beautiful small details of a flower or the sweet melodious sound of birds chirping? Do you find the sound of rain calming? What if all those details that we love started to slam into our minds in disruptive and disturbing ways? Would you still love them? For the neurotypical, our brains are designed to block out specific details of our environment for various reasons. But what if we couldn’t? Even still, what if you did always love them but couldn’t verbally express your appreciation? How emotionally taxing would your world be if everything you sensed was amplified and you had no way to express yourself verbally?

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Alexander Howard

Los Angeles, Dec. 24 – As a massive fan of cinema, I enjoy all kinds of films: tearjerkers, horror, action, comedies, big blockbusters and independent films. I also enjoy foreign-language films when I can watch them, that is. You see, I am visually impaired. I occasionally need “audio description” or an “English dubbed track” when I watch movies, especially foreign language ones. I am not able to read the subtitles fast enough to enjoy them or even understand them fully. For those who don’t know, audio description is an audio track available on some streaming services, blu-rays and in theaters. It is a human voice that describes the action on screen (and also reads subtitles). Dubbing is another tool where voices are cut over the original actor’s voices in foreign films and says the lines in English or whichever languages you choose. Both of these tools help me – and others with low vision – to enjoy movies, especially foreign language ones. However, the majority of foreign language films do not incorporate an audio description or dub tracks.

Roma was nominated in 2019 for Best Picture. It was directed by one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, Alfonso Cuaron. I love his movies and his style. Children of Men is one of my favorite films. Roma is in Spanish, but it’s a Netflix original. So, I was hoping it would have an audio description track because Netflix is great at making their content as accessible as possible. I planned a night to watch it and was so excited. Then I turned it on and was disappointed to find it only had a Spanish audio description. It has been two years, and I still am not able to watch Roma. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, CA, Dec. 16 – “Our view remains back by the crash site, watching as they venture out across the permafrost in the gloomy ice tunnel. With the child tucked in his arm, Mando follows the labyrinthian path as it winds around frosty kraggs, lit softly in a blush tint by sunlight that finds its way in through intermittent gaps above. The infant’s wide, curious eyes take in the sublime, arctic environment.” – Audio Description (AD) from Episode 2, Season 2 of The Mandalorian

That is just a small taste of the fantastic audio description for Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Season 1 of the show received an award from the American Council for the Blind for their outstanding audio description in July of 2020. Season 2 kept up the quality of the audio description and is genuinely vivid and beautiful. [continue reading…]

L-R Back Row: Sharon Pierre-Louis (ASL interpreter), Lauren Appelbaum (RespectAbility Vice President, Communications and Lab Program Director), Delbert Whetter (RespectAbility Board of Directors), Jonathan Murray (RespectAbility Board of Directors), Stephen Simon (City of Los Angeles Department on Disability), Diana Elizabeth Jordan (Actress and RespectAbility Volunteer), Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi (RespectAbility President), Harvey Reese / Front Row: Matan Koch (RespectAbility Director of California Office), Tatiana Lee (RespectAbility Hollywood Inclusionist and Lab Program Associate), Josh Steinberg (RespectAbility Program Associate). Credit: Nasreen Alkhateeb, 2019 Lab Alumna

While growing up I rarely saw people with disabilities on television or in movies. When they did make an appearance, it was usually as a character that needed saving or someone that the audience was meant to pity. This lack of authenticity in disability representation and portrayal in media leads to unfortunate caricatures or whitewashing of stories that demean, stigmatize and diminish our existence in society.

We believe that the world is ready for a more uplifting and aspirational narrative—one that authentically depicts people with disabilities as they deserve to be portrayed, as multi-dimensional characters with hopes, flaws, and dreams who are capable of being fighters, heroes, villains and champions in the stories that Hollywood puts on our screens.

Thankfully, the tide is beginning to turn, and we are beginning to tell our own stories. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 10 – The Sound of Metal is a film that will hit home for anyone with a disability of any kind. The film is about a drummer named Ruben in a punk rock group who suddenly loses most of his hearing. Ruben, portrayed beautifully by Riz Ahmed (The Night Of, Venom), is forced to confront the loss of hearing head-on and struggles to deal with the fallout. He despairs at the involuntary cancellation of his group’s music tour and desperately tries to find ways to get his hearing back. He soon begins to live in a Deaf community led by Joe, a Vietnam veteran who, like Ruben, experienced the sudden loss of his hearing as an adult. Joe is played by Paul Raci, a hearing actor who grew up with Deaf parents (sometimes affectionately referred to in the Deaf community as a “CODA,” meaning a Child of Deaf Adults) and who remains active within the Deaf community both in his professional and personal life. [continue reading…]