Hollywood Inclusion

We appreciate Lupita Nyong’o’s heartfelt apology. We’re all on a learning journey to be sensitive to all marginalized communities whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation / gender identity, disability, religion or anything else. ‘Us’ – especially with Lupita Nyong’o as the lead and Jordan Peele as the writer/director – is opening up doors, and breaking glass ceilings for people of color and is a massive advancement for Hollywood as a whole. We hope Nyong’o will use this experience to continue lifting up all marginalized groups including the 1-in-5 people who live with disabilities. In general, the Hollywood practice of using disability primarily to villainize people or to show them as objects of pity needs to end.

During an appearance on The View Thursday, Lupita Nyong’o further explained the development of her character Red and apologized to anyone she offended: “I met with people as part of my exploration with the condition, and I learned how difficult it is to have the disorder. So I am very aware of the frustrations and misconceptions and the misdiagnosis… I thought in speaking about it and mentioning it, it might shed light on the condition.

“It’s a very marginal group of people who suffer from this. The thought that I would offend them was not my intention. In my mind, I wasn’t interested in vilifying or demonizing the condition. I crafted Red with love and care. As much as it was in a genre-specific world, I really wanted to ground her in something that felt real. For all that, I say sorry to anyone that I may have offended.”

RespectAbility deeply appreciates this apology.

Selma Blair is an American actress who is best known for Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, the Hellboy series and the show “Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane.” She also has an active life in fashion. Blair has worked with fashion icons such as Chanel, GAP, designers Marc Jacobs & Christian Siriano, and magazines such as Vanity Fair, Glamour and Vogue.

In August 2018, Blair was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She announced it on Instagram the following October. “I am disabled,” she posted. “I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS. But, we are doing it. And I laugh and I don’t know exactly what I will do precisely. But, I will do my best.”

Multiple sclerosis affects between 850,000-915,000 people in the United States. It affects women three more times than men. It can appear in any age, but it is more common among people as young as 20 and as old as 60 for when they are diagnosed. Moreover, it is not uncommon for people to get disabilities later in life. As of 2002, 25.2 percent of adults acquired their first disability between the ages of 45 and 64. Between seven and nine percent of those who first inquire disabilities are children. Common disabilities include musculoskeletal injuries, cancer (70,000 people between 20-40 each year), depression, heart problems and nerve system disorders (200,000 people before 65), such as multiple sclerosis. [continue reading…]

At its heart, Happy Face is a film about a teenage boy, Stan (Robin L’Houmeau), attempting to reconnect with his mother who is dying from cancer. His mother, who often manipulates Stan, feels a sense a loss of self-worth when she loses her beauty due to cancer treatments. In a misguided attempt to learn how she feels, Stan deforms his face with bandages and joins a therapy workshop for patients with facial differences.

While the film, which screened at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival, shines a spotlight on the lives of many individuals with facial differences, Stan’s relationship with his mother remains a major theme – making this a film not about disability or just for people with disabilities but a film about important family dynamics that is relatable to everyone.

Stan’s bandages are a metaphor for his own pain and confusion over how to react to his mother’s declining health. When he is discovered for being a handsome individual with no facial scarring, he convinces the group members to let him help them face their fears beyond the physical issues. Yet Stan is not allowing himself to do the same. Ultimately, his new support group helps him do so. [continue reading…]

Honoring Women with Disabilities During Women’s History Month

Actress and producer Salma Hayek Jiménez has embraced her disability – dyslexia – from a very young age. Born in Mexico, Hayek was sent to a Catholic boarding school in New Orleans at the age of 12 where she was quickly expelled for setting all of the nun’s clocks back three hours.

“I’m very lucky I didn’t have it easy, because I’ve learned so much from having to figure out everything on my own and create things for myself,” said Hayek. “Now I can teach what I’ve learned to the next generation.”

After boarding school, Hayek spent time at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City; however, she quit to pursue her acting career and left Mexico for Hollywood. [continue reading…]

Honoring Women with Disabilities During Women’s History Month

Fans of the hit A&E docu-series Born this Way know Cristina Sanz as a lovable, fun and family-oriented dancer and romantic. In 2016, Sanz became the first Hispanic woman with a disability as part of an ensemble cast to be on an Emmy award-winning show. In 2018, she shattered stigmas by getting married to her longtime fiancé Angel Callahan.

The two already had been dating for five years before the show premiered. Their desire to live an independent life together – and get married – was a consistent plot line throughout the show. The first season ended with their engagement; the fourth season finale was an hour-long episode featuring the wedding between these two individuals with developmental disabilities.

“I wanted to show everyone that you can have a disability and get married,” Sanz told People magazine.

Her wedding, moving out on her own and working at two jobs, are things her parents never imagined as Cristina was growing up.

“I will not wake up waiting for my daughter to come back from a date like my mother did for me,” her mother, Beatriz Sanz, said she used to think. But, Sanz was the first of her siblings to get married. [continue reading…]

Honoring Women with Disabilities During Women’s History Month

Three years ago, pop star and actress Selena Gomez strutted onto Ellen DeGeneres stage wearing a black floor-length dress and heels. Her hair was slicked back and wavy. Her face held a look of intention. She sat with both a stiff back and smile and told Ellen and the world what it is like to live with Lupus.

“It is an autoimmune disease; I will have it forever and you just have to take care of yourself,” Gomez told Ellen and the audience. “I can relate to people.”

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack itself, unable to differentiate between its own healthy tissue and invaders. According to the Lupus Foundation of America, 1.5 million people have Lupus in America and five million have it worldwide. [continue reading…]

Honoring Women with Disabilities During Women’s History Month

Haben Girma has been advocating for herself since she attended elementary school in Oakland, California. She became the first Deafblind person to graduate from law school when she earned her degree from Harvard Law School in 2013. She is a civil rights attorney who advocates for disability rights, a public speaker who travels the country changing people’s perceptions of the disability community in the media and has been featured in Forbes “30 Under 30” and on NBC and NPR.

In 1983, five years before Girma was born, her mother Saba Gebreyesus fled Eritrea, a city in Africa with approximately six million people, taking two weeks to walk to Sudan and sleeping in trees “surrounded by hungry hyenas.” But she was determined to give Girma the opportunities her son wasn’t given; he also was born deafblind. [continue reading…]

Even though disability representation has improved, Hollywood still has work to do for full inclusion – and recognition – of disability. 

Los Angeles, California, Feb. 22 – 2019’s Best Picture category is full of diversity, not only about race and ethnicity, but by ability as well. Best Picture nominees Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born and BlacKkKlansman focus on topics of depression, alcoholism and sexually-transmitted disabilities. In addition, Netflix’s Best Documentary Short nominee End Game focuses on three medical providers and their relationships with hospice patients. One of the providers, B.J Miller, M.D., has a physical disability – he lost three limbs in an accident. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, California, Feb. 22 – When Bonnie Plunket (Allison Janney) discovers she has ADD, she wishes she could “get a do-over” for “stuff I’ve messed up in my life.”

“How did no one notice this?” she asks her friends at her regular AA meeting during this week’s episode of Mom. Bonnie has had a history of addiction and other issues throughout her life. “If one foster parent, teacher or anybody had said, ‘Hey, this kid isn’t dumb. She just needs a little help.’ Everything could have been different. I’ve spent my entire freaking life struggling and now I find out it didn’t have to be that way. Who knows what I could have done?”

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a brain disorder that is characterized by an individual’s consistent inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. While everyone experiences these symptoms at one point or another, what classifies these behaviors under ADHD is when it begins to affect normal day-to-day functioning and/or development. ADHD is typically diagnosed in children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 6.4 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD in the United States – 11 percent of children ages four to 17. ADHD Predominantly Inattentive Type, also known as ADD, is a type of ADHD that does not involve hyperactivity. People with ADD may have trouble finishing tasks or following directions and might be easily distracted. But the symptoms are generally less noticeable for ADD than ADHD, and as a result many people with ADD are unfortunately overlooked. [continue reading…]