Hollywood Inclusion

Los Angeles, Jan. 16 – At the Critics’ Choice Awards Sunday night, Taye Diggs praised how this year has been great for inclusivity for “all under-represented people,” specifically calling out successes when it comes to gender, sexual orientation and race. While this is extremely important, it is upsetting that once again the largest minority in the U.S. – people with disabilities – was not mentioned as well. This also was the case at the Golden Globes. With several more awards show coming up this season, there is a chance for this to change.

“It has been another great year for movies and for TV shows,” Diggs said. “Not only was it an amazing year for creativity but a great year for inclusivity. All under-represented people of all genders and orientations played prominent roles in front of and behind the big camera in many of this year’s biggest films, television and streaming series.”

When disability is excluded from diversity conversations, and not visible in film and television shows, Hollywood is disenfranchising the one-in-five Americans who have a disability. There is reason to celebrate, however, as several winners have visible and invisible disabilities. Yet little attention is paid attention to this fact – unlike when organizations tout the increase of winners who are women, people of color or LGBTQ. For example, Henry Winkler (Barry), who won Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, has dyslexia. Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place), who was nominated for Best Young Actor Actress, is deaf. Several individuals with mental illness took home awards, including Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade) and Lady Gaga (A Star is Born). [continue reading…]

[UPDATE March 30, 2019] – Hearts of Glass will be showing at the ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York on Wednesday, April 3, Saturday, April 6 and Monday, April 8, 2019. All of the screenings include open captioning and most include audio description. RespectAbility’s Vice President, Communications, Lauren Appelbaum, will be moderating a panel discussion with the filmmaker and others following the April 6 showing in Manhattan.

Rockville, Maryland, Jan. 16 – In the United States, there are more than 20-million working-age people with disabilities. However, only a third of them have opportunities for employment. Around the country, there are state-wide employment programs for people with disabilities. But, it takes a special company to create its own employment program. Vertical Harvest, one of the world’s only multi-story hydroponic greenhouses, provides year-round produce in a rural mountain town and meaningful employment to community members with disabilities. The staff members and its inclusive atmosphere are highlighted in Hearts of Glass, a documentary that is premiering this month at the Wild & Scenic Festival.

Hearts of Glass documents the early beginnings of Vertical Harvest and its employees with disabilities. Some of the featured workers include Kyle Burson who loves to use his brain, Zac Knudsen who rides horses, Ty Warner who loves to go to the carnival, Johnny Fifles who is a self-made My Little Pony fanatic or “brony” and Mycah Miller, a hometown artist. The cameras roll at their first days of work, training, promotions and even during their daily lives.

Director Jennifer Tennican was looking forward to making stories about Jackson, Wyoming since moving there in 2002. She had one goal in mind for her stories: Community – and the story of Vertical Harvest captured her interest.

“I was drawn to documenting a once-in-a-lifetime story about innovation and possibility unfolding in my backyard,” said Tennican. “That story includes community members with disabilities.” [continue reading…]

[UPDATE March 30, 2019] – “Ian” will be showing at the ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York on Tuesday, April 2, 2019 in Queens and Saturday, April 6, 2019 in Manhattan. The festival is adding audio description to this animated short so people who are blind or who have low vision can enjoy it independently at the April 6th showing.

Rockville, Maryland, Dec. 6, 2018 – All kids want to play. Kids with disabilities are no different. “Ian” is a short, animated film inspired by the real-life Ian, a boy with a disability determined to get to the playground despite his playmates bullying him. This film sets out to show that children with disabilities can and should be included.

“Ian” premiered for audiences around the world on YouTube and was broadcast in Latin America simultaneously on Disney Junior, Cartoon Network, Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon, PakaPaka and YouTube Kids Nov. 30, 2018.

“Ian” started as a mother’s mission to educate her son’s bullies on the playground—one to one. When she realized that the need for inclusion was bigger than one playground, she wrote a book and founded Fundación ian to change thousands of minds and attitudes about people with disabilities. She approached MundoLoco, a top digital animation studio in Latin America, about creating “Ian,” an animated film to deliver the message of inclusion to audiences all over the world. [continue reading…]

2018 SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award Recepient

Los Angeles, California, Nov. 8 – “I’ve always believed my talent has nothing to do with my color or my hearing loss. I represent myself as CJ, no labels, but with deep passion for … creating new work. I love to work as an actor.”

Jones delivered an emotional speech while accepting the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award at the Media Access Awards, which recently has formed a partnership with Easterseals Southern California, earlier this month. The ceremony honors media and entertainment trailblazers advancing disability awareness and inclusion. CJ Jones, a deaf actor, is best known for his role in the movie Baby Driver. His scene-stealing acting skills more than qualify him to be recognized at the Media Access Awards. But beyond his superb acting, Jones deserves this award because of his activism, his representation as a deaf actor and his hard work to open opportunities for other actors with disabilities. [continue reading…]

Beverly Hills, California, Nov. 8 — Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, writers and producers of A Quiet Place, were honored alongside actor-director John Krasinski at the Media Access Awards, which recently has formed a partnership with Easterseals Southern California. The ceremony honors media and entertainment trailblazers advancing disability awareness and inclusion.

Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress who starred in A Quiet Place, presented Beck, Woods, and Krasinski with the Writers Guild of America West Evan Somers Memorial Award for their work on A Quiet Place.

“[This award is] a reminder that the stories that we choose to tell can actually have a positive effect beyond the screen,” Beck said while accepting the award.

Woods and Beck are co-writers, producers and directors, best known for A Quiet Place, which they co-wrote and produced. Krasinski, known for NBC’s The Office and the Amazon series Jack Ryan, co-wrote, produced and directed A Quiet Place. A Quiet Place is a dramatic-thriller about a family trying to survive in silence while being hunted by monsters that are attracted to sound. The movie features a deaf character who is played by Simmonds, who is also deaf.

“We’d like to thank Millie,” Beck said at the ceremony. “She became the defining voice of A Quiet Place. The life experience that she brought gave her character in the film an authenticity that we could only be a small part of on the page. In many ways, we consider Millie to be the fourth writer of A Quiet Place.”

The hearing cast of A Quiet Place learned American Sign Language to provide authenticity to the movie, as well as to better communicate with each other on set. “It was really amazing and brought an extra depth to the film,” Beck said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Krasinski pushed for casting that included a deaf actress playing the character written as deaf. The filmmakers felt that casting Simmonds, a talented actress who is deaf, helped the film become the success it is. “I found myself asking her [Simmonds] all the time, ‘Is this right?’ And she would be like, ‘maybe do it more like this?” She was not intimidated at all.” Krasinski said of Simmonds influence in an interview with The Wrap.

“When I got the original script from Beck and Woods, they had this deaf character in the movie and in my rewrite, I just really wanted to flesh that out even more,” said Krasinski in the interview. “When you get someone like [Millicent Simmonds], not only are you so happy and honored to have a deaf actress preform in this role, but you also have a guide through this entire story.”

2018 Recipients of the Casting Society of America Award

Beverly Hills, California, Nov. 8 — Sasha Alpert (They Call Us Monsters, Autism: The Musical, Born This Way) and Megan Sleeper (Undressed, Born This Way) were honored at the Media Access Awards, which recently has formed a partnership with Easterseals Southern California, for their work to create inclusive entertainment that features the stories of people with disabilities. The ceremony honors media and entertainment trailblazers advancing disability awareness and inclusion.

Alpert, Executive Vice President of Programming and Development, and Sleeper, Senior Vice President of Casting, promote the culture of telling authentic stories of people with disabilities at Bunim/Murray Productions (BMP) through their casting, including for Born This Way.

Born This Way, an unscripted reality show on A&E that follows a group of seven young adults with Down syndrome in Southern California, demonstrates that inclusive casting means not only including people with disabilities, but people with disabilities from many different demographics. [continue reading…]

Present 2018 Casting Society of America Award to Sasha Alpert and Megan Sleeper

Beverly Hills, California, Nov. 8— The cast of Born This Way and executive producer Jonathan Murray made an appearance at the Media Access Awards to present casting directors Sasha Alpert and Megan Sleeper with the Casting Society of America Award. The Media Access Awards, which recently has formed a partnership with Easterseals Southern California, honors accurate inclusions of disability in film, television and new media.

Alpert and Sleeper cast Born This Way, for which they won the 2017 Outstanding Casting for a Realty Program Emmy Award. Born This Way is an unscripted series on A&E that follows the lives of seven young adults with Down syndrome as they navigate friendships, romantic relationships and work. The Casting Society of America Award, which Alpert and Sleeper were awarded, honors casting directors who actively participated in the mission of Media Access, according to the Casting Society of America.

Murray and the cast of Born This Way presented Alpert and Sleeper with the award. Steven Clark, Cristina Sanz and Rachel Osterbach delivered lines before presenting the award. [continue reading…]

Watch Speechless on ABC, Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET.

View Education Resources on Disability Issues and Tools in Spanish

Los Angeles, California, Nov. 5 — In the U.S., schools were not required to provide special education until 1975. Today, the fight for inclusive education remains a constant battle for parents and students. Speechless, a comedy starring Micah Fowler, a young adult with cerebral palsy, as J.J., a high school senior with cerebral palsy, shines the spotlight on the importance of young adults taking over the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process as they grow older.

Creating an IEP, an individual education plan that outlines what a student with a disability needs to be successful in school, can be a daunting challenge for parents and often stressful as there is much to consider when determining the education of a child. The implementation of an IEP is integral for children with disabilities. An IEP is a formal plan for students who have been identified to need accommodations specific to their individual disability in the public-school system. In addition to accommodations, the classroom can be tailored within a general classroom, a smaller group or one-on-one instruction. [continue reading…]

Winner of the 2018 Christopher Reeve Acting Scholarship, Media Access Awards

Beverly Hills, California, Nov. 2 – There is a conspicuous lack of disability representation in media. The Center for Disease Control estimates that nearly one in five Americans has some type of disability. Yet people with disabilities often are absent in acting, advertising and modeling. Today’s beauty standards often do not include depictions of disabilities. Tatiana Lee, an actress and model with Spina Bifida, is working on improving representation of disabilities in media. “Society is ready for disability representation,” she says.

Lee’s work toward inclusion within the worlds of both modeling and acting led to her receiving the Christopher Reeves Acting Scholarship at the Media Access Awards, which recently has formed a partnership with Easterseals Southern California, Thursday. The ceremony honors media and entertainment trailblazers advancing disability awareness and inclusion.

“Thank you all for giving me the tools to have a fighting chance to finally not feel invisible to the world and to ensure that future generations don’t feel the same,” Lee said while accepting the award. “I’m so honored and I will continue this journey and do all I can to ensure Hollywood is accessible to anyone else that dares to dream big!” [continue reading…]