Right is Right

(photo description: Ruby, a six year old girl wearing a pink stop with stars, being carried by Dave, a sixty year old man in a brown shirt wearing a gray hat, while steering his power chair.)

When we went into the theatre I didn't like the disabled seating spaces. They were way, way too close to the screen. I had everyone climb up a few stairs to the first row on that section, I then parked my chair beside the stairs, I was with the group, only slightly separate. The girls had their popcorn and their drinks and were busily eating while Mike, Marissa, Joe and I were chatting waiting for the show, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, to start. We like these outings, it's fun to all be together.

The movie began and I tensed up at part of the story line. A young teen, a cyclops, sprays himself with a magical spray so that when they go into the city, no one will be able to see his difference. Suddenly the boy's face becomes two eyed handsome. He looks at himself with curiosity and wants to know, from the others, how he looks. He is, then, of course, accepted by those in the community. I didn't like this - though I knew that what he said was true. He told of being in the wood and spotted by campers who reacted to him with horror and fear. He was tired of being treated as a dangerous monster. The new look saved him from all that.

I don't want Ruby and Sadie to equate difference with deviance and danger. They don't now but as they get older messages like the one on the screen will creep more and more into their awareness. These kids are remarkable around difference, they don't stare at people who are different, they don't seem to do much more than notice and sometimes ask a question. That's it. What was this movie saying to them? All of this was going on in my head, interrupting the story for me. I pushed it aside and moved on.

As the movie played Ruby left her seat and came up to sit on the barrier between where they were and where I was. It was like a big fence with a top rail and a middle rail. She sat on the middle rail, her feet dangling. Now she was virtually beside me and I was able to watch her watch the film. She was right into it, enjoying it.

Then, wham, the magic mist wears off. The young teen's face returns to his normal, two eyes became one. Ruby said to herself, with relief, "Finally he looks right again." She watched as he took the bottle of magic spray out to spray himself again and she whispered under her breath, "don't." The bottle was empty, the movie continued with him being a cyclops throughout.

I am often proud of who these girls are becoming, proud of knowing them, proud of seeing them grow into caring girls who accept diversity simply because it 'seems right'.

I was talking to Mike about this and he said that he had heard Ruby say what she said and whispered to Marissa, "Dave will like that!"

And I did.

She knew that right was who he was, not who others thought he should be.

When she's right, she's right.

Cyclops Pride at the AMC!!