tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post801147353118439892..comments2024-03-19T07:36:33.915-04:00Comments on Of Battered Aspect: Being ThereDave Hingsburgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11918601687946534172noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-72191078920208840062016-08-03T03:17:24.207-04:002016-08-03T03:17:24.207-04:00I came across this and remembered that you'd j...I came across this and remembered that you'd just posted the above. It seems strangely topical :)<br /><br />https://theconversation.com/a-wise-mans-art-twelfth-night-and-cross-mobility-casting-63321<br /><br />From the article:<br /><br />Cross-mobility casting<br /><br />Belvoir St Theatre’s 2016 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Eamon Flack, seems to want to play on this essential jest in the fool’s persona – his slippery unnerving of what is natural, his ambivalent marking of the pleasure in disguise.<br /><br />Twelfth Night charts a series of impassioned fixations fuelled by mistaken identity. Count Orsino loves the veiled and cloistered Olivia; she loves the servant Cesario who is really the shipwrecked Viola tendering Orsino’s love to her, and of course Viola loves Orsino, blindly, it seems.<br />Keith Robinson plays Feste in Twelfth Night. Brett Boardman/Belvoir St Theatre<br /><br />Billed as an example of cross-mobility casting, the veteran actor Keith Robinson brings an additional lense to the ploy of mistaken identity in the work. His arrival as Feste has been prefaced by a ten year recovery from a severely disabling variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. His wheelchair choreographics are almost as masterful as his rhythmic and wryly commentative persona. His years of clowning are present in the timbre of his voice alone.Mozhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918324683758086518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-23970255540392895482016-08-01T11:45:26.528-04:002016-08-01T11:45:26.528-04:00We are everywhere, but rarely seen in front of the...We are everywhere, but rarely seen in front of the fantasy lens. The disabled are played mostly by able-bodied actors. The usual excuse is "Oh, we wanted to cast someone with star-power, you know, to attract box-office bucks!" does not hold water, because, really, how many movies were made like that in the first place?<br /><br />Even for a full on action hero movies: Ben Affleck really improved the movie Daredevil? Like there was not a single blind male actor who knows martial arts that could not have done a better job in that role of blind hero by night, blind lawyer by day? Like back in the day, when it was common for Caucasian actors to play various immigrants, and native people, disabled actors deserve better.<br /><br />Like there has never been a movie with an little known actor that went on to be a blockbuster? C'mon movie and TV producers, cast qualified disabled actors, you might just be surprised!Frank_Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15707525224938640688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-11158894065771130712016-08-01T11:20:16.798-04:002016-08-01T11:20:16.798-04:00I don't know whether my novel, Pride's Chi...I don't know whether my novel, Pride's Children, which has a disabled character as one of the three main characters, is not getting much push from the people who read it and said they loved it because of that, but I sometimes wonder.<br /><br />The interesting thing to me has been that I can't seem to persuade disability bloggers to embrace the concept that fiction is not diverse if it uses people who are ill or disabled only for inspiration porn, or, as you've pointed out before, to die for the convenience of the able-bodied.<br /><br />I don't know how much to push the concept: the point of the story is not the disability, but that a character who happens to have a major disability has the same wants and needs as everyone else. EVERYONE else. We have not become 'everyone else' until me writing a disabled character is not special, but just one of the things writers do.<br /><br />Yes, disability complicates things. I suspect moviemakers would tell you they don't have space for that in a movie, because they're so short and a lot of story has to be packed in. And then there's the whole convoluted reasoning about having a gay or disabled character portrayed by an actor who is neither.<br /><br />Then there is the whole sidekick thing: the few disabled characters there are (Hunchback of Notre Dame, anyone?) don't get to be the main character. They may have a role, but not the big one. And they don't 'get the girl.'<br /><br />I was so glad Breaking Bad had the main character's son deal with having mobility and speech problems without comment. I'm afraid to check on the actor.<br /><br />I took it the final step - and I hope other authors will.<br /><br />I'm also aware that, done badly, it could be worse than other writing done badly, and I took great pains to learn to write.<br /><br />But it is discouraging to make no splash.<br /><br />We need disabled characters everywhere, because there are disabled people everywhere. Some of them are even written by disabled people. Who are, really, the same as everyone else.ABEhrhardthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17211038591900883672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-20744974107569132482016-08-01T08:06:33.138-04:002016-08-01T08:06:33.138-04:00Yeah...
I haven't owned a television in four ...Yeah...<br /><br />I haven't owned a television in four of five years, but back when I did, that was the quickest way I could tell, while <i>channel surfing</i> -- spending no more than a few seconds on each image before me -- whether or not what I was watching was fiction (or a restaging of an historical event) news footage.<br /><br />On the news, there's always a disabled person in a city scene.<br /><br />In fiction, there never is.<br /><br />One time -- just one -- I thought I found an exception, when a wheelchair user appeared in the background of a police procedural.<br /><br />...But it turned out he was there as a very important clue-giver at the end of the 20 minutes later.<br /><br />*sighs*CapriUnihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16906524679880178584noreply@blogger.com