4. When non-disabled actors play the role of disabled characters the result reinforces racist and ableist stereotypes and assumptions rather than challenging them and promoting changes in our society and how we think. Casting decisions like The Soloist and Radio place experiences of disabled people into able bodied actors who do not have the same reality. This can decrease the complexity of disability and disability lives and turn this media performance into a stereotype. This acting emphasizes disability to be tragic and/or inspiring which allows the audience to reinforce inspirational porn narratives instead of the authenticity of disabled lives. For Black disabled people there are more marginalized layers present. For example, Radio is played by a non-disabled actor, and the film shows his life through the growth and changing of the white characters surrounding him. This gives us insight into cultural patterns where Black disabled individuals are reduced to symbols or useful for others development rather than a person with their own unique identity. Similarly, The Soloist centers a real Black disabled man, however it frames his story around the white journalist. This shows how his experiences are covered in systemic racism and ableism. Tatiana Lee, in Black Hollywood critiques this very dynamic. This article states that Hollywood tells Black disabled stories without the Black disabled people. This erases the disabled actors of color and their lived experiences with stereotypical acting. This representation can be extremely harmful and promote the idea that disabled people are only present to inspire and that their struggles are not related to society and just individual and that their voices are not important. All of this negative contributes to social stigma that is ongoing, reforcment of exclusion, not showing the true barriers that these marginalized individuals face in every aspect of their lives.

Additionally, Schalk states “as a whole, the media coverage in this wave focuses almost exclusively on race, with little to no explicit attention to disability, while still relying on positive affect to induce emotion in readers and viewers, as one would expect from inspirational porn” (p.107). When race becomes the focal point, disability is being ignored with trying to make non-disabled people have feel good emotions.

Prompt 3: The movie Radio and The Soloist show the trope of the white non-disabled savior. Author Frances Ryan wrote, “This is non-disabled savior trope, in which a ‘normal’ person helps someone with a disability, is replicated across popular culture in many forms. We can see it in the trend for ‘inspirational’ videos of a disabled person – often filmed without their consent, doing something as simple as walking with crutches – to give non-disabled audiences perspective on their own struggles.” The views of these films decrease disabled character's chance to gave person growth of white protagonists.

In the movie radio the main protagonist is Coach Jones who does not have a disability and is white. He decides to help Radio out who is a black man with an intellectual disability. Like Radio the Soloist relates heavily. Steve is the main character while Nathaniel is a schizophrenic black musician, and the movie shows that the main character has a personal transformation. Both movies show the main character as a white protagonist and encourage the audience to feel for them. Both movies are told from the main characters views focusing on their own struggles to gain growth within themselves. The disabled characters become 2nd view, and the focus is on the main characters gaining viewers for their charitable deeds. Throughout both of these films the audience is suppose to relate to Coach Jones and Steve. The movies truly center on the journey of white saviors and suggest that audiences will reflect themselves with white non-disabled characters. The movies try to persuade you to feel admiration for the main characters for showing kindness to those with color. These movies try to courage white non-disabled people to feel empathy without creating any challenges about racism.

                  I feel that disability and race intersect in inspiration porn in a negative way. With inspiration porn without race, the disability is often looked at as pity towards the character and more of a lack of respect without knowing the full situation that the character is going through. When race is added into inspiration porn, it almost overlooks the fact that they’re disabled and adds more negative denotation to the situation the character is in. Within Radio it feels like there was more of an issue that Radio was African American and mentally disabled. The film gives off the idea that maybe in a different scenario where Radio were white, maybe there would not be such an issue with him being on the sideline. Maybe Johnny and the other players would not have targeted him so aggressively with the things they did and convinced Radio to do. Adding race to inspiration porn almost feels like a cover to not go into depth as much with the characters actual disability.

Prompt 4

                  As always with casting non-disabled actors with disabled rolls, there will always be negative implications whether the actor is African American or Caucasian. The problem becomes that with films like “Radio” and “The Soloist” it gives the implication that someone who is African American and disabled needs a white savior to say. In both films the black character with a disability is for the most part left alone and ignored. Radio lived a good enough life for a very long time before meeting Coach Jones. After running into the Hanna football team and having the first initial incident, Coach Jones feels that he needs to do things for Radio and try to make things up to him and make him “better.” With “The Soloist” Ayres is someone who Lopez just happened to find out about. Once again before meeting, Ayres was going about his life the best he could but living on his own in his own way. Lopez then decides for whatever reason that he needs to try and “fix” Ayres through music and trying to get him “proper help” even though Ayres directly rejects the idea. Both films end in the same way that Coach Jones and Lopez learn valuable life lessons and become better people but only after deciding they need to help these African American men to live better lives, simply because that is what they thought Radio and Ayres needed.

Lee (2019) and Schalk (2021) both discuss disability and race. First, Lee (2019) dives into more of race and disability and explains that disability can not be separated from race, since both identities shape how people are treated and understood (p. 1). Yet, society often tries to value only one identity at a time, which is unfair because people may have multiple identities they want to identify with (p. 3). Then, on the same point, Schalk (2021) discusses how disability and race intersect in inspiration porn stories. Schalk (2021) argues that disability study scholars have not fully looked at how race changes the way inspiration porn is understood (p.102). Inspiration porn often puts all its focus on disability and nothing else (p. 110). That being said, Schalk explores the story of Mack, a Black boy with a prosthetic leg, to prove their argument. In the first wave of media coverage section, Black media outlets focused more on his joy and race, so it was not really inspiration porn (p. 107). Since, it did not look at Macks disability in anyway and more so erased it. However, in the second wave of white media coverage section, the story shifted to focus on his disability and create pity, calling him “exceptional” in ways that reinforced ableism (p. 110–113). So, depending on who tells the story, the focus can shift between race and disability, and sometimes one gets erased.

How does Radio and The Soloist illustrate the trope of the white, non-disabled savior? Who is the protagonists of these movies? Who is the audience expected to identify with? How do you know? What reactions or emotions are these films trying to achieve with white, non-disabled audiences?

Both Radio and The Soloist show the white, non-disabled savior trope. For example, in Radio, Coach Jones becomes the savior when he protects James (Radio) from bullying and later lets him join the football and basketball team (making him more involved), takes him to church, celebrates Christmas with him, and supports him after his mother’s death. In The Soloist, Steve Lopez tries to help Nathaniel by giving him a cello (that was donated), taking him to classical concerts, getting him an apartment with resources, and giving him the chance to take music lessons again. I personally believe that Steve mostly saw Nathaniel as a story and someone to be fixed, however, by the end, he learns that just being a friend matters more. Additionally, something I learned from the media is from the YouTube video by The Take (2020) and how it explains how movies like these are built around white saviors, especially seen in sports or education movies. These movies also show racism through “good” and “bad” white characters, so the audience always has someone safe to relate to. Ryan (2018) then adds that these stories reinforce negative stereotypes, making it seem like disabled people are a burden or only exist to inspire others (para. 2). That being said, the focus in these movies is never really on the disabled person but rather on the one doing the saving (para. 3). That is why the real protagonists are Coach Jones in Radio and Steve Lopez in The Soloist. The audience is expected to identify with them, because both are shown as putting their life aside to “help” someone else and make their life better. The films want white, non-disabled viewers to feel sad for Radio and Nathaniel but also comforted that someone stepped in and helped them. Both movies use highs and lows to keep emotions feeling like roller coasters, for example, one moment hopeful and good, then the next heartbreaking. So, that the audience feels the impact of the savior since they usually change those bad moments into something good.

“Inspiration porn,” refers to the way disabled people are represented as objects of inspiration for nondisabled audiences. These stories often dictate disabled individuals as either pitiable or heroic simply for living their everyday lives. At first glance, inspiration porn may appear to be a universal problem that all disabled people experience equally. However, when race is taken into account, it becomes clear that these narratives are unevenly applied, shaped by racial stereotypes, and often used to reinforce broader systems of inequality. 

Race plays a crucial role in determining which disabled lives are made visible as “inspirational.” For example white disabled people are often frequently highlighted in media and cultural narratives that celebrate individualism. In contrast, disabled people of color are less commonly featured, and when they are, their portrayals are influenced by extreme stereotypes. Disability tropes often frame people as helpless, childlike, while racial stereotypes can cast people of color as threatening or non-human. The combination of these stereotypes produces more misrepresentation for the disability community. A black disabled man, for instance, may not be afforded the “innocent” or "pitiable" disabled trope at all, instead being viewed through a lens of criminality or danger. Alternatively, disabled people of color may be framed as uniquely hardworking or “grateful,” tying into bootstrap narratives or model minority myths that erase the systemic oppression they face. 

Analyzing race also highlights how inspiration porn casts a shadow over structural inequalities. Inspiration narratives often rely on stories of individual perseverance, celebrating disabled people for “overcoming” challenges. In the article it states, “Thompson argues that, although she too is critical of inspiration porn, sometimes she does share stories on social media that

have an inspirational bent to them. As a Black disabled woman, Thompson asserts that she does “not have the ‘luxury’ of picking and choosing stories that depict us [Black disabled people] in a positive, non-inspirational light...each time we read about a Black disabled person and it is not about us being victimized, traumatized, or killed, we hold tight to those stories because we see a part of ourselves.”7 (Schalk ,pg.101).  Yet for disabled people of color, these challenges are not only related to ableism but also to racism, poverty, and lack of access to healthcare or education. By attributing success solely to personal determination, these narratives erase the systemic injustices that shape people’s lives. In this way, inspiration porn involving people of color often serves to comfort dominant audiences, reinforcing both ableism and racial hierarchies while sidestepping the need for structural change.  

Considering race complicates our understanding porn by showing that it does not affect all disabled people equally. It reveals how racial stereotypes shape which disabled individuals are represented, how their stories are framed, and what systemic realities are erased. Far from being harmless feel-good stories, these narratives reinforce both ableist and racialized hierarchies. Inspirational porn is not just about disability, it is also about power, privilege and whose lives are deemed worthy of visibility. 

How do The Radio and The Soloist illustrate the trope of the white, non-disabled savior? Who are the protagonists of these movies? Who is the audience expected to identify with? How do you know? What reactions or emotions are these films trying to achieve with white, non-disabled audiences?

Both Radio and The Soloist illustrate the  trope of the white, non-disabled savior in filming. In these stories, disabled or marginalized characters are not portrayed as full protagonists in their own life but rather as figures who enable a depends on a  non-disabled character's  growth, redemption, or moral clarity, this framing reveals not only who the films consider central to the narrative but also the audience they are designed to reach. 

In Radio, the film centers on a young Black Man with an intellectual disability, Radio, but the true protagonist character Coach Jones, the white football coach who takes him under his wing. Similarly, in The Soloist, the story follows Nathaniel Ayers, a black homeless man with schizophrenia who is also a gifted musician. While Ayers is the main subject in the film, the true protagonist is a white reporter named Steve Lopez, who attempts to transform his life. In both films, the disabled black characters are positioned as a branch for the personal development of the white, non-disabled savior figures. 

The audience is expected to identify with Coach Jones in Radio and Steve Lopez in The Soloist. These are the characters through whom the story unfolds, whose perspectives dominate, and whose struggles are centered. In Radio, we follow Jones' moral journey from a self-interested coach to a compassionate mentor, while in The Soloist, we witness Lopez’s evolution from a know-it-all journalist to a more empathetic human being. In the article it states, “ Each reinforces multiple negative stereotypes, from the belief that being disabled is ultimately a life of burden to the idea that disabled people exist to make non-disabled people feel good about themselves.” (Ryan, par. 2). The disabled characters function less as subjects with agency and more as narrative devices that test, challenge, and ultimately redeem the savior figures. We know this because the emotional feeling of both films resolve not with the empowerment or representation  of the disabled characters, but with transformation of the true white protagonists. 

The emotional response these films seek to elicit from white, non-disabled audiences is one of pity, inspiration, and moral uplift. By showing Radio and Ayers as tragic yet talented or innocent figures, the films generate sympathy but also encourage audiences to admire the thoughtfulness of Jones and Lopez.  The audience is not called to question the structural issues of racism, ableism, or poverty social support systems, rather they are incited to feel good about the kindness of individual white saviors. This supports the idea that problems can be solved through charity and personal vendetta to advance someone else's story. 

Radio and The Soloist over-shows the white, non-disabled savior trope by centering the perspective of Jones and Lopez and offsetting the real meaning of the movie towards Radio and Ayers disabled lives. The films position white protagonists as the true heroes, direct audience identification toward them, and attempt to elicit feelings of admiration, sympathy, and moral reassurance in white, non-disabled viewers. By doing so, these firms highlight a problematic narrative structure in which disabled people of color exist primarily to advance someone else’s story.  

Disability and race intersect in inspiration porn by overcoming social inequality. Different races can overcome racism in the communities in order to inspire people of different races. This is similar to disability in inspiration porn because it benefits non-disabled people. Both race and disability combine with inspiration porn to benefit the different groups in the communities. For example, “This argument matters not only for Black and Critical Race Disability Studies scholars who need to examine the utility of concepts and theories in white Disability Studies for our work, but also for Disability Studies scholars working on white experiences, understandings, and representations of disability” (pg. 102). Another example of disability and race inspiration porn is Michael Mack, Jr’s Black Panther prosthetic leg.  It can be seen “…as a case study for examining the impact of race on so called inspirational representations of disability” (pg. 102).   The Black Panther movie went viral in two different categories.  The first category was the black community which was a reflection of race.  The second wave of popularity was a result of focusing on Michael Mack, Jr’s disability (pg. 104). “This narrative timeline demonstrates how the video first circulated among Black media outlets and audiences, before gaining a second wave of national attention among mainstream, white-dominated media outlets, after a local news station interviewed Mack and his mother about the viral video” (pg.104).

Prompt #2: What are the implications of having non-disabled actors in these roles? How might films like The Soloist and Radio affect the everyday lives of disabled people, particularly Black disabled and other disabled people of color?

The implications of having non-disabled actors in these roles are that the actors don’t fully understand and accurately represent the people with disabilities that they are playing and might not portray them in a truly factual way.  This can result in viewers having an inaccurate understanding of the disabilities.  In The Soloist Nathaniel Ayers, the main character, could have easily been played an African American actor who had schizophrenia.  According to the article Black Hollywood:  The Struggle to Include Disability by Tatiana Lee, “By not actively promoting that black, disabled actors to play character roles of a disabled person, Hollywood continues to give inaccurate representation of Black people with disabilities and takes away jobs from black actors with real disabilities” (p.1). 

In the movie Radio, James Robert Kennedy was a black young man with an intellectual disability.  He had a time making friends and communicating with people. This is another example where the actor is played by someone without a disability.  Lee states, “This isn’t to say these abled black actors aren’t talented, but when abled black actors portray prolific disabled black people in history, we lose the authenticity of the character by having an incorrect representation of disability” (p.2). It is very important for racial and disability acceptance that actors in movies about people with disabilities are played by people with disabilities.

4. The implications of having non-disabled actors in roles is that it leads to stereotypes, ableist tropes, and misrepresentations. Lee (2019) talks about how films that Hollywood inaccurately represent black people with disabilities and them having non-disabled characters just takes away jobs from black actors with disabilities (p.1). We have seen in other articles that some directors just don’t want to pay for accommodations of actors with disabilities, so they’d rather not cast disabled actors leaving them without jobs. Films like The Soloist and Radio affect everyday lives of disabled people it can be disheartening to the black disabled people because people actually want to show their stories but don’t want a disabled person to play a disabled character (Lee, 2019, p.2). This just shows how much it would mean to the black disabled community or even the disabled community in general if people would actually start casting disabled people for disabled roles. These films could also make disabled people's everyday lives uncomfortable because when they see someone with a disability like Radio or even Nathan when you realize that they are often watched by strangers in public spaces (Ryan, 2018, para. 6). We need to start realizing that people with disability are not people to be stared at and that they have feelings and being stared at could make them uncomfortable even if they are doing something everyone else in the world does.

Tatiana Lee states plainly, “when abled black actors portray prolific disabled black people in history, we lose the authenticity of the character by having an incorrect representation of disability. We also take away a job from a black actor with a disability who would have been able to give the role the respect and justice it deserves” (Lee 2). For her and others, “it’s disheartening to know that people want our stories but do not want actors who have a disability to play a disabled character” (Lee 2). Schalk’s study shows how these portrayals feed inspiration porn. Local news stories about Mack leaned on “ableist desire to know what happened” and framed him as having “refus[ed] to let an amputation hold him back” (Schalk 112). They also positioned him as a “passive recipient of generosity,” with titles that “frame the story as one of a generous, nondisabled person providing a gift to a disabled child” (Schalk 113). Such tropes mirror films like Radio and The Soloist: they encourage non-disabled audiences to feel inspired rather than confront racism and ableism. Lee connects this back to lived harm, “The push back from the black community, especially Black Hollywood, against disability inclusion as part of black narratives has been harmful toward not only my livelihood but also to that of many others who live within this intersection of identities” (Lee 2). Casting nondisabled actors doesn’t just misrepresent, it sustains exclusion and limits opportunities for Black disabled performers while feeding pity-based narratives.

Disability and race intersect with inspiration porn in how they are treated by the people around them and the audience they are portrayed to entertain and inspire. Inspirational porn was an issue on its own, but bringing race into the picture brings a whole new dynamic and perspective to an audience. Understanding inspirational porn takes a lot of focus and mental strength to overlook the happy feel-good movies and see what directors are implying in their films. It plays with an audience's emotions, as seen in the movie Radio, where discovering that the actor who played Radio or Mr. Kennedy was a nondisabled man was unexpected, given the quality of the performance he gave. Continuing then to read the articles where the words of Tatiana Lee speak out for the black disabled community, that "By not actively promoting that black, disabled actors to play character roles of a disabled person, Hollywood continues to give an inaccurate representation of Black people with disabilities and takes away jobs from black actors with real disabilities" (Lee, pg 2). The black Hollywood community is creating false narratives of the day-to-day life of a disabled black person within the movie Radio. He has suffered a severe loss of his mother, but is saved by Coach O. He's taught to speak more than he ever thought possible and is accepted by the community and his teammates. Analyzing race and inspirational porn in the same movie, there was a power of initiative that they were helping Radio. There were varied responses from the audience regarding the level of radio involvement in the school. Still, the inspirational power led by Coach O created a safe space on the football field, basketball court, and in the school hallways. There are multiple ways to complicate inspiration porn and race within a film, and it's up to the audience to speak out about the misunderstanding and misdirection the films are portraying. We can approach this by preventing "taking away a job from a black actor with a disability who would have been able to give the role the respect and justice it deserves" (Lee, pg 2).

How do The Radio and The Soloist illustrate the trope of the white, nondisabled savior? Who are the protagonists of these movies? Who is the audience expected to identify with? How do you know? What reactions or emotions are these films trying to achieve with white, nondisabled audiences?

Within the film Radio, the trope of the white, nondisabled savior is heavily performed by Coach O. As Radio was supposed to be the main character and the story was supposed to portray it, it was Coach O who was the protagonist in this movie. The audience is not expected to identify with the middle-aged black disabled man; they are supposed to identify with the white family, the white American football team, and the jock athletes, putting themselves in the position of the players if someone like Radio came into their lives. Not if they were one disabled and two people of color, as an audience member who identified with the white family, a perspective from the daughter that her father is a savior to Radio. Emotions are very high with this movie; it's very inspirational about Coach O, a man who loves football and is willing to give up his career for a man he had just recently met, a couple of months ago. As a viewer, I was an emotional mess. It was a great film, particularly in terms of the impact Radio had on the school, and the way Coach O genuinely wanted him to succeed and gave him a life. None of that would've been possible if Radio hadn't found that football and taken it with him. Radio had shown nothing but kindness and a good heart. Coming to find out that the actor was not a disabled man really shocked me; the movie wants the audience to feel the white family is doing God's work, essentially by making them superior caretakers and better people for taking care of Radio. The Radio to the white non disabled community creates a powerful move that inspires a small-town teacher and football coach to give up something for a disabled man. Still, not knowing the emotional impact of misinformation, they portrayed. That's not every day for a black disabled man, like Radio, until the man meets Coach O, who is only a man wandering with nothing to do, is not an accurate representation. The movie shows the great heart and soul of a small town accepting a man within their community who is a black, disabled man, but it does not represent the black disabled community correctly.

4. Having non-disabled actors playing disabled roles takes away opportunities from disabled actors to actually show what living with a disability is like. Having non-disabled actors play these roles just reinforces stereotypes about people who have disabilities. While that may not be the intentions of the actor to do that, they are still reinforcing misconceptions about disability. Films like The Soloist and Radio reinforce stereotypes that black disabled people are dependent and cannot do anything for themselves. Frances Ryan brings attention to this in a slightly different light by stating,” Each reinforces multiple negative stereotypes, from the belief that being disabled is ultimately a life of burden to the idea that disabled people exist to make non-disabled people feel good about themselves.” This leads people to mold their mind into believing this is how all black people with a disability are. The focus tends to always be on “saving” the person rather than the person living their lives. This can often be very frustrating for isolating for disabled people who watch these movies seeing these disabilities being misrepresented.

2.       Yes, absolutely, both are inspirational narratives. To understand that we have to look at their common denominator “They're a strong-willed, often optimistic non-traditionalist, who courageously risks being ostracized by their more prejudiced community in order to help a person of color” (The Take 1:04). Suddenly there are numerous films rushing to your head that follow this plot, and you realize just how deep the inspirational porn iceberg goes. The effect of these films is to “objectify disabled people for the benefit of non-disabled people” (Stella Young as quoted in Schalk 100). Which is a perfect way of describing what these films do and what the wider inspiration porn does. For these films it does not just objectify disabled people it also does the same with people of color. It shows that good able-bodied white people need to watch out for and guide the non-white individuals because they are so helpless without us, which is just a gross concept that should make you feel uncomfortable. While it should make most people feel uncomfortable, Hollywood packages this idea and puts some inspirational quote from the white guy to some inspirational background music and suddenly there’s a bunch of people singing its praise about being a groundbreaking film. “The Soloist” and “Radio” are different for this reason of adding race into the mix. Auggie in “Wonder” is the inspiration. He had some people to guide him but, in the end, it was Auggie himself that inspired people around him. While in the other two movies the white guy took pity on the disabled black person and took him under his wing and in the end found out that the disabled person was the one teaching him and making him a better person. Which makes you think oh wait, does that mean before you met this person you would treat someone disabled poorly or you were racist? “Radio” stopped the latter though by making it so the coach was surrounded by non-white people, the principle, other students, Radio’s mom. They took out the racism aspect but kept the other aspect in, which is still concerning. In “Wonder” at least the jerks were the children which makes sense because kids are little jerks, and they can be easily taught. It is more realistic and excusable than the other two movies where these are full adults that are admitting to being bad people before meeting the disabled character.

Movies like Radio and The Soloist illustrate the trip of the white, non-disabled savior by having the second main character, the white guy, be the person who is saving the black disabled person. In both of the movies, the white guy finds the disabled black man and makes them their new “project” now. The video “White Savior Trope, Explained” by The Take explains this trop beautifully. One of the things that the video brought up was how in these movies, there are typically 2 types of white people, those who are racists and those who are not. Meaning, they will do anything that will get this person to success, no matter what society says, no matter what the person has done, and what disability they have. This is supposed to make the white person seem like an amazing person. People with disabilities are not there to save you just because of their disability. A white person should especially not be trying to “save” them in any way possible, unless the person needs emergency help.

When it comes to movies like this, the audience may find it hard to see who the protagonist truly is. The protagonist should be who the movie was about, their life, their narrative, and their perspective on things. However, when movies like this use a secondary character as the narrative, their perspective, and how the black disabled person taught THEM, it now turns them into the protagonist. This also makes the audience find it hard to identify with. If you have a disability and you see this person creating great lessons to those just by having a disability, you may feel like you cannot relate because what lessons have others learned from your disability? Or if you are like me and trying to relate to the person who is working with the person with a disability. I do learn a lot of things from the people I work with, but I also learn from everyone. I am constantly seeing everyone around me to see what I can do to improve on and learn from, whether it is positive or negative. However, I do not inspire others to learn from those that I work with, I do not try to make people learn lessons just from their disability, and I especially do not teach that their educational skills can go as far as scribbles. I could not relate to any character in that film and the way they portray the characters in each movie make it hard to relate to them.

These films are trying to make white, non-disabled people feel inspirational and a little guilty. Like ‘you have this amazing power of being white, why do not you use it. You can even use it to help a disabled person of color!’ It is not cool. Disabled people of color do not need saving; they especially do not need saving specifically from a white non-disabled person. (Unless they are in an emergency).

4. What are the implications of having non-disabled actors in these roles? How might films like The Soloist and Radio affect the everyday lives of disabled people, particularly Black disabled people and other disabled people of color?

The implications of having non-disabled actors in these roles is that there is a lack of representation. While although it is amazing that we are seeing black actors in films, we also need to start seeing black actors with disabilites, especially when the film is centered around a person with a disability. Not only is this a lack of representation but it is also a dig towards the community as well. “As a black actor with a disability, it's disheartening to know that people want our stories but do not want actors who have a disability to play a disabled character” (Tatiana Lee, 2019). This quote shows how effecting this problem causes those in the people of color and disabled lives. On top of misrepresentation, lack of representation, it is now putting those who are a person of color and disabled out of a job. They have all the qualities of this role, they are a great actor, but just because of one or the other (their skin color or disability), they are now unemployed. Films like the Soloist and Radio now leaves audiences with the idea of what these conditions look like, especially in a man of color. Black men are already deemed as “dangerous”, add random outbursts and a mental illness, you have got an extremely dangerous man because he is now not portrayed correctly.

It’s very easy to classify Radio as inspiration porn due to the ways in which the story rewards Radio’s character by the end of the film for being used as a prop/object to develop the film’s surrounding characters, which is exemplified in Sami Schalk’s essay titled “Black Disability Gone Viral: A Critical Race Approach to Inspiration Porn,” where she writes about how inspiration porn and supercrip narratives are similar in multiple ways, both concepts relying on “certain affective registers, such as inspiration, awe, tragedy, triumph, and pity,” also presuming a “non-disabled audience” and engaging in “ableist concepts, such as overcoming or compensating for the perceived obstacle caused by disability” (101). These “affective registers” that Schalk mentions make up the essential framework for Radio, making numerous attempts to elicit a pitiful reaction out of audiences in order to diminish Radio’s character to nothing more than a prop for the non-disabled characters to hash out their own conflicts and disagreements in relation to his presence, thus in turn making them better people in the process as they learn something new about themselves. Some examples of how the film tries to elicit pity is the scene where Radio is hog-tied and terrorized by the high school football players in the shed, when Radio is manipulated into believing that he needs to go into the girls’ locker room by the bullies, or, most of all, the scene where Radio grieves over the loss of his mother. Almost all of these incidents are self-contained with the exception of a couple of scenes where they are mentioned again, but none of these scenes ever truly affect Radio’s character. What these scenes do, however, is build up towards the triumphant ending, where the non-disabled characters find a way to keep Radio at the high school even through all of this adversity, thus making him a permanent fixture in the community. We’re lead to believe that this is inspirational because Radio is placed into a more positive and accepting environment, but the film does nothing to suggest that Radio ever actually did anything to make that happen. It’s the non-disabled characters that surround him that make the difference, which in turn makes non-disabled audiences feel better about themselves in the process.

As for The Soloist, things are much more complicated. Steve and Nathaniel’s characters have many qualities that distinguish the story from being an entirely positive or inspirational story, but still, in the end, it follows some of the inspirational narrative tropes. What makes this film more complicated is how Steve’s intentions with Nathaniel are not entirely pure. At the start of the film, he just wants to get a story for the newspaper he works at. He cares more about the tragic story he can get out of Nathaniel rather than actually helping him, even though he does end up trying to. As for Nathaniel, he isn’t portrayed as entirely innocent like Radio was. His struggle with schizophrenia is depicted as violent, frightening, and unnerving. The film does everything in its power to make his disability something to be wary of, and by the end of the film, there is no perfect fix or solution to his situation like there is for Radio.

As for how both films differ from Wonder, it’s the racial intersection with disability that complicates the two films in comparison.

Prompt #3 — How does Radio and The Soloist illustrate the trope of the white, non-disabled savior? Who is the protagonists of these movies? Who is the audience expected to identify with? How do you know? What reactions or emotions are these films trying to achieve with white, non-disabled audiences?

To begin with the differences between the “white savior” and “disabled savior” and how they intersect to create the trope in both of these films, I want to highlight The Take’s video on the white savior trope, and how they explain it as “a story about people of color that centers the benevolent actions of a white character,” then showing a clip of Chris Rock saying how, in every civil rights movie, “there’s two heroes: there’s the black hero, and the white person that’s equally as important.” Meanwhile, in Frances Ryan’s article titled “‘Disabled saviour’ videos aren’t heartwarming—they’re patronising and disturbing,” she frames the disabled savior as “a ‘normal’ person” helping “someone with a disability,” and how this trope is used to “make non-disabled people feel good about themselves.” Both of these concepts come together to make the white, non-disabled savior, which manifest in the characters of Coach Jones from Radio, and Steve Lopez from The Soloist. What I want to highlight about both of these individual savior tropes intersecting is how the “white savior” trope really likes to emphasize that the black characters are important but the white character is just as important. When it comes to the non-disabled savior, however, there’s more room for a power imbalance. Take Radio, for example, and how Radio’s character is infantillized for the entirety of the film. He’s not deemed on the same level as Coach Jones is. Radio’s disability demotes him to a level lesser than.

As for who the protagonists of these films are, they are easily Coach Jones and Steve Lopez. When it comes to interpersonal conflicts, it is Coach Jones that the audience follows, not Radio. We get to witness Coach Jones’ arguments with school faculty, his conflicts with his family and his daughter, and how he handles his football team on top of interacting with Radio. His life is the focus, and it also focuses on how Radio affects his life, not necessarily Radio’s (only in some cases). With Steve Lopez, The Soloist begins with his character. As far as I can remember, the audience doesn’t meet Nathaniel till, at the very earliest, at least ten minutes into the film, which suggests the idea that Steve is not only our narrator, but also the man we should be focusing on.

.1 Race and disability tend to play very similar roles in movies, especially older movies, where a lot of movies that were popular were mostly white people, and there became stereotypes in movies most particularly noted in horror movies. People of color would be the ‘comedy relief,’ or the first to get attacked and or/killed, and even the ‘white savior’ trope has been seen, similar to the ‘able-bodied savior’ trope found commonly amongst films representing disability. Both movies use these non-white disabled characters as a means to make the white able-bodied savior look better, and to make THEM want to grow as a person and be motivated to do better, exploiting the disabled character for the gain of the main character. These tropes make people of color and/or people who are disabled dehumanized, and the savior is always empowered and going out of their way to ‘save’ this person who is more than capable of taking care of themselves, usually. But even then, these people didn’t know one another at first, so they survived without a ‘savior’ for this long, just proving it’s unnecessary. And a good point made in an article talking about racism and white-savior tropes in popular films was that these films are usually primarily made, directed, and filmed by white people, and in another article they talked about how most directors and filmmakers for disabled movies are able-bodied. Which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but these directors are presenting these ideas and films in a manner that’s supposed to be ‘uplifting,’ and inspiring, but they can’t give that personal connection and insight to these movies so that they’re sending the right message or portraying things in an appropriate manner. These creators take the time and money to film these scenes that empower the white able-bodied characters and choose to not put light on the characters the movies should be about, and the ones that should be empowered without needing someone to step in and ‘save them’.

.4 The implications of non-disabled actors playing disabled characters in film are rather negative, they have and still have a negative impact on people with disabilities every single day. Not only that, but the impact it has on how people view people with these portrayed disabilities. There are many examples of this in pop culture, including a movie I keep bringing up. Orphan is a horror movie about an orphan girl from Russia who lost her family in a house fire being adopted by a young couple, it turns out she’s an adult woman who was planning to seduce the father and kill the family. This was based off of a real life case, Natalia Grace, and she has spoken on the matter claiming this movie was very hurtful and spreading a false narrative about what had happened to her, and portrayed people with dwarfism as people to be feared or paranoid about. The woman with dwarfism in the movie wasn’t a woman with dwarfism at all, it was a ten year old Isabelle Furhman. Then we have other films we had watched in class, like the ‘iconic’ me before you where we got jumpscared with the main disabled character having a flashback to him running, standing and jumping. He also isn’t disabled. An example that’s a bit silly but is obviously not true and used more metaphorically is Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands.” Johnny Depp doesn’t actually have scissors for hands, but in the movie it represents how Edward is ‘rescued’ and put into this very normal town with a family, yet he stands out in every way possible. He’s constantly stabbing things and can’t even wear clothes properly. Throughout the movie he’s seen using his disability to help others, he allows people to take advantage of him because he wants to help people and doesn’t know better because of his upbringing and the traumatic experience of losing the one person who was in his life. Then the movie portrays him as ‘too dangerous for society’, and everyone turns against him. Throughout the movie people refer to him as offensive terms such as a ‘cripple,’ ‘handicapped,’ and there’s constantly people trying to ‘fix him.’ Toward the end, however, people start chasing him out of the town with one woman even claiming he sexually assaulted her(when she exposed herself to him and he ran off scared in reality.) The boyfriend of the main love interest for Edward is constantly trying to taunt and torture him, then at the end of the movie they want him dead and it ends with everyone believing he is dead. Which is portrayed as being for his own good. Now the impact of this movie as far as I’m aware wasn’t as negative as Orphan, but Edward Scissorhands paints people with both intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities as people to be both feared and pitied. Edward is constantly treated as someone to fix or care for like a wounded stray dog.