2. Describe an example of the trope in a film or television show you have seen. What message does this send about disability? Did you think it was sending this message when you first watched it? What do you think are the ethical implications of this narrative/trope - in other words, how might this narrative/trope affect disabled people's everyday lives or how we view disability in our society? 

2. In “13 Reasons Why”, the character Alex becomes disabled after a suicide attempt. Later in the show Alex is portrayed with both mobility and cognitive impairments. This disability is framed through the trope that disabled people are “broken” or a “tragedy.” Instead of showing Alex adjusting to a new chapter of life, the show decided to emphasize on his disability being a symbol for weakness and underlying trauma. This reinforces the audiences' thoughts that disability diminished the value of a person. According to Her Campus’s article “Ableist Tropes in Movies and Shows,” this detrimental representation reduces disabled characters to their impairments and sidelines their unique abilities and personalities. Sending the wrong message about disability as being shameful or a pity. When I first watched this show, I did not realize how the show was sending this message. I had thought the disability was just another layer of drama for the plot. Only later after reflecting on the plot and frameworks behind them did I realize how detrimental this plot is. The ethical implications are serious of this trope and risks teaching the audiences the wrong agenda. For able-bodied people it shows that disability is a damage reinforcing stigma against them. For disabled viewers it makes them think that their feelings are worthless or not valued. Stories like Alex’s undermine why responsibility of nuanced representation matters in shaping society’s views and affirming disabled lives.

The “Better Dead Than Disabled” trope is one of the most damaging and persistent ableist narratives in film and media. This trope suggests that life with a disability is so tragic, limiting, or meaningless that death is the better option for anyone with a disability. That it is the preferable option with anyone that has a disability. In movies, such as “Me Before You”, they often play through some sort of timeline where a disabled character is so unhappy with being disabled and chooses to die, instead of living their life with a disability. They are usually portrayed as incapable of living a “full” life. Sometimes even the antagonist characters encourage death as a way out if the Protagonist decides not to kill themselves. 

In the Code of the Freaks, this trope is shown as one of Hollywood’s most common shortcuts for evoking pity or drama. Rather than representing disabled people as independent, improving, complex human beings. Films use disability as a narrative device to make audiences feel sorry for their life but grateful for their death. Another example, “ Hollywood does too much of exploitation and not enough of advocacy for people with disabilities via its representations within its narratives” (Kashani & Nocella, p.106). This is connected to society stereotypes such as society assumes that disability is a burden to live with, that it gives disabled people suffering or loneliness emotions, so when death is an option that they take it is portrayed as a release, or relief to them. 

This is disgusting, this trope erases real disabled lives and perspectives. Many disabled people build meaningful, joyful, and exciting lives for themselves, but those experiences are rarely shown to the world because of how society thinks of disability. By showing this idea in films is worse than the concept of death, the media is not only misrepresenting lives that disabled people maintain but also shows how we think disabled people live. 

Describe an example of the trope in a film or television show you have seen. 

The movie, “Me Before You”, is about a young woman named Louisa CLark moves from job  to job to help her family make ends meet. Her cheerful attitude towards everything makes her stand out, but it also puts her to the test when she becomes a caregiver for a paralyzed man named Will Traynor, he is a young banker who was left paralyzed from an accident two years ago. Will is determined to die because he feels that he can't live with a disability, but his point of view starts to change when Louisa shows him that life is worth living. As their relationship deepens, their lives and hearts start to change in ways neither one could have imagined, but at the end of the day Will stills decides he wants to die and gives all his money to Louisa so that she can start to live an extravagant life, for the both of them. 

The message that was sent from this movie is that death is better than living with a disability. Which is not at all true. When I first watched this movie, I will say I didn’t see it as that, but rewatching over and over I started to see that Will hated that he had a disability and didn’t want to live with it anymore. Which is tragic and sad, because anyone with a disability can have a wonderful and happy life just like the “normal” does. My family members with disabilities are living proof of just that, they are married and have a family. Zofia Cieslarczyk states, “ Their disability is painted as a fate worse than death, with no way to escape it” (par.4). Disability isn’t something negative but a different perspective, a different angle in life, which is something I respect deeply. The trope “Better Dead than Disabled” is something that I disagree with completely because death is not a way out, but that's how society sees it, which is disgusting. 

This narrative/trope affects disabled people's everyday lives by showing disability is an illness that must go. Having a disability doesn’t mean someone who is disabled cannot have a wonderful life, but unfortunately that is how society sees it, due to social media, movies, and just society itself. We can never understand disability because “normal” people don’t have a disability, meaning it is something new and something we cannot change, so disabled people should die, which is not all the case. 

#2 ~ One film that comes to mind is the movie Champions which shows an example of “non-disabled savior” The film is about the main character Marcus coaching at a prominent level of basketball until he receives consequences for throwing a chair at the head coach and pushing him. When he goes to court, he is told that he needs to do community service which involves coaching athletes with disabilities. At first, he has a negative response but as the film continues, we see how Marcus begins to grow as a person. This can show what we can see in the movie industry especially in Hollywood “too much exploitation and not enough of advocacy for people with disabilities via its representations within its narratives.” Instead of putting the focus on those with disabilities and sharing their experiences the films end up highlighting various aspects to raise the power of the non-disabled character. This evolves around the idea that “the normal and abnormal are false and when established and reinforced in cinema, yield a form of exploitation of the one who is portrayed as abnormal and not the one who is not.” By highlighting Marcus as the one who gets to turn his life around and displaying those with disabilities as abnormal it stands for unfairness. When I first watched Champions, it seemed like a sweet story being told about someone who turned their life around and watched to help others. Now as I am reflecting, I sense that the movie was giving a message that disabled people can only learn from those without a disability and I agree that’s how society views disabilities as well. While the movie does have positive attributes it shows a trope of “non-disabled savior” and shows how Hollywood does not truly advocate for disabled people.

2.     The first movie that comes to mind with the “disability is magically healed” is “The Little Mermaid” when Ariel made a deal with Ursula to take her voice so she can have legs. While Ariel is mute, she has difficulty walking with her new legs creating a mobility disability as well as being mute. Then she defeats Ursula to get the ability to speak back and is permanently transformed into a human with legs. The message that this sends about disability is that it is seen as bad and that you won’t be able to interact/fit in with the able-bodied people around you. I don’t think that the movie was sending this message as I first watched it but now kind of reading about the trope, I see the message. This narrative/trope can affect disabled people’s everyday life when they’re just casually going out and these able-bodied people think the disability can magically heal or that it is a bad thing to be disabled and have a lot of pity for the disabled people. Which ties into something that Hillman (2021) talked about how people with disabilities are no more or less “weird” than anyone else (para. 14). I would really like to see films start to get away from the trope of disability magically healing that way we can get an able body at the end of the film.

 

2.        The disability narrative I’ve seen in media was the “inspiration narrative”, where disabled characters are just used as a way for non-disabled people to be better people or used as a plot point not an actual valued character in the plot. I do not think it was trying to intentionally harm disabled people, but it was sending the message very clearly which makes me wonder why they did not think this through. In the article by Her campus, they describe what it sends across as a message. “Sidelining them in their own story, turning them into a tool rather than a human being.” It dehumanizes disabled characters, making them look like a prop, or something to be used as a plot device for a more important person. It hurts disabled people, thinking there will be a movie that will represent them, make them feel seen. Instead, they are thrown to the side as a plot device to further the narrative they are just “So inspiring.” It pushes the narrative that non-disabled people should use disabled people as a steppingstone.

In “Code of the Freaks” there were several of “The Ten Ableist Tropes to Jettison in 2021” referenced by Melissa Hillman’s article. One that stood out to me was the “Better Dead than Disables” or Hillman’s 6th trope, “Our Lives are Worth Living.” The with the trach in “Code of the Freaks” was an example of this one. Her parents thought because she was suffering she would be better off dead. I found it disturbing that her parents thought that and never asked for her opinion. This is a common theme in movies with disabled people like the movie the “Green Mile” where the prisoner was killed even though he didn’t realize he did something wrong. I also don’t like that the actors/actresses who play disabled people are never really disabled in real life but just want Oscars. It is nice that these movies help bring awareness about people with disabilities. I don’t like how a lot of movies in the past make it seem like people should be ashamed of their disabilities. This was referenced in “Hollywood’s Exploited Public Pedagogy, Corporate Movies and Cultural Crisis” by Benjamin Frymer, Tony Kashani, Anthony J Nocella II, and Rich Van Heertum (p. 106).

Prompt #2: Describe an example of the trope in a film or television show you have seen. What message does this send about disability? Did you think it was sending this message when you first watched it? What do you think are the ethical implications of this narrative/trope - in other words, how might this narrative/trope affect disabled people’s everyday lives or how we view disability in our society?

In the movie “Forrest Gump,” Forrest Gump, the main character, has a few disabilities. The disabilities are autism and cerebral palsy. There are several tropes in this movie. I am going to focus on what I think is the main trope in Forrest Gump, which is that he is there to inspire us. Throughout the movie despite the challenges he faces like, losing his mom and dealing with grieve of losing his friend Bubba during the Vietnam War, Forrest decides to look for the good in everyone. He also takes his promises to friends and family seriously. First, he promises his mama that he will do his best to live a good life. He also promises Bubba that he will carry out their dream to start a shrimp business. The movie makes it seem like because he has a disability it is a miracle that he can accomplish his goals in life. Every person with or without a disability can accomplish their goals.

This week’s articles really made me think about ableism. After reading these articles, I realized that actors and actresses are never played by people who have disabilities. I also do not like how they do not focus on the fact that people with disabilities are in many ways the same as people without disabilities. It seems like a lot of movies just focus on what people cannot do. When they do something that people without disabilities do it is surprising. This articles really made me think more about the negative way people with disabilities are portrayed.

The trope “better dead than disabled” that was discussed by Cieslarczyk (2020) (as well as in Code of the Freaks) and the trope of “our lives are worth living” that Hillman (2021) talks about, I could argue, go hand in hand. These tropes are what I notice a lot in films that try to show disability. The “better dead than disabled” trope is when a character with a disability feels like life is not worth living because it is too hard, painful, or limiting. Films that use this trope make it seem like death is a better choice than living with a disability. Cieslarczyk (2020) describes this trope as portraying disabled people as unable to escape suffering or ever find peace with their lives (para. 4-5). Additionally, Hillman (2021) discusses the “our lives are worth living” trope, which is often left out of films. Instead of showing disabled people having love, joy, or fun, films often focus only on negatives or things such as pain. Hillman (2021) reminds us that disabled people “live, laugh, love as much as anyone else,” but films rarely show that (para. 12). When films only use the “better dead than disabled” trope, they create stereotypes. Putting these two tropes together shows us how influential media is, and why it matters to push for more positive representations.

Describe an example of the trope in a film or television show you have seen. What message does this send about disability? Did you think it was sending this message when you first watched it? What do you think are the ethical implications of this narrative/trope - in other words, how might this narrative/trope affect disabled people's everyday lives or how we view disability in our society? 

The movie “Me Before You” is a movie that I have watched many times, and at first, I never noticed the ableist tropes it shows. The main trope in this movie is the “better dead than disabled” trope. When I first saw the movie, I thought it was just a love story with a sad ending. However, after reading Cieslarczyk (2020), I learned that many people in the disabled community were very upset about the movie. They even protested it and created a hashtag to call out the harmful message (para. 4–5). At first, I did not think the movie was sending a negative message, but looking back, it clearly does. The movie suggests that living with a disability is so terrible that death is a better choice (in the movie, Will becomes paralyzed and that switches his life upside down). This kind of representation can strongly shape how people view disability. As Kashani and Nocella (2010) explain, movies are very powerful and influential but often focus on profit rather than avoiding ableist portrayals (p. 107). A movie like this might make people assume that disabled lives are always sad or limited, which is not true. For disabled people themselves, seeing this stereotype over and over can feel harmful. Instead of showing the real experiences and meaning in disabled lives, the film reinforces negative stereotypes.

As stated in the “Ten Ableist Tropes to Jettison” article, “disability does not make us divine oracles,” yet it has been used for “thousands of years” and is “deeply enmeshed in western literature” (#7). This trope is simultaneously fascinating and strange in the sense that, while it technically does tend to elevate/heighten the senses or a particular aspect of the disabled character, the trope still perpetuates the idea that people with disabilities are not people just like everyone else. They are still being portrayed as different or “other.” Blindness is a rather common example of this trope in film, the trope utilizing this mystical/magical idea that now a character has become blind, maybe now they are suddenly clairvoyant or can see into another plane of existence or whatever other ridiculous thing. In the same article, Hillman mentions the racial intersections that often take place in this trope, citing the “‘Magical Negro,’ the ‘Magical Native American,’” and the “‘Magical Asian’” as common examples (#7). Sometimes both the disability and racial aspects of this trope are combined (a strong example being John Coffey in The Green Mile, a film discussed in the documentary Code of the Freaks). One of the ways to be able to discern whether a disabled character has been written into this awful trope aside from just being a cool character with magical powers is whether or not they have their own personal goals, “purpose, objective, or concerns other than helping an able-bodied character” (Hillman, #7). If not, then it’s ableist.

Prompt 2:

With the “Magical Cripple” trope (named by Hillman), there are actually quite a few examples that come to mind for me from shows/films I’ve watched in the past. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll just focus on one. The first example that popped into my head was the third season of American Horror Story, “Coven.” This season centers around a group of witches who are trying to maintain and preserve their coven in the modern age. One of the characters, Cordelia, played by Sarah Paulson, becomes temporarily blind partway through the season after getting acid thrown in her eyes by an unknown assailant. From what I can remember, the show barely spends any time on Cordelia actually grappling with her disability. Instead, only a scene or two after the attack takes place, she’s already adjusting to her blindness and quickly realizes that she can “see” into people’s pasts when she touches them. This immediately exposes the problem. The disability is only used as a plot device to move the story forward so that she can discover something about another character that she wouldn’t have discovered otherwise (in this case, her cheating husband). On top of this, visually, the show begins to portray her character as someone far more mystical and menacing once she’s blind, often zooming in on her all-white eyes and the burns on her face. The intention is to make her disability appear threatening, which is in stark contrast to how she was portrayed before, as much more delicate and gentle. Something else I wanted to bring up with this character is how her arc also fits into the trope of “magically healing” disability, which is written about in Zofia Cieslarczyk’s “Ableist Tropes in Movies and Shows.” Towards the end of the season, once Cordelia’s blind clairvoyant has been used up for the sake of the plot, she has one of the other witches heal her on command, basically saying that she’s ready to give up this unique ability now to continue to “protect the coven.” Cieslarczyk writes that “Having [disability] disappear works against normalizing disabilities by suggesting that the superior version of an individual is one that looks more like the majority able-bodied population.” In many ways, this also contributes to the idea that Cordelia’s disability prevents her from being able to fully take part in something larger, and the article calls attention to this as well in the show Supernatural, writing that “it implies that his disability was something that needed to be taken away in order for him to make a meaningful contribution.” This perfectly falls in line with Cordelia’s character as well.

At the time, when I was a kid, I don’t think I really realized the problems with this aspect of the show. I just thought it was a fun, spooky show with fantastical elements and I loved the fact that my mom let me watch something with as much sex and profanity as this show had (I was like twelve lol). As for how this trope affects disabled people’s everyday lives, though, it’s definitely a dangerous and tone deaf way to portray disability. In some ways, it can diminish the experience of living with a disability by “elevating” it in a fictional story, and in others, it can mark disabled people as “otherworldly,” “strange,” or “dangerous.”

The trope that I want to focus on is “better dead than disabled.” This is seen as you are better off dead, not being a person anymore, then to live with a disability. This is shining light about belief that people with disabilities are not worth a life. This is shining light about belief that people with disabilities are not even human, that that they are worthless. Having a disability is seen as fearful, it seems like the end of the world. That is what our society has constructed for so many of us. Our media and films have helped us shape this mindset.

 The article “Ableist Tropes in Movies and Shows” talks about how prevalent this trope is in films, even in modern day films. “Their disability is painted as a fate worse than death, with no way to escape it” (Zofia Cieslarczyk, 2020). In movies such as “Me Before You” and “Million Dollar Baby” depict this trop perfectly (Cieslarczyk, 2020). Both movies star a non-disabled actor, both did not have a disability at birth, and both became disabled after a tragic accident. In the end of both movies, they both opted out to end their lives despite being shown the beauty there is in the world even with a disability. This is showing how no matter what beauty the person holds (inside and out), no matter how gracious their life is, and no matter how fulfilling of social interaction your life is, it is still not worth living purely because you have a disability.

2. Describe an example of the trope in a film or television show you have seen. What message does this send about disability? Did you think it was sending this message when you first watched it? What do you think are the ethical implications of this narrative/trope - in other words, how might this narrative/trope affect disabled people's everyday lives or how we view disability in our society? 

I have seen “Me Before You” and it angered me at the end. I work with people with severe physical and medical disabilities. A lot of the residents were not born with their disability either, some are there because of tragic accidents. It sickened me seeing the ending of that movie because it made me instantly think of the residents that I work with. It then made me think about how this is how society views them, better off dead than alive. Or how society thinks that having a severe disability means death and that you should just not be alive if you do have a severe disability.

I cannot imagine it is hard going through such tragedies, there are probably so many mental health disorders that also come along with becoming severely disabled, but to not even show what recovery is like, or that mental health therapy is still a possibility is where this negative connotation arises. At least “Me Before You” showed how his caregiver made things accessible, that people with disabilities are capable of gambling; dancing; drinking; going out; etc. However, it also still followed with that stereotype that people with disabilities cannot have sex, cannot be loved, and do not want to live.

I hear all of the time how “if I ended up like them, just kill me”. But they do not know that they love life as well. That they have likes and dislikes, that they love going out, that they love interacting with people, and that they know their lives are worthy. “To be sure, “disability” is a contested terrain (Davis, 1997), given the fact that all members of the human species have limitations; abilities in some areas and disabilities in other areas” (Tony Kashani and Anthony Nocella II, 106). Once society has this as a mindset, disability would become less scary. We would then finally view all lives are worth living.

2.        One movie that demonstrates the trope “better dead than disabled” is “Million Dollar Baby.” I watched this movie last year in my UCS 101 class, and I was shocked by the ending. The movie showed this woman’s journey to becoming a boxer, facing many hardships and setbacks along the way. Toward the end, she becomes disabled after being severely injured. She tries to take her own life by biting her tongue off. Later her coach injects her with adrenaline to take her life. This movie has a very weak and inappropriate ending showing people this way to deal with having a disability. When I first saw this movie, I was not thinking about what this movie was showing but was more shocked by how horribly it ended. This narrative of being better off dead than disabled it sending out a bad message. It is showing people a way to deal with disability that is very unethical. They are almost painting it as the only option to deal with the disability, and giving that option as a sense of peace. In the article “Ableist Tropes in Movies and Shows,” Zofia Cieslarczyk makes a great point saying, “These movies push the audience to look at these cases as tragic yet understandable, inevitable even.” These movies are almost making the audience think its okay for this to happen. This kind of trope needs to stop being represented in the way it has been for a long time.

2.     The inspiration narrative often appears in films that frame disability as a lesson for others rather than an identity in itself. For example, Cieslarczyk points to “Radio,” where the character “turns him into this kind of deity, this saint-like mascot who everybody else learns life lessons from” (Cieslarczyk 2021). Instead of being central to his own story, the disabled character is used to redeem or transform those around him, which sidelines his own complexity and autonomy. The Hillman describes this as “inspiration porn,” clarifying, “We’re not here to inspire you; we’re just trying to live our lives” (Hillman 2021). By placing disabled characters on pedestals, Hollywood reinforces alienation rather than representation. Hillman identifies variations of this trope, such as “NO EXCUSES” or “SUPERCRIP,” all of which set disabled people apart as lessons for nondisabled audiences (Hillman 2021). This emphasis elevates disability into something symbolic while avoiding authentic portrayals of disabled communities. Grossberg highlights the broader ethical stakes, writing that “media has immense power in shaping how we view marginalized groups” (Grossberg 2022, p. 4). When disabled lives are reduced to inspirational tools, audiences are trained to admire but not to understand. The repetition of these portrayals creates what Grossberg calls “systematic dehumanization of disabled people” (2022, p. 3). The ethical problem is clear: the trope denies disabled people narrative agency, replacing their complexity with a spectacle that sustains ableist worldviews and continues to silence their lived experiences.

This trope puts negative view on people with disabilities because it reduces someone with a disability to an idea of threat or trauma instead of showing them as fully human. The people interview in Code of the Freaks explain how this kind of representation influences public view, suggesting that disabled people are inherently upset, angry, or out for revenge. Instead of looking into the actual facts of living with a disability, films often use disability as a lazy narrative device to create fear or tension.

A clear example of this trope is the character Raoul Silva, the villain in the James Bond film Skyfall. Silva, played by Javier Bardem, is a former MI6 agent who was betrayed and tortured, which resulted in him getting facial disfigurations. The film kind of dramatically reveals his injuries when he removes a dental prosthetic, causing some of his face to collapse. This moment is used to shock the viewers and to show how “broken” he is, both physically and emotionally. His disfigured face is his “portal” to his villainy. Silva is portrayed as unstable, obsessed with revenge, and mentally unhinged, and his physical appearance is supposed to be seen as something that supports all of that. The film infers that his trauma and injuries have transformed him into a dangerous and irrational person, once again backing up the stereotype that disability equates to mental instability or evilness.

When I first saw Skyfall, I didn’t think too deeply about what Silva’s appearance meant, I just thought of it as part of the dramatics to make the villain more scary. After watching Code of the Freaks, I realized how often films use disability this way. The lack of thought which can lead to negative mental aspects are very serious; tropes like this can lead people to associate disability with negativity, danger, or fear. It can impact how disabled people are treated in real life and be seen as objects of fear or pity, rather than complex individuals.

2.       I can’t think of many films I have seen that have a focus on disability but there is a move again based loosely on a true story called “The Three Christs” based on the actual events of The Three Christs of Yspilanti which I cannot recommend that book enough. It is a psychiatric case from 1959 where three men diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia were brought to Yspilanti in order to live and have therapy together with Doctor Milton Rokeach to see if having the three men, who all believed they were Jesus Christ, interact with one another would cause them to snap out of there condition. Unfortunately, the experiment did not work. Now the 2017 movie “The Three Christs” follows an institutionalization narrative, I think. It takes a lot of the beautiful moments and breakthroughs that these men have that show a lot of what broke them into believing they were Jesus Christ to cope with their trauma and turned it into a quest to stop the evil head doctor from doing electroconvulsive therapy on them. It also falls into the better dead then disabled trope because one of the main three jumps off the hospital roof in the movie which absolutely never happened. Through therapy the three men who had been through traumatic experiences had found a friendship and community through each other who all believed they were Jesus. There were multiple instances where they would come to the rescue of each other when needed and that was tossed away in the movie to push some weird thriller narrative. I did not have the words to describe this movie before taking this class and now having the vocabulary to call it feels nice. Knowing the original story before viewing the movie I could pinpoint the dishonesty and the disgusting nature of the changed, or “artistic liberties” that the directors took for it. Doctor Rokeach in his memoir even said that while he didn’t cure the men of their belief that they were Christ they cured him of his “God-like delusion that I could change them by omnipotently and omnisciently arranging and rearranging their daily lives within the framework of a ‘total institution’.” The doctor even admits that the able bodies miracle worker can’t be the total cure for disabled people and the movie just took it in a whole different direction that reinforces these awful tropes and misses the point entirely. It is unethical to view people with schizophrenia as if they need cured by us able bodied people and that there is no hope of comfort without inflicting pain or death. Modern medicine has given great ways to combat schizophrenia and this movie, coming out in 2017, highlights how tropes sell rather than the actual story. If you can’t tell this frustrates me. The actual story is a warning of how you cannot play God and fix people that are disabled, and there can be comfort for those that suffer from schizophrenia in a community and with each other. The movie however, says that they are helpless without our help and may be a danger to themselves or others and death might be the kind thing.

2. The trope that I am going to talk about is that of little people being described in movies as sidekicks, and sometimes they are not seen as equals. They are usually not shown to be equal to people who are taller and do not have this. disability. This narrative is seen in Snow White because in the movie, they use the term ”Dwarf”. This is now a discriminatory term to discriminate against little people. When first watching the movie, you are encouraged to see them as helpful, almost like “creatures or animal friends” as opposed to humans. They are dehumanized, but as a children's movie, you probably won't think that. People in the little people community have said these tropes are both beneficial and not. Some see it as a representation of existing, and some see it as offensive.