7/29/2014 Disability Is Not Just a Metaphor - Christopher Shinn - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/why-disabled-characters-are-never-played-by-disabled-actors/374822/ 1/5
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CHRISTOPHER SHINN JUL 23 2014, 7:31 AM ET
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Freaks are having a moment.
The Kennedy Center's acclaimed production of SideShow, about conjoined
sisters at the circus, is rumored to be mulling a move to Broadway. The next
season of AmericanHorrorStory will, similarly, be about a freak show. And in
recent months there has been a proliferation of representations of disability on
stage and screen. Consider just the most popular:
The heartthrob amputee (Ansel Elgort) at the center of a teenage
love story in the smash movie TheFaultinOurStars
The correctional officer with an amputation (Matt McGorry) in love with
a prisoner in the Netflix hitOrangeIstheNewBlack
DisabilityIsNotJustaMetaphor
The entertainment industry loves disabled charactersbut not disabled actors.
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Able-bodied actors playing disabled characters like Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot may reassure
audiences, but undercuts the power of stories about disability. (Miramax Films)
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7/29/2014 Disability Is Not Just a Metaphor - Christopher Shinn - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/why-disabled-characters-are-never-played-by-disabled-actors/374822/ 2/5
We are not witnessing
the actual pain and
struggle of real disabled
human beings; it is all
make believe.
A woman with a disfiguring facial scar (Sutton Foster) on a journey to be
healed in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Violet
TheCrippleofInishman(Daniel Radcliffe) in the acclaimed Broadway
play of the same name
What do all these characters have in common? They are played by actors who
are not disabled in real life.
Its not hard to understand why: Financial realities necessitate stars in leading
roles, and there aren't many disabled actors who are big box-office draws. But
even allowing that fact, something strange is going on. The entertainment world
keeps producing stories about disabled people, yet almost never casts disabled
performers at allwhether in major or minor roles, playing disabled or able-
bodied characters. Counterexamples, like RJ Mitte in BreakingBad or Jamie
Brewer in the first and third seasons of AmericanHorrorStory, are rare.
According to advocacy group Alliance for Inclusion
in the Arts, 2200 actors are self-identified as
persons with disabilities with Actors Access, a
well-known national casting service. Without
many opportunities, these performers often find it
hard to build the resumes that will get them steady
work. "Playing disability is a considered
a technical skill for an actor, and casting directors
and producers prefer to seek non-disabled actors
with long track records," says Howard Sherman, director of the Alliance. But as
disabled performers become more vocal, there is hope they'll become more
visible too.
As a playwright who underwent a below-the-knee amputation at age 38 during
treatment for Ewing's sarcoma, I have lived as both an able-bodied and disabled
person and artist. I understand that casting entails more than a search for
diversity. But Ive also come to believe that leaving out actual disabled people
undercuts the power of works ostensibly about disability.
The late, disabled playwright John Belluso had a theory about why actors who
play disabled characters often win Oscars: It is reassuring for the audience to
see an actor like Daniel Day Lewis, after so convincingly portraying disability in
MyLeftFoot, get up from his seat in the auditorium and walk to the stage to
accept his award. There is a collective "Phew" as people see it was all an
illusion. Societys fear and loathing around disability, it seems, can be magically
transcended.
This same logic can be applied to any representation of disability by an able-
bodied actor. A lot of teenagers going to see TheFaultInOurStars already
knows Ansel Elgort has two full legs. Broadway audiences know from having
seen them previously that Sutton Foster bears no facial scarring and Daniel
Radcliffe has no physical limitations. It is obvious the conjoined sisters in Side
Show are two fully separate women, and even the convincing CGI amputation in
OrangeIstheNewBlack strikes our eye in a slightly false way.
This is not incidental but central to the success of these representations. They
provide us with the comforting assurance that we are not witnessing the actual
pain and struggle of real disabled human beings; it is all make believe.
Able-bodied actors can listen to the disabled, can do research, can use
imagination and empathy to create believable characters. But they can't draw
on their direct experience. That means that audiences will be able to "enjoy"
them without really confronting disability's deepest implications for human
life.
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7/29/2014 Disability Is Not Just a Metaphor - Christopher Shinn - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/why-disabled-characters-are-never-played-by-disabled-actors/374822/ 3/5
Able-bodied actors can
do research. But they
can't draw on direct
experience.
Often, one fears, thats the point: Pop cultures
more interested in disability as a metaphor than in
disability as something that happens to real
people. For example, in his review of SideShow,
NewYorkTimes theater critic Charles Isherwood
wrote, "Of course, in some sense, we all know what
its like to feel self-divided, or alienated from the
world, which is what makes 'Side Show' emotionally stirring." Disabled
characters are often seen as symbolizing the triumph of the human spirit, or the
freakishness we all feel inside. That may be another reason disabled actors are
overlookedthey don't allow disability-as-metaphor to flourish as easily.
I may not have been much bothered by any of this until my own disability
asserted itself. But now I know that the physical pain and challenges that
come in the wake of disability, alongside the insensitivity and lack
of understanding one encounters, are profound experiences that cannot be truly
known until they are endured. Perhaps the worst feeling is when people avert
their eyes. Even someone gawking is better than their looking away.
But the exclusion of disabled performers allows people to simultaneously gawk
and look away. The actor walking on stage to receive an award for playing a
man who can't walk, the physically robust PR photo-ops of the actor
portraying a disabled character, the curtain call where the actor sheds her
disability for our applausethey enable the lie of representation. The real
freaks are somewhere else, still waiting for their own show.
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CHRISTOPHER SHINN
Christopher Shinn is the head of playwriting at the New School for Drama. His most recent play
is Teddy Ferrara, and his Dying City was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
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7/29/2014 Disability Is Not Just a Metaphor - Christopher Shinn - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/why-disabled-characters-are-never-played-by-disabled-actors/374822/ 4/5
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7/29/2014 Disability Is Not Just a Metaphor - Christopher Shinn - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/why-disabled-characters-are-never-played-by-disabled-actors/374822/ 5/5

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