September 14, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode, I discuss with author Kristen Lopez about her latest book " Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies that will be released on November 13, 2025. You can learn a lot from the movies-about sex and relationships, about business, about history. Sure, there's a fair amount of fantasy, wish fulfillment, and glorious hair to exaggerate everything, but for better or for worse, films remain one of the most important ways that viewers around the world learn about other people and cultures. And almost since the dawn of the medium, movies have shaped the public's understanding of and assumptions about disability.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Bye Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
We don't forget.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Forgotten Hollywood. You'll remember Forgotten Hollywood where we came from.
Forgotten Hollwood.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcasts and
memories of yesteryear. My name is Doug Hes and if
you're tuning into Forgotten Hollywood for the first time, what
I do on this podcast is take you on a
journey back in time and share with you pieces of
Hollywood that you may or may not know about. And
in this episode, we're going to be discussing with author
Christian Lopez about her latest book, Popcorn Disabilities. The highs
(00:52):
and lows are disabled representation in the movies. Christen, Welcome
to Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, thank you, and thank you for spending some time
with us today to talk about your book, Popcorn Disabilities.
We always like to have a recap of what the
book's about in the author's own words, if you will,
so we'll start off with that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. So, the way I've been, the way I sold
the book was this is a non academic I'd like
to think it's non academic, although there is a lot
of history and stuff in it, a non academic exploration
of how disability is discussed and played up in the movies,
(01:40):
and how that is used to sell a particular version
of what disability is, and in turn, how that affects
a generation of disabled film viewers to how they feel
about themselves and hopefully intrigue non disabled audiences to look
a little bit closer at the movies they love and
why disability often looks so similar across multiple movies and
(02:05):
eras and generations.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, you know a couple of films that come directly
to mine. Daniel day Lewis powerful performance in My Left
Foot as one that comes to mind. I think that's,
in my personal opinion, is one film that is overlooked
by a lot of people because it's it's talking about struggles.
You know, it's not sexy, it's not violent things that
(02:33):
it's not an action type of film. But then, on
the other hand, something that I think did well at
the box office. I think of Dustin Hoffman and Rainman,
you know, with Tom Cruise, and so you kind of get,
in my opinion, both incredible performances and really shining in
(02:54):
a light on disability. But are ones overlooked in my opinion,
and the other one gets a little bit more praise.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, I mean, Mama Foot was was a major Oscar contender,
as as was was rain Man.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But I think that you're you're pointing out a really
interesting dichotomy that I talk about in the book, which
is how much disability is too much for an audience.
You know, audiences unfortunately have a real barrier, uh with
how much how disabled a character can be before the
audience gets uncomfortable with it. And you know, I talk
(03:31):
about it in the book. For the longest time, I
had never seen my left foot because I, you know,
knew predominantly a lot more able body people than I
did disabled people. So they had always told me, like,
don't watch it. It's really uncomfortable, it's really awkward. You
just gotta be depressed. It's it's not pleasant to watch.
That was kind of the theme that I got from everybody,
(03:52):
and I avoided it for a long time, and I
had to watch it for this project, and it I
talk about it a lot in the sense that is it,
you know, it's a movie that's uncomfortable for able bodied
people to watch, you know, and that often creates a
stigma around movies where Hollywood internalizes that as Okay, well,
(04:13):
the character can't be too disabled. You know, it has
to be an aesthetically pleasing performance and there has to
be some sort of charm factor to it. You know,
a lot of people gave tropic thunder guff for the
speech that Robert Danny Junior's character makes about how disabled
a character can be, and people got so wrapped up
(04:34):
in the language that they didn't listen to the content,
which is very true. You know, something like Rainman is
aesthetically pleasing for an audience to watch. You know, Dustin
Hoffman has quirks, but you could just say, well, that's
he's eccentric. You know, in the eighties they very much
sold him as like, we're not really having a serious
(04:55):
talk about autism in the way we are now. In
the eighties, you know, he was just a quirky, eccentric
who counts matches and wants to be home by the
time Wapner's on. The audience is charmed by that, and
they ignore a lot of the real issues with that movie.
Rewatching it for the book, I was like, this is
a story about a man who kidnaps another man and
(05:18):
then tries to use him as a bargaining chip for money.
But you know, story of brothers. So I think that
what's fascinating is that time has really I mean now,
you know, of course Daniel da Lewis is the goat.
You know, we talk about him being one of the
greatest actors of all time. But I don't think people
really my left foot of it all.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I think it's boiled down into proof that if you
play disabled you win an award, which yes and no.
But I think people ignore the content of My left Foot,
which is it's a really sharp story that tries to
eschew a lot of the stereotypes in that it's a
story of a guy that's kind of a shit like.
(06:01):
He's not a perfect saintly dude. He's got a lot
of problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with his disability.
He has a childhood that is not filled with bullying
and resentment from his friends and family. He's just integrated
into the community. It really tries to kind of wipe
away those issues. But that's not, like you mentioned, that's
(06:24):
not sexy, that's not funny, that's not quirky, that's not charming.
You know, it's easier for us to all do Dustin
Hoffman impressions like that's cooler. So it's fascinating which films
kind of withstand the test of time and which don't
when it comes to disability based on how fun they are.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, no, and I couldn't agree with you more. When
it comes to Daniel day Lewis. I mean, like you said,
he is the goat. Three time Academy Award winner. It's
kind of hard to argue with that, and he is
a great And I didn't mean earlier that the film
was overlooked. It was just I mean, yeah, performance was
brilliant in terms of that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I mean most people. I will not say that
My Left Foot is a perfect movie. I mean I
think none of the movies I talk about are perfect,
you know in that sense. I mean Daniel day Lewis.
I praise him for not breaking character. You know, he
lived in that wheelchair the entire time they filmed. He
really did, you know, get to see the ecotomy and
(07:30):
how people are treated. But he also went like full
method to the point where people want to physically lift him.
And I think when you're you know, forcing other people
to have to, you know, kind of put in their
own physical exertion for a part now, and then you're
kind of flirting with like is it excessive?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, crossing that line in terms of that, you know.
And I thought you brought up another great point the
eighties versus today twenty twenty five. We got to weigh
with a lot more in the eighties than we would today.
And I thought that was a pretty important point that
you brought up there, that you know, in the eighties
(08:09):
and forgive me, I think sometimes we flirted with mocking
individuals with disabilities, where today in twenty twenty five, or
even in the two thousands, that that's a no no,
and got a lot of people in trouble.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, it's interesting, you know, and I don't not to
get political about our current world worldview, but you know,
we're slowly starting to revert back. You know, there's a
lot of laws on the books that are being dismantled.
There's a lot of talk about whether the ADA is
going to exist in the next couple of years as
it stands, which is already a flawed piece of legislation.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I remember reading an article after the election about how
people were really excited that they could use the R
word again, you know, and I was like that, that's
what we're happy about. Like, so, I feel like we're
really kind of going back to that time period. But
it's fascinating because you know, you look at a pre
Ada world, pre pre and the Eightya starts to become
(09:09):
a thing in the nineteen eighties and Reagan starts making
more of a thing of it, and in the nineteen seventies,
you know, yeah, you got a lot of the history
and the politicalization of disability has always been questionable and
bad and has very real waves. But by the nineteen seventies,
you know, disabled people were not in freak shows anymore,
(09:31):
and we also kind of moved away from the depiction
of the institution. We didn't really and when we talked
about disabled characters, they were still more like sad saints,
you know. They were kind hearted, sickly type of characters.
You know, you think of I use Heidi, Clara and
Heidi as a great example. In the nineteen forties and
(09:51):
into you know, the nineteen fifties, it kind of stayed
very similar. Vietnam happens, and that kind of changes everything,
and you start to get a lot of a couple
movies about Vietnam vets coming back home, and a lot
of them were severely disabled. And it's a contrast from
veterans who are disabled in the nineteen forties, where it's
(10:13):
about showing perseverance and community. And there's always a community
of vets in nineteen forties World War Two movies. By
the nineteen seventies, that is very fractured. And you know,
Coming Home is the big example that I use, which
is which is one of the best disabled films. I
love it, it's so great, But that movie emphasizes the
(10:34):
fact that, you know, the hospital system is broken. There's
a lot of anger and a lot of animosity, and
these disabled vets are kind of dumped on the street
and said, we'll go back to your life. Doesn't really
matter that you're in a wheelchair now and you probably
can't access your house, but just figure it out. You'll
be fine. And Coming Home does a real great job
of selling a character who is a wheelchair user and
(10:59):
navigates that world kind of fluently, you know, more more
capable than the able bodied people. You know, he drives
a great cool car, he has an apartment, you know,
he has his stuff together and he does navigate a
world that is not physically accessible for him. There's a
lot of scenes in Coming Home where you see John
Voyd's character climbing over stairs and even a police station
(11:21):
has a stare that he has to kind of wheeling
off of at a certain point. Then the ADA passes
and everything kind of changes because we believe that with
the ADA we have solved all the problems that the
disabled have. So you get Born on the fourth of July,
which I think passes, which comes out right around the
same time, a few months after the ADA passes, and
(11:44):
it's a very different depiction of disability, of the sense
that Oliver Stone, you know, went to war. He's saying
the hospital system is totally eft. You know, everybody's complaining.
There's a lot of anger, and at the same time,
you know his character, ron Kovic is still kind of
(12:05):
sold as this character that was positioned to be the
embodiment of JFK. I mean, it's really heavy handed and
has to figure out what patriotism means. But you don't
really see him necessarily have issues with moving in society.
A lot of his issues are like he's a sad
virgin you know, like, how does he handle that? By
(12:27):
the time you get to Forrest Gump, that's a post
eighty A world and so you're getting a very sanitized,
rose colored glasses view of Vietnam. And you can always
tell a post ADA film from a pre Ada film
because there are situations in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan
he's walking through the wheeling through the streets of New
(12:48):
York City and it is completely accessible. There's curb cuts everywhere.
There's a scene where he slides down a ramp and
it's supposed to be comical, and I was just like,
that's a lie. We all know that would have been
like twenty stairs. He wouldn't have even been up there.
So there's a lot of changes to set design to
sell this idea that in the past we were great
(13:10):
with disabled people. It's just they were angry about their
lot in life. So it's really intriguing how with the
passage of the Ada, not only is there kind of
this ret conning of history, but you start to see
once you once you know people notice it, you start
to see how film starts to eliminate kind of barriers
(13:33):
that would have existed, and says like the world is
equal now everything has been solved.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, no, no, I think you make some excellent points there.
One film that kind of keeps coming to my mind
as we're talking here is I think it was what
seventy nine eighty, The Elephant Man when it was released,
controversial in today when it came out. Talk maybe just
(14:04):
a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, so The Elephant Man, you know, I hated I
hated having to write my the research and write about
it because David Lynch just died by the time I
was kind of finishing it up. So I felt I
felt like that person being like, well, actually, you know,
The Elephant Man. I mean, it's a it's a superb film.
It's a superb film. It's a it's a great performance
(14:26):
by John Hurt that you know, Oscar Oscar nominated. The
makeup is fantastic. Yeah, but you have to you know,
for me, it was very much that Lynch also is
selling a narrative, you know, which you get a lot
of them in movies where they're based on true stories.
(14:46):
You know, it's based on a true story. You can't
complain this really happened, you know. But the problem with
The Elephant Man is who's telling the story, which you know,
he's basing a lot of this the script off of
Frederick Treves's notes and his diaries and what he had
written at the time. And you know, he had his
own reasons for writing this book. He made a healthy
(15:07):
prophet off of peddling John Merrick's story around. He waited
a very long time to write his book on Merrick
and waited till a time when it was hospitable for
him to talk about things. You know, he goes really
in depth on like Merrick's genitalia and all of that.
(15:27):
So he very much was was some might say manipulatives,
some might say a master showman when the story that
he was selling. And you know, Merrick in the movie
is very much an old school, saintly disabled character. You know,
he's so grateful for everything. You know, he just wants
to build his little house, and he gets thanked at
(15:50):
the opera and a hot woman says he's a nice guy.
You know, like those are the things that he wants.
But at the end of the day, there's still a barrier.
You know, he feels that there is still a barrier
between him and society because of how he looks and
I was like, for all of the ways that the
movie I think does does right by him, it does
(16:11):
just as much wrong. You know, Hurt's performance was so old,
kind of the same way that lun Cheney Sr. Had
sold his performances playing disabled characters. He suffered for his art.
He wore a lot of uncomfortable prosthetics and makeup for
a long time, you know, and he didn't suffer for
the character. He suffered for playing that character.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The fact that the movie is called The Elephant Man,
which is supposedly based on this theory that his mother
got scared by an elephant when she was pregnant with him,
not true. Merritt's mother actually lived well into his teenage years,
so he had a very close relationship with her that
is not in the movie. I think the biggest thing though, is,
(16:53):
you know, John Merrick wasn't even his name, you know,
he had a different name, which the movie. You know,
even though Trueves is supposed to be his best friend, like,
he still doesn't call him by his real name. So
it's very much of a savior, you know, a white
savior element. And even though Treves in the movie questions
(17:13):
his role, like have I actually made his life worse.
The movie would like to remind you, like, no, actually
they're a team. It's great, And I think the biggest
shock to me because I didn't really know a lot
of backstory about Merrick and the Elephant Man, I found
out after the fact that when John Merrick died, Treves
(17:35):
pretty much vivisected him after his death and kept parts
of his body, did not bury him at all. You know,
they think there might that John Merrick might have had
some religious interest, might have wanted to be buried. No,
we don't know that because he wasn't buried, and essentially
they kept his skeleton in the hospital where Treves was
(17:59):
teaching four decades on public display until recently. I think, like,
you know, fifteen years or so when they finally put
it in the basement. I'm assuming because they didn't want
people to ask why they had the skeleton of a
disabled man who might not have wanted to be put
on public display. So it's definitely a situation where I'm like,
(18:23):
the movie's great, but once you start looking at the history,
you have to question, like, what is the movie actually
trying to make us accept?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Absolutely, I know we're getting closer on Time, But you
said Coming Home was a film that you think is
one of the best out there. What are maybe a
couple others that you would suggest for our listeners to watch.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, you know, I think if you're looking for a
classic era, you know, Best Years of Our Lives is
a really great one with Harold Russell, actual disabled actor
who has a somewhat sad story, but one two oscars
for playing a very great portrayal of a disabled character.
The horror genre, I think is very hospitable to disability
(19:10):
and is doing a lot of really interesting things. Last year,
Aaron Schimberg put out the film A Different Man with
Sebastian stan and Adam Pearson that I think, you know,
if you ever want to talk about like microaggressions and
ableism and what that looks like, definitely watch it because
I think it's one of the most biting explorations of
disability and kind of sending up narratives like the Elephant Man.
(19:33):
It's It's really good. It was one of my favorite
movies last year. I absolutely love it, and I also
would say, weirdly enough, Don Mancini's latter two Chucky films,
which star Fionadorff, as a disabled female final girl. She
is not a disabled actress, yes, but I think that,
(19:54):
you know, the performance is so interesting in how it
portrays a sexual woman and and a woman who is
a wheelchair user, and it gets a lot of stuff right.
So I definitely recommend those.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh that's great. And then one last question and then
we'll let you go. Did anything surprise you during the
writing and the research of this book.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think a lot of what surprised me was my
reaction to things. You know, I started I get kind
of personal in the book, talking about my own experiences
watching these movies and growing up as as the lone
disabled person in my family. And you know, for me,
writing the chapter about mental disabilities was difficult because so
(20:38):
much of what I had been told about a lot
of the movies I watched was don't watch them, they're
they're terrible. And I started to realize as I was
watching some of them, I mean, some of these movies
are not good. I am sam is not a good movie.
But as I was watching them, I started to realize that,
you know, much of my discomfort had been fueled by
(20:59):
outside perspectivetives and my own internalized ableism. You know, so,
you know, watching Juliette Lewis play you know, a mentally
disabled character and the other sister. You know, yeah, it
takes some getting used to, and yes, you know it's
a performance. But at the same time, you know, the
content of the movie is really fascinating, and I think
it's it's definitely a different way into showing the realities
(21:23):
of being a person with a mental disability. And I
ended up, you know, liking the film. So I think
for me, what surprised me was like, oh, I've kind
of let my own kind of hatred of myself and
my own disability fuel a lot of how I look at,
you know, disability in the movies and movies that I've
(21:43):
avoided that I probably shouldn't have, you know, I'm part
of the problem. So that was I think really surprising
to kind of reconcile.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
With excellent Well, Christian, thank you so much for coming
on spending a few minutes with us today. To our audience,
please go and get a copy of the book Popcorn
Disability the highs and lows of disabled representation in the movies.
You're not going to be disappointed. We just touched the
highlights or the tip of the icebergs.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
As I like this, we should mention it's in pre
order right now. It comes out November.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Thirteenth, so no, that's a great point, but it'll be
here before we know it. In terms of that, so
please go out and pre order your copy, or if
you're listening to this in late November early December, go
out and purchase a copy of the book. But you're
not going to be like I said, we just hit
the touch tip of the iceberg. Well, thank you for
(22:39):
listening to this episode of forgott in Hollywood. You search
for ded caster Forgot in Hollywood. You can also find
me on Twitter, Instagram at hes dog fourteen. If you
listen to this podcast on iTunes another podcast service, please subscribe, rate,
review this episode, tune in next week or yeah for
the latest episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for listening
and we will see you then.
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Bye Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
We don't forget.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Forgotten Hollywood. You'll remember Forgotten Hollywood where we came from.
Forgotten Hollwood.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcasts and
memories of yesteryear. My name is Doug Hes and if
you're tuning into Forgotten Hollywood for the first time, what
I do on this podcast is take you on a
journey back in time and share with you pieces of
Hollywood that you may or may not know about. And
in this episode, we're going to be discussing with author
Christian Lopez about her latest book, Popcorn Disabilities. The highs
(00:52):
and lows are disabled representation in the movies. Christen, Welcome
to Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, thank you, and thank you for spending some time
with us today to talk about your book, Popcorn Disabilities.
We always like to have a recap of what the
book's about in the author's own words, if you will,
so we'll start off with that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. So, the way I've been, the way I sold
the book was this is a non academic I'd like
to think it's non academic, although there is a lot
of history and stuff in it, a non academic exploration
of how disability is discussed and played up in the movies,
(01:40):
and how that is used to sell a particular version
of what disability is, and in turn, how that affects
a generation of disabled film viewers to how they feel
about themselves and hopefully intrigue non disabled audiences to look
a little bit closer at the movies they love and
why disability often looks so similar across multiple movies and
(02:05):
eras and generations.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, you know a couple of films that come directly
to mine. Daniel day Lewis powerful performance in My Left
Foot as one that comes to mind. I think that's,
in my personal opinion, is one film that is overlooked
by a lot of people because it's it's talking about struggles.
You know, it's not sexy, it's not violent things that
(02:33):
it's not an action type of film. But then, on
the other hand, something that I think did well at
the box office. I think of Dustin Hoffman and Rainman,
you know, with Tom Cruise, and so you kind of get,
in my opinion, both incredible performances and really shining in
(02:54):
a light on disability. But are ones overlooked in my opinion,
and the other one gets a little bit more praise.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, I mean, Mama Foot was was a major Oscar contender,
as as was was rain Man.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But I think that you're you're pointing out a really
interesting dichotomy that I talk about in the book, which
is how much disability is too much for an audience.
You know, audiences unfortunately have a real barrier, uh with
how much how disabled a character can be before the
audience gets uncomfortable with it. And you know, I talk
(03:31):
about it in the book. For the longest time, I
had never seen my left foot because I, you know,
knew predominantly a lot more able body people than I
did disabled people. So they had always told me, like,
don't watch it. It's really uncomfortable, it's really awkward. You
just gotta be depressed. It's it's not pleasant to watch.
That was kind of the theme that I got from everybody,
(03:52):
and I avoided it for a long time, and I
had to watch it for this project, and it I
talk about it a lot in the sense that is it,
you know, it's a movie that's uncomfortable for able bodied
people to watch, you know, and that often creates a
stigma around movies where Hollywood internalizes that as Okay, well,
(04:13):
the character can't be too disabled. You know, it has
to be an aesthetically pleasing performance and there has to
be some sort of charm factor to it. You know,
a lot of people gave tropic thunder guff for the
speech that Robert Danny Junior's character makes about how disabled
a character can be, and people got so wrapped up
(04:34):
in the language that they didn't listen to the content,
which is very true. You know, something like Rainman is
aesthetically pleasing for an audience to watch. You know, Dustin
Hoffman has quirks, but you could just say, well, that's
he's eccentric. You know, in the eighties they very much
sold him as like, we're not really having a serious
(04:55):
talk about autism in the way we are now. In
the eighties, you know, he was just a quirky, eccentric
who counts matches and wants to be home by the
time Wapner's on. The audience is charmed by that, and
they ignore a lot of the real issues with that movie.
Rewatching it for the book, I was like, this is
a story about a man who kidnaps another man and
(05:18):
then tries to use him as a bargaining chip for money.
But you know, story of brothers. So I think that
what's fascinating is that time has really I mean now,
you know, of course Daniel da Lewis is the goat.
You know, we talk about him being one of the
greatest actors of all time. But I don't think people
really my left foot of it all.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I think it's boiled down into proof that if you
play disabled you win an award, which yes and no.
But I think people ignore the content of My left Foot,
which is it's a really sharp story that tries to
eschew a lot of the stereotypes in that it's a
story of a guy that's kind of a shit like.
(06:01):
He's not a perfect saintly dude. He's got a lot
of problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with his disability.
He has a childhood that is not filled with bullying
and resentment from his friends and family. He's just integrated
into the community. It really tries to kind of wipe
away those issues. But that's not, like you mentioned, that's
(06:24):
not sexy, that's not funny, that's not quirky, that's not charming.
You know, it's easier for us to all do Dustin
Hoffman impressions like that's cooler. So it's fascinating which films
kind of withstand the test of time and which don't
when it comes to disability based on how fun they are.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, no, and I couldn't agree with you more. When
it comes to Daniel day Lewis. I mean, like you said,
he is the goat. Three time Academy Award winner. It's
kind of hard to argue with that, and he is
a great And I didn't mean earlier that the film
was overlooked. It was just I mean, yeah, performance was
brilliant in terms of that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I mean most people. I will not say that
My Left Foot is a perfect movie. I mean I
think none of the movies I talk about are perfect,
you know in that sense. I mean Daniel day Lewis.
I praise him for not breaking character. You know, he
lived in that wheelchair the entire time they filmed. He
really did, you know, get to see the ecotomy and
(07:30):
how people are treated. But he also went like full
method to the point where people want to physically lift him.
And I think when you're you know, forcing other people
to have to, you know, kind of put in their
own physical exertion for a part now, and then you're
kind of flirting with like is it excessive?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, crossing that line in terms of that, you know.
And I thought you brought up another great point the
eighties versus today twenty twenty five. We got to weigh
with a lot more in the eighties than we would today.
And I thought that was a pretty important point that
you brought up there, that you know, in the eighties
(08:09):
and forgive me, I think sometimes we flirted with mocking
individuals with disabilities, where today in twenty twenty five, or
even in the two thousands, that that's a no no,
and got a lot of people in trouble.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, it's interesting, you know, and I don't not to
get political about our current world worldview, but you know,
we're slowly starting to revert back. You know, there's a
lot of laws on the books that are being dismantled.
There's a lot of talk about whether the ADA is
going to exist in the next couple of years as
it stands, which is already a flawed piece of legislation.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I remember reading an article after the election about how
people were really excited that they could use the R
word again, you know, and I was like that, that's
what we're happy about. Like, so, I feel like we're
really kind of going back to that time period. But
it's fascinating because you know, you look at a pre
Ada world, pre pre and the Eightya starts to become
(09:09):
a thing in the nineteen eighties and Reagan starts making
more of a thing of it, and in the nineteen seventies,
you know, yeah, you got a lot of the history
and the politicalization of disability has always been questionable and
bad and has very real waves. But by the nineteen seventies,
you know, disabled people were not in freak shows anymore,
(09:31):
and we also kind of moved away from the depiction
of the institution. We didn't really and when we talked
about disabled characters, they were still more like sad saints,
you know. They were kind hearted, sickly type of characters.
You know, you think of I use Heidi, Clara and
Heidi as a great example. In the nineteen forties and
(09:51):
into you know, the nineteen fifties, it kind of stayed
very similar. Vietnam happens, and that kind of changes everything,
and you start to get a lot of a couple
movies about Vietnam vets coming back home, and a lot
of them were severely disabled. And it's a contrast from
veterans who are disabled in the nineteen forties, where it's
(10:13):
about showing perseverance and community. And there's always a community
of vets in nineteen forties World War Two movies. By
the nineteen seventies, that is very fractured. And you know,
Coming Home is the big example that I use, which
is which is one of the best disabled films. I
love it, it's so great, But that movie emphasizes the
(10:34):
fact that, you know, the hospital system is broken. There's
a lot of anger and a lot of animosity, and
these disabled vets are kind of dumped on the street
and said, we'll go back to your life. Doesn't really
matter that you're in a wheelchair now and you probably
can't access your house, but just figure it out. You'll
be fine. And Coming Home does a real great job
of selling a character who is a wheelchair user and
(10:59):
navigates that world kind of fluently, you know, more more
capable than the able bodied people. You know, he drives
a great cool car, he has an apartment, you know,
he has his stuff together and he does navigate a
world that is not physically accessible for him. There's a
lot of scenes in Coming Home where you see John
Voyd's character climbing over stairs and even a police station
(11:21):
has a stare that he has to kind of wheeling
off of at a certain point. Then the ADA passes
and everything kind of changes because we believe that with
the ADA we have solved all the problems that the
disabled have. So you get Born on the fourth of July,
which I think passes, which comes out right around the
same time, a few months after the ADA passes, and
(11:44):
it's a very different depiction of disability, of the sense
that Oliver Stone, you know, went to war. He's saying
the hospital system is totally eft. You know, everybody's complaining.
There's a lot of anger, and at the same time,
you know his character, ron Kovic is still kind of
(12:05):
sold as this character that was positioned to be the
embodiment of JFK. I mean, it's really heavy handed and
has to figure out what patriotism means. But you don't
really see him necessarily have issues with moving in society.
A lot of his issues are like he's a sad
virgin you know, like, how does he handle that? By
(12:27):
the time you get to Forrest Gump, that's a post
eighty A world and so you're getting a very sanitized,
rose colored glasses view of Vietnam. And you can always
tell a post ADA film from a pre Ada film
because there are situations in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan
he's walking through the wheeling through the streets of New
(12:48):
York City and it is completely accessible. There's curb cuts everywhere.
There's a scene where he slides down a ramp and
it's supposed to be comical, and I was just like,
that's a lie. We all know that would have been
like twenty stairs. He wouldn't have even been up there.
So there's a lot of changes to set design to
sell this idea that in the past we were great
(13:10):
with disabled people. It's just they were angry about their
lot in life. So it's really intriguing how with the
passage of the Ada, not only is there kind of
this ret conning of history, but you start to see
once you once you know people notice it, you start
to see how film starts to eliminate kind of barriers
(13:33):
that would have existed, and says like the world is
equal now everything has been solved.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, no, no, I think you make some excellent points there.
One film that kind of keeps coming to my mind
as we're talking here is I think it was what
seventy nine eighty, The Elephant Man when it was released,
controversial in today when it came out. Talk maybe just
(14:04):
a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, so The Elephant Man, you know, I hated I
hated having to write my the research and write about
it because David Lynch just died by the time I
was kind of finishing it up. So I felt I
felt like that person being like, well, actually, you know,
The Elephant Man. I mean, it's a it's a superb film.
It's a superb film. It's a it's a great performance
(14:26):
by John Hurt that you know, Oscar Oscar nominated. The
makeup is fantastic. Yeah, but you have to you know,
for me, it was very much that Lynch also is
selling a narrative, you know, which you get a lot
of them in movies where they're based on true stories.
(14:46):
You know, it's based on a true story. You can't
complain this really happened, you know. But the problem with
The Elephant Man is who's telling the story, which you know,
he's basing a lot of this the script off of
Frederick Treves's notes and his diaries and what he had
written at the time. And you know, he had his
own reasons for writing this book. He made a healthy
(15:07):
prophet off of peddling John Merrick's story around. He waited
a very long time to write his book on Merrick
and waited till a time when it was hospitable for
him to talk about things. You know, he goes really
in depth on like Merrick's genitalia and all of that.
(15:27):
So he very much was was some might say manipulatives,
some might say a master showman when the story that
he was selling. And you know, Merrick in the movie
is very much an old school, saintly disabled character. You know,
he's so grateful for everything. You know, he just wants
to build his little house, and he gets thanked at
(15:50):
the opera and a hot woman says he's a nice guy.
You know, like those are the things that he wants.
But at the end of the day, there's still a barrier.
You know, he feels that there is still a barrier
between him and society because of how he looks and
I was like, for all of the ways that the
movie I think does does right by him, it does
(16:11):
just as much wrong. You know, Hurt's performance was so old,
kind of the same way that lun Cheney Sr. Had
sold his performances playing disabled characters. He suffered for his art.
He wore a lot of uncomfortable prosthetics and makeup for
a long time, you know, and he didn't suffer for
the character. He suffered for playing that character.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The fact that the movie is called The Elephant Man,
which is supposedly based on this theory that his mother
got scared by an elephant when she was pregnant with him,
not true. Merritt's mother actually lived well into his teenage years,
so he had a very close relationship with her that
is not in the movie. I think the biggest thing though, is,
(16:53):
you know, John Merrick wasn't even his name, you know,
he had a different name, which the movie. You know,
even though Trueves is supposed to be his best friend, like,
he still doesn't call him by his real name. So
it's very much of a savior, you know, a white
savior element. And even though Treves in the movie questions
(17:13):
his role, like have I actually made his life worse.
The movie would like to remind you, like, no, actually
they're a team. It's great, And I think the biggest
shock to me because I didn't really know a lot
of backstory about Merrick and the Elephant Man, I found
out after the fact that when John Merrick died, Treves
(17:35):
pretty much vivisected him after his death and kept parts
of his body, did not bury him at all. You know,
they think there might that John Merrick might have had
some religious interest, might have wanted to be buried. No,
we don't know that because he wasn't buried, and essentially
they kept his skeleton in the hospital where Treves was
(17:59):
teaching four decades on public display until recently. I think, like,
you know, fifteen years or so when they finally put
it in the basement. I'm assuming because they didn't want
people to ask why they had the skeleton of a
disabled man who might not have wanted to be put
on public display. So it's definitely a situation where I'm like,
(18:23):
the movie's great, but once you start looking at the history,
you have to question, like, what is the movie actually
trying to make us accept?
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Absolutely, I know we're getting closer on Time, But you
said Coming Home was a film that you think is
one of the best out there. What are maybe a
couple others that you would suggest for our listeners to watch.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, you know, I think if you're looking for a
classic era, you know, Best Years of Our Lives is
a really great one with Harold Russell, actual disabled actor
who has a somewhat sad story, but one two oscars
for playing a very great portrayal of a disabled character.
The horror genre, I think is very hospitable to disability
(19:10):
and is doing a lot of really interesting things. Last year,
Aaron Schimberg put out the film A Different Man with
Sebastian stan and Adam Pearson that I think, you know,
if you ever want to talk about like microaggressions and
ableism and what that looks like, definitely watch it because
I think it's one of the most biting explorations of
disability and kind of sending up narratives like the Elephant Man.
(19:33):
It's It's really good. It was one of my favorite
movies last year. I absolutely love it, and I also
would say, weirdly enough, Don Mancini's latter two Chucky films,
which star Fionadorff, as a disabled female final girl. She
is not a disabled actress, yes, but I think that,
(19:54):
you know, the performance is so interesting in how it
portrays a sexual woman and and a woman who is
a wheelchair user, and it gets a lot of stuff right.
So I definitely recommend those.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh that's great. And then one last question and then
we'll let you go. Did anything surprise you during the
writing and the research of this book.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I think a lot of what surprised me was my
reaction to things. You know, I started I get kind
of personal in the book, talking about my own experiences
watching these movies and growing up as as the lone
disabled person in my family. And you know, for me,
writing the chapter about mental disabilities was difficult because so
(20:38):
much of what I had been told about a lot
of the movies I watched was don't watch them, they're
they're terrible. And I started to realize as I was
watching some of them, I mean, some of these movies
are not good. I am sam is not a good movie.
But as I was watching them, I started to realize that,
you know, much of my discomfort had been fueled by
(20:59):
outside perspectivetives and my own internalized ableism. You know, so,
you know, watching Juliette Lewis play you know, a mentally
disabled character and the other sister. You know, yeah, it
takes some getting used to, and yes, you know it's
a performance. But at the same time, you know, the
content of the movie is really fascinating, and I think
it's it's definitely a different way into showing the realities
(21:23):
of being a person with a mental disability. And I
ended up, you know, liking the film. So I think
for me, what surprised me was like, oh, I've kind
of let my own kind of hatred of myself and
my own disability fuel a lot of how I look at,
you know, disability in the movies and movies that I've
(21:43):
avoided that I probably shouldn't have, you know, I'm part
of the problem. So that was I think really surprising
to kind of reconcile.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
With excellent Well, Christian, thank you so much for coming
on spending a few minutes with us today. To our audience,
please go and get a copy of the book Popcorn
Disability the highs and lows of disabled representation in the movies.
You're not going to be disappointed. We just touched the
highlights or the tip of the icebergs.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
As I like this, we should mention it's in pre
order right now. It comes out November.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Thirteenth, so no, that's a great point, but it'll be
here before we know it. In terms of that, so
please go out and pre order your copy, or if
you're listening to this in late November early December, go
out and purchase a copy of the book. But you're
not going to be like I said, we just hit
the touch tip of the iceberg. Well, thank you for
(22:39):
listening to this episode of forgott in Hollywood. You search
for ded caster Forgot in Hollywood. You can also find
me on Twitter, Instagram at hes dog fourteen. If you
listen to this podcast on iTunes another podcast service, please subscribe, rate,
review this episode, tune in next week or yeah for
the latest episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for listening
and we will see you then.
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