Glee casting a sad case of missed opportunities
October 31, 2009
Helen Henderson
So the guy who plays Artie Abrams can walk.
I suspected it right from the beginning.
The geeky guitarist in the wheelchair on this season's new prime-time comedy Glee is played by Kevin McHale, who not only walks, he started his career singing and dancing as a member of the boy band NLT. (That's "Not Like Them," in case you were wondering.)
In fact, McHale is just like them, in at least one important sense. Just another example of a long line of actors without disabilities appropriating the roles of people who are disabled.
So what? Every performance by every actor is, by definition, an appropriation of a character. What's the big deal about disabilities?
The issue came to mind as part of a course I'm taking on community access and technology given by Ryerson University's School of Disability Studies. We were talking about onscreen portrayals of disabled characters using high-tech devices.
Artie Abrams on Glee is decidedly a low-tech user. Even his wheelchair is manually driven. But it rankles that he is played by an able-bodied actor because, like any member of any marginalized group in any career field, disabled actors have to try twice as hard to get jobs.
Kids with disabilities are just as likely to be aspiring actors as anyone else. But they are less likely to be perceived as such. Only when the point is driven home will the landscape begin to change.
Asked about onscreen portrayals of disabled characters using technology to access communities and workplaces, one of my classmates mentioned Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic detective created by novelist Jeffery Deaver.
Rhyme, the cranky. but needless to say, brilliant protagonist of a slew of Deaver novels, was felled by a massive beam that collapsed while he was working a crime scene as a member of the New York police department. He can now move only his head, shoulders and left ring finger but continues to solve crimes with the help of a vast array of technological wizardry that assists him in both his personal and professional lives.
In the 1997 movie The Bone Collector, Rhyme was played by Denzel Washington. Possibly only an able-bodied actor could be envisioned playing against Angelina Jolie in the role of Amelia Sachs, Rhyme's trusty and very able-bodied protégé, not to mention lover. You think?
Very slowly, actors with disabilities are gaining some ground in roles that are not necessarily tied to characters whose disabilities are essential parts of plots.
Robert David Hall, who plays medical examiner Dr. Al Robbins on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, uses arm crutches in life and on screen.
In 1986, at age 21, deaf actress Marlee Matlin won an Academy Award for best actress, playing the role of a deaf woman in Children of a Lesser God. Matlin also has had a number of recurring roles on television shows, among them The West Wing.
In 2007, she performed The Star Spangled Banner in American Sign Language at the Super Bowl. And last year, she was a competitor on Dancing with the Stars.
Deaf actress Deanne Bray, who was discovered performing with a deaf dancing group in California, portrayed a deaf FBI agent who read lips on Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye.
But for sheer entertainment, you would be hard-pressed to beat physicist Stephen Hawking's performance on an episode of Star Trek TNG. Immortalized on You Tube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg8_cKxJZJY&feature =related), it features Hawking playing poker with Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
Hawking also speaks warmly of his portrayal on an episode of The Simpsons (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei-pKsNiINk&feature =related), although I notice that here he looks and sounds a lot more like Clark Kent than himself.
One step forward, one back.
Helen Henderson is a freelance writer and disability studies student at Ryerson University. Her column runs Saturdays. helenhenderson@sympatico.ca
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