Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,064
edits
Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Difference between revisions
Disabled Character, Disabled Actor (view source)
Revision as of 16:37, 18 November 2021
, 2 years agoupdate link
m (Mass update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (update link) |
||
| (6 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
For a long time in film, theater, and television, when a work called for a character with a disability, it was the norm to cast perfectly abled actors in those roles, especially if the role was one of the leads (you still want to cast a big name star in the lead role, despite the character's disability, after all). This was such a norm that the casting of authentically disabled actors as disabled characters has only become more commonplace since the late 1980s, though normally such actors are in supporting or background roles.
Line 6:
This is about when an authentically disabled person is cast, rather than an able-bodied performer.
Related to [[Cast the Expert]]. See also [[Written
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* In ''[[I Am Sam]]'', Sean Penn, of course, is not really developmentally
* The Farrelly Brothers movie ''[[The Ringer]]'' is both a satire and a partial aversion. The plot centers around a guy who pretends to be developmentally disabled to get into the Special Olympics as part of a bar bet... and quickly ends up being discovered as a fake by the Special Olympians. Those Special Olympians were actually all played by disabled actors. One became Johnny Knoxville's friend, cameoing in ''[[Jackass]] 3D''.
* In ''[[Children Of A Lesser God]]'', every deaf character is played by an actual deaf actor.
Line 21 ⟶ 20:
* In the opening scene of ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'', a soldier who had just had his legs blown off was played by an actor who had lost his legs years before.
* The anti-drug Jesusplotation horror film ''[[Blood Freak]]'' has a scene where a guy's leg gets cut off, which they managed to make a bit more convincing by hiring a guy with a prosthetic leg to play the victim.
* In ''[[Monty Python and
* The [[Evil Albino]] in ''[[End of Days]]'' was played the genuinely albinistic actor Victor Varnado.
* Jade Callegory, who played the disabled main character in ''[[Mac and Me]]'' suffers from spina bifida in real life.
* In the remake of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'', real amputees were used to play some of the zombies. The jogger zombie in the beginning, when the survivors are just arriving at the mall, has lost his arm in real life, and the zombie in the parking garage is actually missing both of his legs.
* In ''[[Soul Surfer]]'' it is averted and played straight. Bethany Hamilton, whose life story the film was depicting, was played by [[
* In the 2010 film of ''[[True Grit]]'', a woman missing her left forearm was hired to play the older version of Mattie (whose arm was amputated due to a snake bite near the end) in shots where her face is not seen. She wound up having more screen time than the actress credited with playing older Mattie.
* [[The Thing]] has a particularly infamous scene where a man's arms are suddenly bitten off by the titular monster. For two shots that each lasted only a few seconds, there was an actual amputee standing in the actor's place wearing a mask in his likeness.
* Deaf actor Russell Harvard plays an adult H.W. Plainview (rendered deaf from an explosion) in [[There Will Be Blood]].
* During the filming ''[[Patch Adams]]'', producers worked along side with Make-A-Wish Foundation since all two child actors in the film were actually being treated for cancer at the time.
== Literature ==
* An in-universe example: In the novel ''[[Dream Park]]'' by [[Larry Niven]], Jerry Pournelle, and Stephen Barnes, during the course of an amazingly elaborate Live Action Roleplaying Game that utilizes high-tech special effects, the players encounter (among other things) a one-armed, one-legged zombie played by a one-legged, one-armed actress. The fact that she's real and not a special effect (most of the zombies are holographic) shocks one of the players into inaction enough to allow the amputee zombie to "kill" her.
== [[Live
* Clark Middleton, whose struggle with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis retarded his growth and prevents him from having full range of motion, spent two years on ''[[Law and Order]]'' as Doctor Ellis, one of the show's Medical Examiners. Ellis's lab has access ramps, lower counters and examination tables, and is built to "little person" scale, something once remarked upon by Lennie Briscoe. Most of Middleton's other roles, however, were characters who just ''happened'' to be disabled.
* Geri Jewell, who played Jewel on ''[[Deadwood]]'' and [[The Danza|Geri]] on ''[[The Facts of Life]]'', actually has cerebral palsy.
Line 42:
** Even earlier than that, Reeve appeared in a [[TV Movie]] remake of Hitchcock's ''[[Rear Window]]''.
* Actor Michael Patrick Thornton, who is partially paralyzed and uses a wheelchair regularly (though he can walk for short distances) can regularly be seen playing a doctor who ''just happens'' to be in a wheelchair on ''[[Private Practice]]''.
* ''[[Sue Thomas: F.B.
* Grandma Esther Walton was depicted as suffering a stroke on ''[[The Waltons]]'', [[Real Life Writes the Plot|after Ellen Corby, the actress who played her, suffered one in 1976.]]
* During the fourth season of ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]'', Captain Deakins suffered through a bout of Bell's Palsy and was forced to wear an eyepatch for several episodes. This was because the actor playing Deakins, Jamey Sheridan, was actually suffering through a bout of Bell's palsy and was forced to wear an eyepatch.
* All the major deaf characters in ''[[Switched at Birth (TV series)|Switched at Birth]]'' are played by actors with some sort of hearing impairment, most being profoundly deaf.
* ''[[Breaking Bad]]'': RJ Mitte has mild cerebral palsy in real life. Walt Jr. was conceived from the start as having it, and Mitte had to learn to walk with crutches and speak ''less'' clearly to portray the level of affectation that the show's creator had in mind.
* Robert David Hall, who lost his legs in 1978 when an 18-wheeler crushed his car, plays Dr. Al Robbins on ''[[CSI]]''. His character's legs were lost when he was hit by a drunk driver; both Hall and Robbins walk using prosthetics and a cane.
Line 51:
* Similarly, there's Jim Byrnes on ''[[Highlander the Series]]''; both he and his character, Joe Dawson, are double amputees. Byrnes lost his legs in an accident similar to Robert David Hall's, though Joe lost his in Vietnam.
* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' featured an episode called ''Loud as a Whisper'', about a deaf mediator named Riva. Riva was played by deaf actor Howie Seago, who had petitioned the producers of the show to make an episode about deaf people, mostly to dispel myths about them.
* Actor Mitch Longley was paralyzed in a car accident his senior year in high school. Despite this, he went on to be a very successful actor, with roles on several TV shows and [[Soap Opera
* Actress Amy Ecklund, who was deaf, was hired to play deaf Amish girl Abigail on [[Guiding Light]]. She was given typical soap opera storylines, though an [[Near-Rape Experience|attempted rape]] was made all the more frightening by the fact that she could not hear her attacker creeping up on her. Towards the end of her tenure on the show, both the
* [[Glee]] has both played this trope straight with Becky and Jean (both actresses do have Down Syndrome) and (to much controversy) averted it with Artie.
* In ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'', Didi the one-legged woman that Earl slept with {{spoiler|(and stole a car and prosthesis from)}} is played by an actress that does, indeed, have only one real leg.
* Actor J. Grant Albrecht, who uses a wheelchair due to a spinal condition, plays an Assistant District Attorney on ''[[In Plain Sight]]'' who just happens to be in a wheelchair. His disability has never been mentioned on the show.
Line 63:
* In ''[[Unintentionally Pretentious]]'', the actress playing Mia [http://www.unintentionallypretentious.com/index.asp?c=114 is blind], and that it was simply written into her character.
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode, '''Extra Large Medium''', the character, Ellen, has Down syndrome, which Andrea Fay Friedman, who provided the voice, also has the condition. When it aired, Sarah Palin called out the writers of the shows for being callous because she’s a grandmother of a Down syndrome sufferer. Friedman [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!|
== General ==
| |||