The Role of Media in Negatively Raising Awareness of Disability
For too long, the media has inaccurately represented the disabled community. In the industry, only 31% of actors are disabled, according to Aruma. The media, particularly movies portrays disabled people as villains, superhero’s, victims, a joke and angelic like. However, we know that the problem doesn’t just exist in movies, it also exists in mainstream media. Villains are anyone who sets out to be evil towards or harm other people. In movies, this is what disabled people are portrayed as. They are seen as people who are bad for society. Particularly sending out messages that they are not wanted here. The Nora Project writes of something called the Disabled Villains Trope - where writers use a disabled actor to make the villain seem more scarier or evil. This idea came as a result of the belief that we in the disabled community are morally corrupt or bad. Most villains we see in movies commonly have a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, which sends a message that all those strugglin...