As summer rolls around, movies are starting to come out, just like any year. This year is particularly interesting though, because one of the hot summer blockbusters features a relationship between a disabled man and an able bodied woman. When I first heard this, I was overjoyed. Disabled people are rarely portrayed in mainstream media.
When I first heard of the movie “Me Before You” I had recently watched a clip from Oprah’s show where she is literally praising able bodied people for sticking around after their lovers became disabled. I was honestly shocked; I had always thought Oprah was better than that. So when I heard this movie was coming out, I had high hopes that it would show an actual relationship between two people, one who happened to be disabled. I thought it would show the truth behind the relationship instead of just romanticizing and blowing reality out of the water. Now though, after seeing the trailers, I’m not so sure. I have not seen the movie yet, nor have I read the book, so I am not sure how the man becomes disabled. But it doesn’t seem like he was born disabled, based on people saying in the trailers that there was so much hope for him. And this is terrible.
My friend, who is also disabled, recently took a class covering disability, and he opened my eyes about how disabled people are portrayed in the media. Once upon a time, I was of the opinion that it was just cool when we got some sort of representation at all. My friend corrected my view though, and showed me how messed up the media can truly be when it comes to disability.
In the media, there are rarely stories of people who are born disabled. Usually they have gone through some traumatic, disabling accident. After all, that’s what makes a story and builds character. The character is made out to be this heroic and brave person just because they’re going through what they’re going through. In a world that often sees disability as this disgusting thing that shouldn’t be talked about, the media is trying to turn that opinion around. But they’re going about it all wrong.
What people, and the media especially, don’t realize, is that we’re just people. Wow, such a hard concept, I know. I am in a relationship, and guess what? It’s perfectly normal. (OK, we’re a bit weird, I’ll admit that, but that’s because of our personalities, not my disability.) Yes, my boyfriend helps me with some stuff, but I’m not dependent on him. He doesn’t do everything for me. In fact, I tell him not to. (Like when he jokingly takes food packages out of my hands to open them for me when he knows perfectly well that I can open them myself). He likes to say that he lifts me up physically, while I lift him up emotionally. The point is that we’re a team. When we first started dating his friends kept telling him how impressed they were that he was dating me, a disabled person. But why should they be impressed? He’s not brave for dating me. I’m just a person. It’s not some major feat to date me. (OK, he might disagree with me on that).
Disabled people are tired of hearing how brave they are. We’re not. We’re just trying to get through life, just like the rest of you. Yes we might face a few more obstacles, but we really don’t need them pointed out. You can accept I’m different, but then please move on. Don’t glamorize disability; it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t romanticize it. My boyfriend, and the girl in the movie, did not fall in love with a disabled person because of the disability. They fell in love with a person. So that’s what I’m hoping this movie shows, although I’m keeping a low level of optimism. Hollywood hasn’t yet caught on to the concept that disabled people are just people, but hopefully with this article you’ve gotten a bit smarter than they are.
