“A real witch doesn’t have hands, she’s got claws.”
From the earliest days of film and television,
disability has been used as a metaphor for villainy or moral failing.
Characters with disabilities have been portrayed as either innately wicked,
turning diabolical in their moment of disfigurement,
or generally despising their condition and seeking to harm the able-bodied.
"You can't even manipulate your own body.
What's left? The manipulation of everybody around you?"
The disabled villain trope denies disabled characters any real personhood,
and instead turns them into devices to visually contrast
with “heroic” characters who are framed as both morally sound
and physically quote-unquote “perfect.”
This attitude toward disability actually goes way back to
medieval times, when outer appearance was believed to equate with or symbolize
inner truth or virtue—
and disability was either seen as punishment for sin,
or indicative that the disabled person was experiencing purgatory on earth,
and so therefore existed on a different, almost spiritual plane.
Today, while the idea of something being medieval is used as a pejorative,
our visual storytelling still plays into tropes based
on the same fundamental thinking.
The voyeuristic attitude toward disability is also in keeping
with the touring freak shows that spanned the Victorian era to the
mid-twentieth century in which disabled and disfigured people were
put on display for the general public.
“Just as they are represented on the banners, you will see them
on the inside, living, breathing, monstrosities.”
Yet while strides are being made around representation,
still, surprisingly often, disabled characters are
reduced to monsters, bridges to the supernatural, or bad guys.
Here’s our take on the disabled villain,
and why by seeing disabled people this way,
we fail to see them as people at all.
If you’re new here, be sure to subscribe and click the bell to get
notified about all our new videos.
The disabled villain has roots in the disabled monster.
“No you’re hurting me! No!”
These characters have long been used as either symbols of monstrosity or
beings not of this earth.
Disabled monsters’ disability or disfigurement is framed as
turning them into something inhuman, a threat to be feared.
Unsurprisingly, the horror genre has long been rife with these characters,
but these portrayals continue to be strikingly common in the present day.
Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommar —
two well-regarded films from the late 2010s —
both use the disabled monster trope as a kind of bridge between this world
and a fearsome other side.
In Hereditary, Charlie — played by Milly Shapiro,
who has cleidocranial dysplasia —
is brutally killed midway through the film, but the loud clicking sounds
she makes become the ghost that haunts the family after her death.
*Clicking noise* “Charlie?”
As the mystery of the film unfolds, the choice to make Charlie disabled
feels even more deliberate, as — spoiler alert — it’s revealed that,
since birth, she’s been possessed and used an instrument to bring about the
return of Paimon, a mythical monster who serves as one of the kings of hell.
So her disability is used almost as a subliminal clue that
something isn’t right spiritually.
And this becomes clearer in the chilling climax,
where there seems to be a reference to how Charlie’s disability made her
an ineffective host for Paimon.
“We’ve corrected your first female body and give you
now this healthy male host.”
In Midsommar, Aster explicitly uses disability as a metaphor,
saying in an interview with Forbes that the disabled oracle Ruben is,
“important, more as a symbol, as an idea,
than he even is as a character.”
Aster went on that the film invites us to, “consider Swedish history.
It is a very closed society and what does that really mean,”
implying that Ruben’s disability is a commentary on “racial purity” movements.
“Disabled?”
“Since birth. All of our Oracles are deliberate products of inbreeding.”
But in order to approach this topic, Midsommar casts Ruben’s disability
in a deeply othering, negative light.
The Harga believe Ruben’s disability grants him prophetic powers.
“He draws, and we, the elders, interpret.
You see, Josh, Ruben is unclouded by normal cognition.”
And the disabled, often blind, “seer” trope has a long history,
going as far back as the blind prophet Tiresias in The Odyssey —
who’s transformed into a blind railroad man in
the Coen Brothers’ adaptation O Brother, Where Art Thou?
“How’d he know about the treasure?”
“I don’t know, Delmar. The blind are reputed to possess sensitivities
compensating for their lack of sight.”
And it’s still present in new stories today.
Cordelia in American Horror Story: Coven develops psychic powers after losing
her sight to an acid attack.
While the blind seer trope is maybe less monstrous than some other examples,
it still has the effect of characterizing a very normal disability
as something fantastical.
It’s also telling that these seers rarely predict good things and are
instead predictors of danger or evil.
[Whispers, terrified] “You shouldn’t have taken the book.
You made her angry.”
Fantastical depiction of a real disability
can also be found in Us,
where the double family is characterized as inhuman,
occupying a kind of uncanny valley where though they look identical,
their movements, and in particular Red’s voice,
set them apart as the other.
[Raspy] “Maybe I should cut something off of you.”
Lupita Nyong’o admitted she based the voice on the disorder
spasmodic dysphonia, something which she later apologized for.
“It’s a very marginal group of people who suffer from this, and so, uh,
you know, the thought that I would in a way offend them or—
was not my intention.”
Similarly in The Witches, Anne Hathaway apologized after backlash for her role
in the film because the design of the witches bore similarities to
those with limb differences.
This design is part of the story’s origin, with author Roald Dahl
describing them as having square feet, claw-like fingers, and bald heads.
The fact that they hide these features is portrayed as a duplicity,
again making a link between being disfigured and being a
devious or evil individual.
[Shouting] “Quick! Put on your wigs!”
While many of these storytellers may think they’re just dealing in symbolism,
the widespread use of disability as a shorthand for monstrousness
implicitly villainizes those who have disabilities in real life.
Where disabled bad guys differ from disabled monsters
is that their disability — or origin story of becoming disabled —
is often framed as a catalyst for turning evil or ruthless.
This might play out as an inferiority complex, with the
disabled bad guy lashing out because they’ve had something
taken away from them.
One of the reasons this trope is so embedded in film culture is because
of how ubiquitous it is in children’s stories,
meaning that for a lot of people their first interaction with
disability representation may come in the form of a bad guy.
“But will she talk, Cap’n?”
“Oh, a little persuasion might be in order!”
This is true of older examples,
like Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, or The Lion King’s Scar,
but still comes up today, with Harry Potter’s
facially deformed nemesis, Voldemort,
or even the limping Lotso Huggin’ Bear in Toy Story 3.
The James Bond franchise has a long history of antagonists
who are disfigured or disabled,
with producer Michael Wilson saying it goes all the way back to
Ian Fleming’s original novels:
“The idea that physical deformity and personality deformity goes
hand in hand in some of these villains.
Sometimes it’s a motivating factor in their life,
and what makes them the way they are.”
This framework assumes that people with disabilities
must abhor their condition and, thus, harbor the central aim of mounting
revenge against the able-bodied.
And this archetype isn’t consigned to the past.
In the Pierce Brosnan era, Sean Bean’s Alec Trevelyan
has visible scars across his face;
and in the Daniel Craig era, Le Chiffre in Casino Royale;
as well as Blofeld and Safin in No Time To Die
all have a facial disfigurement of some description.
In Skyfall, Raoul Silva’s disfigurement is specifically
linked to his villain origin story.
Formerly an MI6 agent, he experienced feelings of abandonment
and betrayal from M after he was taken hostage and tortured by the Chinese,
and in trying to commit suicide by eating a cyanide capsule,
his face became permanently deformed.
“Look upon your work… mother.”
So his moment of disfigurement literally redefines him
from the agent he once was to the villain he becomes.
The superhero genre, too, is teeming with scarred or disabled villains,
with The Joker, Black Widow’s Taskmaster,
and Wonder Woman’s Doctor Poison all having some kind of facial deformity.
“And if it’s what I think, it’s going to be… terrible.”
In The Dark Knight, the idea that the moment of disfigurement inevitably
redefines a person for the worse is encapsulated in Harvey Dent’s story.
Initially, Dent is a principled, charismatic district attorney
working for the good of Gotham City, thinking of himself as a hero.
“Batman is looking for someone to take up his mantle.”
“Someone like you, Mr Dent?”
“Maybe.”
But after the Joker causes an explosion that kills Dent's love interest and
destroys half his face, Dent’s new appearance
visually solidifies his transformation into a villain, Two-Face —
he abandons all of his righteous characteristics and becomes
a rampaging psychopath (just as the Joker expects will happen).
“Dent, I swear to God I didn’t know what they were gonna do to you.”
“That’s funny… because I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you either.”
As well as disability being a signifier or catalyst of evil,
the disabled bad guy is also often motivated by a desire
to become able-bodied again.
Thus, disability is cast as something that anyone would desperately seek
to escape or “fix” — even by attacking able-bodied people.
In Get Out, gallery owner Jim’s blindness at first seems
all the more tragic because he’s in the art world
and used to enjoy taking pictures, a backstory which helps him bond with
photographer Chris more than the others at Chris’ girlfriends’ parents’ party.
“One day, you're developing prints in the darkroom. The next day,
you wake up in the dark. Genetic disease.”
But Jim turns out to be among the worst of the guests, as his
motivation is to steal Chris’ body along with his power of vision.
“I want… your eye, man.”
In Detective Pikachu, we are once again given a wheelchair-bound villain
whose whole motivation is to escape from his disability.
In this case, it’s not another person he wants to embody,
but the all-powerful Pokemon Mewtwo.
“The transfer worked. My body is in the chair but my mind is in Mewtwo.”
These villains’ disabilities are also played as grotesque and undesirable —
the antithesis to the traits of the charming, handsome hero,
whom the disabled bad guy bitterly resents.
Disability rights group Changing Faces launched the
I Am Not Your Villain campaign as a way to raise awareness
of the damage these tropes can have on disabled people in real life,
and how it’s important that we move past them.
“I had convinced myself that in this industry I would never ever be
attractive enough or good enough to play James Bond.”
When disabled characters are treated as people,
rather than metaphors, their perceived monstrousness begins to dissolve.
Notably, some older films came closer to getting this right
than a number of the modern examples we’ve discussed so far.
Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks cast real life circus performers
and sideshow acts found at touring freakshows,
but they are all treated with empathy,
depicted not as the freakish others the title suggests,
but instead as ordinary people who live ordinary lives.
In 1980’s The Elephant Man, based on the true story of Joseph Merrick,
the film’s central concern is the question “Who is the monster?”
and its answer is explicitly not John Merrick,
but the baying Victorian mob who exploit him so terribly —
and perhaps also, the audience, who may be
complicit in that same voyeurism.
“I am not an animal! I am a human being!”
In the early 2000s, in FUR, Lionel —
portrayed as suffering with hypertrichosis —
isn’t treated as a monster,
but with empathy and interest by photographer Diane Arbus,
as a relationship between them develops.
To debunk the assumed association between disability and monstrosity,
disabled characters have to be actual fleshed-out characters.
Today, more nuanced representation is coming in the form of
three-dimensional characters with disabilities, and an
increasing number of disabled actors playing them —
especially in roles that aren’t simply villains,
and ideally aren’t defined by their disability.
RJ Mitte’s character in Breaking Bad, Walter White Jr., has cerebral palsy,
but it’s incidental to his storyline of grappling with his dad’s descent
into becoming a violent meth manufacturer.
Gaten Matarazzo’s cleidocranial dysplasia
was specifically written into Stranger Things and is
occasionally mentioned by Dustin and the other characters.
“Yeah, he’s got some disease, chry—it’s chrydo, um… something.
Yeah, I don’t know,
he’s missing bones and stuff, he can bend like Gumbo.”
And long running British crime drama Silent Witness cast actor and
disability activist Liz Carr as the forensic examiner
Clarissa for eight seasons.
Not only are these portrayals quietly revolutionary in the way
they normalize disabilities as one facet of rich characters,
but they also challenge the practice of “cripface” in which able-bodied actors
take on disabled roles as a means of displaying their range.
“You know what we cripples want, besides getting laid?
To be seen.”
The move towards more disability representation also
provides greater opportunity for disabled creators to
tell their own stories, and center disability in broader narratives.
Ryan O’Connell’s Special naturally touches on the experience of
living with cerebral palsy,
and the assumptions people make about that, but that is just
the jumping off point for a wider exploration of disability.
While the first season ends with Ryan effectively “coming out” as disabled,
after lying to his coworkers about it,
“I have… cerebral palsy.”
the second season is — in O’Connell’s own words —
“gayer and gimpier.”
Not only does this story include real, authentic characters who are disabled,
but it also refocuses the lens on how ableist society can be.
“Strangers come up to me at the gym and congratulate me simply for exercising.”
“Ew, inspiration porn.”
“Is that what that is?!”
As O’Connell puts it,
“I don’t think Hollywood is like Mr. Burns cackling
behind a desk, going, ‘Keep those disabled people out!’
It’s more that no one considers disabled people in general,
which is very dark and very sad.
We’re usually only there for ‘inspiration porn’
or to serve an able-bodied character’s personal growth.”
Other powerful stories featuring characters with disabilities today
are similarly challenging many of our collective assumptions.
In The Peanut Butter Falcon, Zak —
played by Zack Gottsagen, who has Down’s syndrome —
is coddled by the other characters in the film
who believe he needs to be monitored,
because his disability makes him extremely vulnerable.
But while these intentions are good, they deny Zak any agency, and
minimize his own wants and desires — specifically to become a wrestler.
In some respects, the resulting plot may mirror the
“inspiring disabled character” trope,
but the fact that it’s being done without an able-bodied actor
“cripping up,” and with Zak portrayed as a three-dimensional character,
comes across as less patronizing
[Cheering] “Peanut Falcon! Peanut Falcon!”
In Welsh language drama Craith,
Justin Melluish — an actor with Down’s syndrome —
plays Glyn, whose able-bodied brother Sion is protective over him.
But that inverts by the end of the third season,
with Glyn having to be the emotional support to Sion
as his life begins to crumble.
It’s a shift that counters the persistent assumption of the
able-bodied as self-reliant protectors and the disabled as needy dependents.
Other characters avoid the trap of the “saintly” disabled person.
Sex Education’s Isaac exudes charm and
self-confidence in his romantic plot with Maeve,
“When I get touched in the places I can feel…
it can get a little intense.”
but he can also be prickly and manipulative.
“He said that he wanted to talk to you
and that he left a message on your phone.
I listened to the message… and I deleted it.”
Actor George Robinson, who uses a wheelchair in real life,
told the BBC that people in the disabled community ultimately
want to be seen with all their flaws.
Isaac’s neither a villain nor a saint,
but a person who (like most of us) has great qualities and less great ones.
We’re also seeing stories that reframe the origin of a disability
not as horrific or solely tragic.
In Sound of Metal, drummer Ruben begins to lose his hearing,
and at first he’s desperate to regain it.
“You said implants? Those work?”
“People with severe hearing loss, or complete deafness, yes they help.”
“Well then let’s do that.”
However, Ruben is embraced by a deaf commune, who explicitly reject
the idea that their life is lacking.
“We’re looking for a solution to… to this… not this.”
As Ruben adjusts to his new surroundings,
he experiences satisfying peace and community,
like in scenes where we watch how freely
the conversation flows at dinner.
Meanwhile, his efforts to improve his hearing through
the technology of cochlear implants aren’t the answer he hoped for.
Eventually Ruben comes to understand that what
happened to him is not simply a loss.
While he has to grieve his former life, he has also gained new potentially
meaningful ways of connecting with others and experiencing the world.
High-profile journalist Wendy Lu writes that
according to the social model of disability, “people with disabilities
are disabled not because of their individual differences,
but because of the systemic barriers we face in society.
That includes everything from inaccessible buildings
to hiring discrimination to a general attitude of
resistance against disability.”
The point isn’t to minimize
how difficult it can be living with a disability,
but to make us question why it is quite so difficult,
and whether it could be easier if we looked at our own ableism.
“I think we have a long way to go,
and that’s not just the actors' responsibility, that’s casting,
that’s–that’s directors, that’s producers.”
To help make this shift in people’s minds,
we can begin with allowing disabled characters on screen
to experience and reflect the full range of life we expect
from able-bodied characters.
“You can fight who you are, but that’s a fight you’re never gonna win.
So you might as well embrace it.”
The Take is now available as a podcast.
We’re just getting started so take us with you.