Representation Ideas

Disability

Tom Shakespeare on

disability

Dr Tom Shakespeare, a professor and lecturer at universities in the UK, explored conceptualizations of disability. His research projects explored the sexual rights of disabled people, childhood disability, and quality of life in restricted growth. He has published extensively in disability studies, for example, The Sexual Politics of Disability (1996) and Disability Rights and Wrongs (2006) and bioethics, for example, Arguing About Disability (2008). Disabled himself, Dr Shakespeare has been active in the disability community for twenty years.

Longmore on disability

Longmore, disabled himself, has had a life that

influenced him to teach. As someone who lived with

pronounced physical limitations that resulted from

childhood polio, he struggled against prejudice and

low expectations, not only in daily life, but also in

academia where people with disabilities have been

marginalized. Longmore debated the fine points of

American history, protesters demanding civil and

economic rights for disabled people.

My A2 Film?

While a number of high production films tackle ideologies on disability, physical disability is an area I feel would be difficult to touch in terms of my ability to write a descent script. As well as this, I worry that with the low budget I have to make my A2 film, casting a physically disabled person (as most of my options have little to no acting experience) could be deemed offensive. While I am not interested in presenting a theme in my film about physical disability, I have a big interest in mental disability. Being a big fan of films such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Twelve Monkeys, I’d like to create a character with a mental disability in my film. My early ideas and first script drafts include a teenage boy rejected by others, which lead him to commit a drastic crime. I plan to create this with a genre a mix of social-realism and post-modern, with an ideology that hints at lack of support for society and gun crimes in American schools.