My not so "conservative" view on AB actors playing "disabled" parts

My friend asked me to respond to this:Scott Jordan Harris's Why The Theory of Everything Is a Disappointing Depiction of Disability

Here's what I said:

Ugh. This why did you ask me this???? This is one of those disability arguments that I hate because it forces me to see that while we are a minority group we are still so connected to -and isolated from- the majority of where we came from. My simple answer: The author’s point about the Oscars and disabilities is spot on. The Oscars are deplorable on all kinds of disability-inspiration-porn. I think the larger problem is the lack of movies and shows that have people with disabilities in them. Maybe one day we can live in a world where we don’t just see people with disabilities as movie and TV vehicles of “inspiration” aka “I saw this movie and I now so grateful for my own problems because I’d rather be anything but disabled.” Imagine if we lived in a world where Rachel from Friends was disabled and sometimes talked about those issues but the character and storyline was basically the same? Looonger answer…


(I personally HATED Rachel from Friends but I wanted to pick someone non-cult iconic. If I had to pick anyone it would be Faith the vampire Slayer. She could be deaf…or Willow could be limping. They came close on Buffy with Tara’s stuttering but not close enough..bBut, done wonderfully by Amber Benson. Anyway, I’m digressing…ADD. They did a really good job with portraying someone with ADD on ER and other disabilities but then it got way too soapy. There is also a larger and way more complex Glee and American Horror Story conversation... ) 

But back to the original question: My more leftist counterparts would be the first to argue and champion that only actors with disabilities should play people with disabilities. Me, I support the idea very much, but then we get back to the old “affirmative action” argument… What if someone else is a more talented actor? I know in the case of a movie like Selma if someone said: “Let’s have Daniel Day-Lewis play MLK,” there would rightfully be out-cry. As far as this I am not so sure; just like I am not so sure that GBLT stories should only be played by GBLT actors. It such a theoretical argument anyway because it isn’t like the movie industry is ever going to do it. They won’t even let fat women be played by fat women or ugly women be played by ugly women. They think it is perfectly reasonable to pair Jonah Hill with a 20 year old super-model-looking actor to play his doting wife.

But as far as the actors: This may get me some hate from my brethren, but when I heard The Ted Talk from Maysoon Zayid I found her entitled in regard to her acting. She complained that she didn’t get the part in her college play of the woman with the disability. (Maybe I was also upset because she was also very cure focused and was using her disability for fame rather than helping the cause IMO. Maybe I’m pissed because her disability problem seems to be she can’t become a celebrity actress and mine is I can’t get a good paying job that won’t accommodate my disability without being hostile. Sorry, Maysoon.) 

Maysoon's Ted Talk

Maysoon’s story was that she didn’t get her college part because they didn’t think she could physically do it. If that is true she SHOULD be mad and it’s ridiculous, but what if she just wasn’t as good at acting as the other woman and they didn’t want to hurt her feelings?? She talked about how this was the only part she could play in her college career. I think she was looking at the whole thing upside down. Why didn’t they just give her other parts and write in a damned disability?!
As I’m criticizing Maysoon I should also commend her for going for it. When I was 12 I wanted to act. I then got a huge case of stage fright. I’m sure this was related to my disability. There are times people have said “you should act.” And I would respond: “It would have to be a cross gendered performance of Richard III.” It wouldn’t have mattered anyway even if I was born able-bodied there was no way I was ever going to be able to be 100lbs without literally killing myself. As a disabled woman there are no parts I’d want to play. 

(PS. I also really suck at acting now. I think people think I’d be good because I have my moments of being funny.)

My friend and long time activist Nina G Comedian and I were talking once. I told her that Eliza Dushku could play her in the movie of her life. She said she only wanting a stuttering actress to play her. I saw her point but kept think “Oh, but Eliza would be perfect!” I always wanted Britney Murphy to play me. (It can’t happen now L. RIP Britney. I think what really killed her was anorexia.) I then realized the true problem was not that I didn’t really want a disabled actor to play a part but that I know virtually no disabled actors (other than that kid from Breaking Bad or Facts of Life woman.) 

There is no way I WILL know any disabled actors until we get more disabled parts. I’m sure that there are many talented actors with disabilities and even if they gave every disabled role to a disabled person we would still be sadly under-represented.

The Glee stuff that tries to go beyond inspiration porn is not enough ( and yes, I do think Ryan Murphy should have gotten a “real wheelchair kid” and researched wheelchair dancing, but I still appreciate the effort.) And I am grateful for Family Guy/South Park and the like for making fun of inspiration porn and having actual disabled characters! Efforts like Tim Minear of Dollhouse and American Horror Story have shown the complex relationship of disability’s strengths and weaknesses while it not being the only thing about the character is more my personal favorite. (I don’t know why I’m not that into this season of AHS. I think it was because the I know the moral center of Lobster Boy is doomed. I LOVED the disability parts but got sick of the woman cattiness and the rich psycho. I have like 6 eps to catch up on. )  
However, there still needs to be much much more on disability…. We need to marry the fringes of the efforts of Ryan Murphy and writers like Tim Minear and Family Guy…What I mean by that is seeing disability in all aspects of “primetime;” like some shallow How-I-Met-Your-Mother show with a major disabled character or a show like Modern Family with a disabled kid where it is not a tragedy (Luke and Hayley being stupid doesn’t count.) Then we can see more actors with disabilities. 

You asked for my thoughts. Anyway, we should get the kids together and hang out. I promise we can just talk about good pre-schools.

The Paradox of giving advice on Motherhood as a writer Or Disabled Mom Writer Admits Jezabel.com was right about everything (??)  

I wrote this in response to fellow woman writer who is single and thinking of being a mom. Of course, I emailed her an awful ADD version filled with typos and this one is better. Without her I wouldn’t be posting or writing. Women can keep each other alive as artists! Even though she blogged about it publically I am keeping her identity out of this.

Hi 37-year-old fellow Writer in my group,

I was struck by your post about whether or not to have a baby as a single woman while struggling with your independence and art. I feel like I might be able to offer some insight as a mom of a three-year-old and writer.  

With the pressures I currently have as a mom I probably have about a 50% chance of finishing the book I set out to write in class. The percentage that anyone will ever read the book besides my friends is probably lower, but regardless of the end result, having people pulling for me is a great gift. Being “selfish,” and making the book a priority until December was something I couldn’t have done without writing class.  

I have one of those typical stories of women writers where I in no way had my shit together enough to write when I was young. I had the added challenge of having a physical disability. There was no waitressing-while-writing-option for me. But, honestly it probably wouldn’t have happened anyway because I put too much into my relationships like a lot of women. No, that sounds blaming…

I just had to take that time in my 20s (and some 30s) to figure out who I was. I wrote my first published short story when my daughter was a year old. There were times I was writing it and she, and my partner, begged me to quit writing it and I almost did. (Her as a one year-old crying at a closed door and my partner saying I was becoming too obsessive.) I have become firmer with both of them about writing. I know that you are in a better situation. You are more developed as writer/artist, but I wanted to give you my perspective.

If you take away only a few things that I say from this let it be these next few paragraphs:

You do have some time to make this decision! Don’t let people pressure you too much or make you think you don’t have time. Even well-meaning parents can do this as you pass the age they were when they had you. I don’t know if this is your situation, but sometimes even the most loving families can push you to have a baby or make you feel like your eggs are “rotting away” when this is not the case.  Often it is their own anxieties about babies and/or just their own mortality in general. (My sister-in-law actually said my eggs were “rotting away.” Consequently, she had a baby when she was a year younger than me.)

 You have about five years, maybe more. Risks and difficulty increase gradually but seem to get really hard at 45 for most. Don’t let the looming big 4-0 push you. Doctors freak out when women have a baby after 40, but that is their own biases a lot of the time. A lot can happen in 3 years or 5 years. So, do consider that.

As a woman with a disability I was told by one doctor to not have a baby even though there was no medical evidence that said it would be harmful. When it comes to babies and parenting it seems no one can keep their personal shit to themselves. If/when you become a parent this continues. It totally worth it, and survivable, but you will be judged in a way you haven’t been judged before.

The truth: It’s going to be harder to be a writer and, director, or artist. You aren’t going to be able to accomplish as much as you did if you didn’t have the baby.

 One hard fact is: you are never truly alone again.

Even when you spend time without your child they will still be pulling on you. 

You will have times when you have to sit there with your (awake at 11PM) child and think: “If I wasn’t sitting here I could be writing brilliant things right now.”

You will feel the guilt.  You will go through the guilt, and learn to drop the guilt. You will learn that it isn’t selfish to nourish yourself as an artist.  You are going to be a better mom for it. People may judge and you’ll  get defensive. You’ll become tempted to become one of the moms I'm going to mention blow and say you never felt guilt and NOTHING has changed for you as an artist.

You will learn to put time aside for yourself as a writer/artist by hook or crook. The more money you can have or make the easier this is.

There are going to be some women writers/artists out there that tell you being a mom didn’t change their art because somehow they are stronger/better/faster/read The Secret that other moms did not.  They are usually the same moms that tell you that they are somehow a perfect mom.  

There are also their counterparts: women that will go on about how they didn’t have a child. They will tell you that this is the best thing they ever did. It would be fine if it stopped there but they usually follow this up with stories about women they know (or do not know) who are either:

A) horrible parents

Or

B) ruined by becoming a parent

This will be all under the guise of feminism. (I’m looking at you Jezabel.com. Shame on you!)

Both sides are bullshit. This makes parenting (and childless by choice) a competitive sport.  Everyone wants to think they are winning. Yay them.  Again this is more projection of their insecurities. Women end up judging each other due to the amazing strain we are under. We are turning on each other because we are either being judged as parents or women who chose to not have a child.  These are also the people that see everything in black and white. These people would take anything I say out of context such as:

“Writer Mom Admits Defeat” or “Writer Mom is Bitter Towards Child” or “So-Called-Feminist Therapist Mom Advises Against Single Parenting,”

Not that I am any kind of important for people to care, but if I was that is what would be happening.  So…“Disabled Under-Employed Mom Thinks She’s Hot Shit.”

The next this here may be a little controversial: having a baby is so much easier when you have a partner.

 Of course you also need a community.  You can pay to have that community around you as well your family, but they can’t ever fully compensate for a partner that also is a co-parent to the baby and also sees said baby as their full responsibility too.

 I’m not saying you can’t do it or shouldn’t do it being the only parent, but it is just harder regardless of whatever system you have in place.  Your best friends and your best-paid help aren’t going to have the same commitment as you.

I am not telling you to go out and find a man. (But, I don’t want to live in a world or even a Hollywood where YOU can’t find a good one.) I am just saying it would be much easier if you had someone who shared your parenting with this child. 

 If you did want to go the romantic route you have time to find someone that has the same goals. (You can even find them after.) I also think society shits on women this way by telling us it is wrong or desperate to try to find someone who wants children and commitment.

   There is nothing wrong with knowing what you want and how you want it and finding someone who wants the same thing. Even if you break up you will always have a mostly likely devoted person to that child. Even if he goes the midlife crisis route of the 25 year-old wife, he will still be a good dad.

You may have totally rejected this romantic route. But the other controversial thing I want to say is this:

Us women artist/writers/romantics/tortured souls can be THE WORST at picking guys. This may or may not apply to you. If it doesn’t just have fun reading ahead for entertainment:

 I was THE WORST with this.

(I dated a lot of artist and writers who talked up feminism but couldn’t drive or know how to pay a bill and thought I could do it- HA! Subsequently, these are the guys that help me a lot with my writing career now. Some were able to develop their careers in their 20s better probably because they weren’t so hung-up on their relationship with me and weren’t lost driving around. They also didn’t have my disabled white woman problems. Or maybe they were just better than me. Hi guys!  They have wives now who aren’t writers who drive them places and pay bills. Maybe these wives ARE great artists too and are just better at multitasking than me. Hi wives!)

I am not one of these women that says: settle down with an investment banker that is totally boring. Politics, world-view and common interests are so important. I’m just saying being a devoted parent and being able to make sacrifices to do so can be the most important common interest.  This may be someone who isn’t a writer/artist but is a fan of it.  This may be someone who has a more stable job so you can you what you do. They may not be a fan of your work personally, but as long as they support you doing it- aces! (Not that I’m speaking from my personal life. Hi partner who probably won’t read this, but allowed me to write it by taking care of house stuff today)

So, my writing workshop woman, I leave you now with a bunch of wonderful paradoxes. The worst/best one being ignore people’s advice and projections while I gave you a bunch of advice and projections. Maybe this is the best way women, particularly moms, can support each other, by being honest, including being honest about our own personal feelings on these subjects.

Good luck! Keep writing. I believe greatly in Virginia Woolf’s advice for women about having a room of your own. Virginia Wolfe never got to be a mother, a doctor told her not to because of her “emotional problems”, and she listened. I wonder what she would have written if she had been a mother. There would most likely be less volume to her work. However, maybe we would have better insight on motherhood and writing.  

LL

Six Awesome Things My Infant Daughter has Done For Me

I wanted to start off my return to blogging and writing with something I thought people would enjoy reading and I ended up finding out what I have been enjoying in my life. Cool. But, don’t worry cynicism, ranting and complaining can’t be too far behind.

Six Awesome Things My Infant Daughter has Done For Me

1) Smiling at my boobs.

Her huge unabashed grin at the access to what are now two huge feedbags reminds me of dating in college when “the girls” were pert and perky. I’ll even say she has a purer more loving smile than my college suitors. Who cares if my chest has grown five inches and only one cup size making them yummy meaty coke bottles? Okay, I do care a little bit; and don’t even get me started on my flying saucer nipples that seemed to land on my chest in an overnight hostile alien take over. When she was a newborn the new alien nips were too big for her little mouth. It proved that they didn’t come from the helping hand of mother-nature but clearly from some evil outer-space overlord. But, these were challenges overcome by both of us. She reminds me of that with that eye-to-nipple grin before latching on and getting what she needs.

2) Justifying my crazy schedule (or lack there of:)

I know what they used to say with an infant: schedule, schedule, schedule (in an ominous German accent as they shut the doors to the experiment room and then our oh-so-well-adjusted baby boomer parents came out.) newborns do not follow rigid schedules.

Sorry, over-achieving honor students who are the backbone of your workplaces. This is where the people that always got the gold stars start coming apart at the seams. They often can be seen in tears on the TLC channel. Why isn’t the baby sleeping and eating in correspondence with their phone apps and meetings? Maybe because humans were never meant to live that way and capitalism has forced us into these ever increasing rigid schedules to get us to be gold-star over-achieving workers who fall apart if there is no schedule, but that’s another blog.

As a woman with ADD, I finally get a chance to shine in the “chaos.” Down at 2PM and up at 2AM one day and reversing it the next day? No problem! That’s what I was doing before she came along to write my dissertation. We can watch late night Buffy The Vampire Slayer episodes (which was what I would end up doing when I was supposed to be writing my dissertation.) She was sleeping through the night but currently wants to have smiling and laughing time between 3AM-4AM. Fine by me, there’s no other distractions at night so I can hyper-focus on all her “EOOOEWS” “OOOOOHS” and “Goinks” with my ADD powers.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that people abandon all schedules, as they are a necessary part of life. We do have her on a lose sleeping schedule now and we are all happier for it. However, I think that there is a big difference between consistency and rigid scheduling. I have enjoyed going with the spontaneity a baby requires, as my spontaneity can be a strength here.

3) Giving purpose to my spazzy inane ramblings:

This is another gift of parenting with ADD. When I feel over-stimulated and my brain is mush there is no harm in reading “Good Night Moon” 3 times in a row, or maybe stopping in the middle of “Good Night Moon” to talk about my own theories of why there is a bowl of mush in the room and why the book never talks about why the old lady whispering “hush” is a rabbit; and how rabbits are rodents but somehow they are considered cute unlike other rodents. Why such rodent prejudice? Prejudice. It’s such a weird word. I can say it 20 times in a happy voice and she will laugh, or she’ll laugh at the book or my worries about rodents, or my anger over the manufactured crisis of the debt ceiling, or why I can’t stop watching Teen Wolf even though it’s putrid. Letting my ADD freak flag fly verbally will only help our bonding and enhance her verbal development.

4) Leaving modesty at the door

I think it’s a sign of moral character to be modest and gracious. However, I also think a lot of women have a difficult time accepting compliments for various reasons. My personal reasons are: It’s hard for me to believe that people are truly praising me due to both my disabilities. Due to my ADD (and maybe just being an idiot) I have made mistakes in my life. I am one of those ADD people that knows they are “intelligent” but I haven’t “lived up to my potential.” So, how can I really be proud of an achievement? Also when you have a visible disability like CP you grow up with a lot of people saying “good for you!” in a really patronizing manner (like saying it because your grocery shopping…at the liquor store...at five am)

Therefore, I don’t trust complements and I am often self-deprecating. This is where my lovely baby gave me something I didn’t even think about or expect. She is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful baby. So, of course people come up to us and say: “What an amazing, beautiful and wonderful baby!”

I then find myself doing something strange. I say “Thank you,” and I really mean it, as I trust that they are being honest and giving me a real complement. Sometimes I even go nuts and say: “Thank you. You’re right. She is an amazing, beautiful and wonderful baby.”

I mean, I’m not bragging about myself, right? It’s not about me but her, and I’m just agreeing with them and they are correct.

Sometimes when my self-depreciating demon really wants to desperately surface I say: “Thank you. Yes, she has her moments.”

But, that’s all my usually powerful demon can muster, and even then, it’s usually followed by: “She is really great. We are very happy.” What can the self-depreciating demon do? It has no justification to say anything else as self-deprecation is about the self and she is not me. She is an amazing, beautiful and wonderful baby. Even when she is no longer this baby and is a person that makes decisions, and therefore mistakes, she will not be me. She will still be my amazing, beautiful and wonderful baby and I know when someone says something complementary about her it will be real and true. Maybe then I won’t even say “thank you.” Maybe I will totally leave modesty behind and just say, “I know; she’s awesome!” Because the complement really isn’t mine to be modest about, it’s all hers.

5) Being in the moment with all the time in the world:

Okay, you know how I kinda just crapped on schedules and over-achievers before? That may be because I have always dreaded getting older and not achieving enough as time slips through my hands. Seriously, even as a kid I dreaded going to Junior High because I didn’t know if I could live up to all the new expectations. When a relationship began I would think about when and how it would end. Sometimes I cry that my dog is getting older and that his life will be ending even though he is healthy and demands half my time. I thought I would be that way with my baby. Saying: “Oh no! She has gone from size 0-3 months to size 3-6 months. She’s slipping away!”

But, the funny thing with a baby is that everything is so new and amazing to them that it all starts to become amazing and new to you too. How can I stress out about her possibly getting obsessed with Disney Princesses, or leaving for college, or her announcing that she’s poly-amorous and is secondary in all her relationships when she’s just discovered she can roll over and laugh? Until I had her I never knew how amazing laughing and rolling over was. I can talk about it and do it all day with her and think of nothing else. I look at her and see a little baby and nothing else, even though I know she will be a woman with concerns one day. All that matters now is that she is this baby mastering her world and we have so much time. It’s like being a kid in the beginning of the summer; sure it’s going to end, but who cares? It’s beginning today.

6) Looking to an ever-available possible future.

As she has given the Zen feeling of #5 I roll into the closing of #6. As she laughs and smiles (and sometimes fusses and cries) with all her beginnings anything is possible. She can be any kind of person now. Of course, that won’t always be true. As time moves on she will become the person she will be and possibilities will die off. I think I hated getting older because I felt like less and less possibilities were available to me (like a fast metabolism.) However, I find I am not mourning for her possibilities being lost as she grows. I look at her growing older as more of a celebration. She will come to whom she is and that will be wonderful, even though I will not always like the process. Her own self is for her to discover and I get to be a witness to it. I know I’m getting really California on your asses, but deal with it, it’s the way I feel when I look into her big blue eyes that could turn brown or green.

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Hope you enjoyed my first post! I’m sure I’ll be working out the blog kinks and pimping it some more!

<3 Lucky