Yet, self-identified writers with disabilities make up less than one percent of current, active WGAW members. According to the Writers Guild of America West's 2020 Inclusion Report, 26% of adults in the U.S. The numbers are bleaker still for people with disabilities playing a part that isn't defined by disability.īut it's not just acting roles: writers, directors, and behind-the-scenes professionals with disabilities are also scarcely represented.
Non-disabled actors play 80% of those roles. The vast majority of characters with disabilities are played by people without disabilities, which many feel contributes to pushing the same outdated tropes.Īccording to the CDC, one in four people in the United States identifies as disabled, but only about 2.5% of speaking roles in Hollywood films portray a disability. Non-verbal autistic adults are not portrayed on screen often and never portrayed authentically."ĭisability representation in films and television has improved in the last few years but is still not representative of America's disability population. "This was such a great opportunity to tell the story of an autistic person with no voice. "I understand that casting decisions are made for a lot of reasons and that a movie is a business, and they have to decide what they think will make their movie successful," Anderson said, while adding, “It's 2020, and a lot has changed." Tal Anderson, an actress with autism, hopes the controversy surrounding Sia's film "Music" is a. And to hear what the community is saying that you're trying to support and then straight up ignoring it is just as hurtful." "And people don't know what they don't know, so I always approach from the side that she probably had really good intentions, but good intentions don't always have a good outcome. "There are so many reasons why casting is the way it's done, and there are so many reasons stories are told," Carrier said. Both Carrier and Anderson would like to see more people with disabilities playing the roles of disabled characters, but agreed that sometimes, that can't and won't happen. Tal Anderson, an actress with autism who played Sid in Netflix's Atypical, agreed. And that was just really uncomfortable and hard to see." "Rather than listening to what people had to say, she just attacked them. "And that's really what upset me the most." "The way Sia responded to the criticism and the things the autistic community was saying was so angry and so attacking," Carrier said. It was a response that many in the community found offensive and ableist.
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