The fact that Jon M. Chu was willing to not only hire an actor who uses a wheelchair but also to have her in the room as they worked on the script for the Wicked movie- plus making the set accessible- says a lot about him. Is he perfect? No. And no one is. But this is a huge deal!
I'm really glad you talked about Artie the way you did. To me it speaks to a broader issue about disability and how able bodied people (and honestly even some disabled people) conceptualize both cures and being disabled. They see disability as a deviation from humanity or normality and cures solely as a way to get you back to that normality rather than an intervention for your quality of life. I've seen some fantastic stories about newly disabled characters processing their grief or if the root cause of their disability was caused by say capitalism, structural failings like racism, etc which takes a very different context. But the idea that still lurks beneath both heroic and antagonistic disabled characters that no disabled life is worth living and wanting to escape that is the "natural" way to be is a very pervasive idea in how disabled characters are typically written. There's this stock villain trope, especially in crime and mystery stories that can be summarized as "disabled and desperate" where a disabled character becomes this super evil monster willing to resort to any kind of amoral action if it means they finally have a way to cure themselves of their disability.
When you were talking about Artie, one of the issues brought up reminded me of the Doctor Who episode The Giggle. In the episode, the character Shirley, who's a wheelchair user (played by Ruth Madeley, who is a wheelchair user in real life), is seen casually standing up throughout the scene in UNIT HQ, and later on, when Kate Stewart takes off her band to let herself succumb to whatever is possessing humanity and driving them all mad, she starts attacking her coworkers, and one of the things she says is "I know you're not a real wheelchair user, I've seen you walk." Later on, Kate does apologize, because she feels awful for what she said in her heightened emotional state, and Shirley is very understanding. The whole scene was really well done. If you haven't seen the episode, I highly recommend it.
Apparently they've actually tweaked the ending of Wicked for the 2nd film being released next year to remove the ablist part of the storyline - I'm really excited to see what they've done with it. There's also considerations into how to adapt the stage versions to incorporate some of the changes made for the film, including actually hiring wheelchair users to play Nessa. Wicked is one of my favourite musicals and I'm so pleased that they're finally improving the disability representation in it, especially as that ties in with a lot of the themes of the story around discrimination and seeing past people's surface level differences.
@@felixhenson9926 I can't remember whose video I was watching, but it was about wheelchair rep in the film and they referenced an interview with the person who plays Nessa discussing her consultation role. They've not confirmed what the change is yet (I think to keep it as a surprise until release), but she has confirmed that they've made the ending less ablist. As far as I'm aware, the stage stuff is still in the very early discussion stage, but they're definitely open to making changes. I think it will probably also take a while for any changes to propagate to all the different versions (Broadway, West End, etc).
I'm a disabled actor. I have a regular job where I play characters that just happen to be disabled because I'm playing them. I love that. I've also been in a couple of films (one British and one Bollywood) as a disabled homeless person and a disabled farmer. One thing I really hate is even when we're not including my disability, the fact that they've seen me move my legs means that my character is faking disability.
I read the book „me before you“ in Book club and I HATED the ending. Being disabled myself I felt the message was somehow that a disabled life is not a life worth living (not even if you have love, family and loads of money 🤷🏻♀️).
God I hate hate hate the plot of Me Before You. My grandmother was a quadriplegic the last 20+ years of her life due to a surgical error and she had such a full life and would have been so angry about that entire story. 😡
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I agree with Artie one as a person with disabilities I can tell you there times in my life where I wish I can get rid of my disability but it’s impossible. I agree if you play disability part you need to be a disabled . Because kind helps them play part better
Absolutely agree. The actor is actually disabled, and the message is basically to just include us, to give us opportunities to offer our perspective and actually listen to what we have to say.
@@DisabledEliza it started out as a book and it is now a trilogy with 3 books. I actually just made a comment about it because I was curious about your opinion on it, no pressure though.
First video of yours I've watched. I like finding new creators who makes me more aware about different topics. Thanks for this video new subscriber here ❤
Woah, her headphones must be amazing. I'm in a public area rn where I bring my kid every weekly for a thing... I have new headphones exactly to block out some of the noise here.
Highly recommend Raising Dion for some brilliant disability rep from the most amazing ten year actor. I thought EastEnders did well with Donna a few years ago. Actor is genuinely disabled and for the most part she was either walking or using her chair as Lisa needed not the script, although they did do some good storylines for her too where it mattered. Including her being hit by a bus and get chair getting damaged. I'm a little mixed feeling on the current storylines though, although they do have a wheelchair user playing one and she's not a good person but done in a way that she just is not because of the disability. We need more bad people who happen to be disabled. I'm going to keep thinking of examples and running back to the thread lol
Ellie Henry is unsing a wheelchair and acted in the series "Hollyoaks" as a wheelchair user. I don't know the series (no broadcasting, where I live) but she has a youtube channel sharing her life and also disability (awareness) content.
Hey Elisa, will leave a longer comment later. Hope this isn't too self centered but I did my entire bachelors thesis on media representation of autism comparing Atypical to the Chloe and Jessica Kellgren-Fozard's videos. It's actually how I found out about Chloe before she got super big. I was wondering if you'd interested in reading it. No preusure if you don't 😊/lh
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Merissa is not only disablity representation but also queer representation. Its amazing to see this intersectional representation in main stream media. Two shows id recommend if you haven't heard of them already are : Special and Geek Girl. Special is about Ryan, a gay man with Cyrbal Palsy and Geek Girl is about Harriet, an ausitic teen who accidentally gets launched into the world of fashion. Geek Girl's author Holly Smale actually got diagnosed as autisic in her 30s after The NAS(National Autisic Soceity) and many of her fans (myself included) noticed that Harriet was accidentally autistic coded. Thanks so much for your videos and being anothe great representation for disabled community. As a disablity activist, you're one of the people I look up to😊.
I do agree with your stand on artie in a later season they actually have a disabled actress in a wheelchair who is a cheerleader but yeah glee as alot of issues
What is your opinion of the wheelchair user representation in the book trilogy out of my mind, out of my heart, and out of my dreams? Good or bad? Accurate or not? I'm so curious.
Do you think able-bodied people cannot write disabled characters at all? I'm curious, because authors usually write about something that's at least partially outside of their own experiences, so I'm not sure if reserving certain topics to certain types of authors is an okay thing to do. It's similar for actors, they do always pretend to be something they're not, although here I can understand why it's better to hire a disabled actor for a disabled role, because they cannot just play an able-bodied person unless their disability is invisible. Still, I think that it may be a slippery slope (I know it doesn't have to be, I'm afraid it may be) where you can only play a character if you're exactly like the character in real life, which would complicate things a lot in my opinion, as well as limit the idea of acting.
It’s not saying you can only play people with your disability. But you can’t play an able bodied person either. So when a non disabled person gets the pick of both then disabled actors get no hope of a role. I can tell straight away if a story has been written by someone who knows about disability or has had input from disabled people. Stuff that people Think would be a big deal..isn’t like all I want to do is walk. Then little stuff that’s really annoying …people leaning on your chair for example is not picked up on
@@egriffiths8993 I see - as I said, it makes more sense with actors. And yes, you should know something about a disability when writing a disabled character, I just don't think you should *be* disabled to do that.
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though TW Mental Health issues: . .. .. ... .. I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways. I love Nessa and love that Melsia
The fact that Jon M. Chu was willing to not only hire an actor who uses a wheelchair but also to have her in the room as they worked on the script for the Wicked movie- plus making the set accessible- says a lot about him. Is he perfect? No. And no one is. But this is a huge deal!
I'm really glad you talked about Artie the way you did. To me it speaks to a broader issue about disability and how able bodied people (and honestly even some disabled people) conceptualize both cures and being disabled. They see disability as a deviation from humanity or normality and cures solely as a way to get you back to that normality rather than an intervention for your quality of life.
I've seen some fantastic stories about newly disabled characters processing their grief or if the root cause of their disability was caused by say capitalism, structural failings like racism, etc which takes a very different context. But the idea that still lurks beneath both heroic and antagonistic disabled characters that no disabled life is worth living and wanting to escape that is the "natural" way to be is a very pervasive idea in how disabled characters are typically written.
There's this stock villain trope, especially in crime and mystery stories that can be summarized as "disabled and desperate" where a disabled character becomes this super evil monster willing to resort to any kind of amoral action if it means they finally have a way to cure themselves of their disability.
When you were talking about Artie, one of the issues brought up reminded me of the Doctor Who episode The Giggle. In the episode, the character Shirley, who's a wheelchair user (played by Ruth Madeley, who is a wheelchair user in real life), is seen casually standing up throughout the scene in UNIT HQ, and later on, when Kate Stewart takes off her band to let herself succumb to whatever is possessing humanity and driving them all mad, she starts attacking her coworkers, and one of the things she says is "I know you're not a real wheelchair user, I've seen you walk." Later on, Kate does apologize, because she feels awful for what she said in her heightened emotional state, and Shirley is very understanding. The whole scene was really well done. If you haven't seen the episode, I highly recommend it.
Apparently they've actually tweaked the ending of Wicked for the 2nd film being released next year to remove the ablist part of the storyline - I'm really excited to see what they've done with it.
There's also considerations into how to adapt the stage versions to incorporate some of the changes made for the film, including actually hiring wheelchair users to play Nessa.
Wicked is one of my favourite musicals and I'm so pleased that they're finally improving the disability representation in it, especially as that ties in with a lot of the themes of the story around discrimination and seeing past people's surface level differences.
Looking forward to seeing her become a tyrant. (It gets glossed over in the stage play)
oh shit! i've heard a lot of ppl speculating on whether they might or might not do that but it's cool hearing it's actually been confirmed!
@@felixhenson9926 I can't remember whose video I was watching, but it was about wheelchair rep in the film and they referenced an interview with the person who plays Nessa discussing her consultation role. They've not confirmed what the change is yet (I think to keep it as a surprise until release), but she has confirmed that they've made the ending less ablist.
As far as I'm aware, the stage stuff is still in the very early discussion stage, but they're definitely open to making changes. I think it will probably also take a while for any changes to propagate to all the different versions (Broadway, West End, etc).
I'm a disabled actor. I have a regular job where I play characters that just happen to be disabled because I'm playing them. I love that.
I've also been in a couple of films (one British and one Bollywood) as a disabled homeless person and a disabled farmer.
One thing I really hate is even when we're not including my disability, the fact that they've seen me move my legs means that my character is faking disability.
Same :/
I read the book „me before you“ in Book club and I HATED the ending. Being disabled myself I felt the message was somehow that a disabled life is not a life worth living (not even if you have love, family and loads of money 🤷🏻♀️).
Yeah it’s so vile
God I hate hate hate the plot of Me Before You. My grandmother was a quadriplegic the last 20+ years of her life due to a surgical error and she had such a full life and would have been so angry about that entire story. 😡
Happy Holidays, Eliza and I hope you're enjoying seeing the beautiful Christmas 🎄 lights in London, England 🏴🎅💚❤️🎁✨️
I really liked this and if you do another I would like to hear your opinion on " Out of my mind" I liked it but it isn't one that I know a lot about
Did you know there are actually 2 sequels to out of my mind?
@hearmeout1767 no I didn't thanks for letting me know
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
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..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I agree with Artie one as a person with disabilities I can tell you there times in my life where I wish I can get rid of my disability but it’s impossible. I agree if you play disability part you need to be a disabled . Because kind helps them play part better
A really good film is "Out of my mind" is in disney plus
Absolutely agree. The actor is actually disabled, and the message is basically to just include us, to give us opportunities to offer our perspective and actually listen to what we have to say.
Oh this sounds amazing will definitely check it out!
@@DisabledEliza it started out as a book and it is now a trilogy with 3 books. I actually just made a comment about it because I was curious about your opinion on it, no pressure though.
First video of yours I've watched. I like finding new creators who makes me more aware about different topics. Thanks for this video new subscriber here ❤
Woah, her headphones must be amazing. I'm in a public area rn where I bring my kid every weekly for a thing... I have new headphones exactly to block out some of the noise here.
Highly recommend Raising Dion for some brilliant disability rep from the most amazing ten year actor.
I thought EastEnders did well with Donna a few years ago. Actor is genuinely disabled and for the most part she was either walking or using her chair as Lisa needed not the script, although they did do some good storylines for her too where it mattered. Including her being hit by a bus and get chair getting damaged. I'm a little mixed feeling on the current storylines though, although they do have a wheelchair user playing one and she's not a good person but done in a way that she just is not because of the disability. We need more bad people who happen to be disabled.
I'm going to keep thinking of examples and running back to the thread lol
@12:48 The closed captions may need a slight revison. I don't know if anyone else caught it.
Ellie Henry is unsing a wheelchair and acted in the series "Hollyoaks" as a wheelchair user. I don't know the series (no broadcasting, where I live) but she has a youtube channel sharing her life and also disability (awareness) content.
Hey Elisa, will leave a longer comment later. Hope this isn't too self centered but I did my entire bachelors thesis on media representation of autism comparing Atypical to the Chloe and Jessica Kellgren-Fozard's videos. It's actually how I found out about Chloe before she got super big. I was wondering if you'd interested in reading it. No preusure if you don't 😊/lh
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but has Jessica Kellgren-Fozard said she's autistic? I thought she only shared about having ADHD?
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Merissa is not only disablity representation but also queer representation. Its amazing to see this intersectional representation in main stream media.
Two shows id recommend if you haven't heard of them already are : Special and Geek Girl. Special is about Ryan, a gay man with Cyrbal Palsy and Geek Girl is about Harriet, an ausitic teen who accidentally gets launched into the world of fashion. Geek Girl's author Holly Smale actually got diagnosed as autisic in her 30s after The NAS(National Autisic Soceity) and many of her fans (myself included) noticed that Harriet was accidentally autistic coded.
Thanks so much for your videos and being anothe great representation for disabled community. As a disablity activist, you're one of the people I look up to😊.
I do agree with your stand on artie in a later season they actually have a disabled actress in a wheelchair who is a cheerleader but yeah glee as alot of issues
I’m not disabled myself, but I think Reggie on Call the Midwife is a good representation 😊
What is your opinion of the wheelchair user representation in the book trilogy out of my mind, out of my heart, and out of my dreams? Good or bad? Accurate or not? I'm so curious.
First like! 8 seconds ago!
Sorry, he went to the doctor yesterday and today he's dancing? Is it a dream sequence? Is this supposed to be a comedy? Wtf?
Now I kind of want to know why you dislike the good doctor and that other show I've never seen
Do you think able-bodied people cannot write disabled characters at all? I'm curious, because authors usually write about something that's at least partially outside of their own experiences, so I'm not sure if reserving certain topics to certain types of authors is an okay thing to do. It's similar for actors, they do always pretend to be something they're not, although here I can understand why it's better to hire a disabled actor for a disabled role, because they cannot just play an able-bodied person unless their disability is invisible. Still, I think that it may be a slippery slope (I know it doesn't have to be, I'm afraid it may be) where you can only play a character if you're exactly like the character in real life, which would complicate things a lot in my opinion, as well as limit the idea of acting.
It’s not saying you can only play people with your disability. But you can’t play an able bodied person either. So when a non disabled person gets the pick of both then disabled actors get no hope of a role. I can tell straight away if a story has been written by someone who knows about disability or has had input from disabled people. Stuff that people Think would be a big deal..isn’t like all I want to do is walk. Then little stuff that’s really annoying …people leaning on your chair for example is not picked up on
@@egriffiths8993 I see - as I said, it makes more sense with actors. And yes, you should know something about a disability when writing a disabled character, I just don't think you should *be* disabled to do that.
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia
I loved this video. The character of Artie, and later the storyline in S3ish for the Quinn frustrate me. I was wondering what you're on Becky is? I love her as a character and feel she's relatively good disablity representation. I adore Chloe and all her work and feel like if you were ever to do a collab with her (wishful thinking for now) you'd both get on so well. I've never seen Me Before You as it's so infamous though
TW Mental Health issues:
.
..
..
...
..
I can sometimes relate to my disablity making it hard to live. Though I acknowledge that this isn't due to me even I feel like it but rather society and system that oppress disabled people in so many ways.
I love Nessa and love that Melsia