Jay Baldwin, a human rights student at Carleton University, was recently signed to Summerhill Casting to jumpstart modeling and acting opportunities. Living with cerebral palsy, Baldwin is a full-time wheelchair user.
The eager 21-year-old sees their disability as all the more reason to be in the public eye.
“I’m trying to be the representation I needed at 10 years old, especially as a queer, disabled, person of colour,” Baldwin said.
Over six million Canadians over the age of 15 identify as having a disability, according to a 2017 Statistics Canada survey. Despite these statistics, representations of disabilities are often skewed in mainstream media.
Beyond the surface, the real-world portrayal of disabilities has remained limited. Contrasting the trope of people with disabilities being projected as “heroic” in the news, entertainment media tends to rely on negative stereotypes around living with a disability.
Baldwin said societal norms attached to those with disabilities affect people’s understanding of what it means to live with various conditions.
“I think a lot of people hear about disability and automatically see it as something sad, but it’s actually very normal. There’s always kind of a shock when non-disabled people find out I live an extremely regular life,” Baldwin said.
“It starts with very small experiences,” they said. “Kids see my wheelchair and usually it brings on fear because all they know is there’s something wrong.”
Early inclusion and ongoing conversation are possible solutions to these societal barriers and lack of representation in the media, Baldwin said.
“How cool would it be if [kids] had already seen a character like me and instead thought I was a superhero or something? That’s all I want,” they said.
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Proper representation
Heather Lacey is the executive director of ABLE2, a local Ottawa organization that aims to provide resources, specialized programming and community to those navigating a range of disabilities.
Lacey works with people who have disabilities to help them secure jobs, be more involved in the community and learn to grow with their disability.
“For a very long time, we told people with disabilities what life they could have,” Lacey said. “We want to empower people with disabilities to make the choices of where they want to live, what they want to do.”
When it comes to mainstream media, Lacey explains a main issue is representation.
In 2016, only five per cent of television characters with a disability were played by an actor with a disability, according to The Washington Post.
That number has risen to 12 per cent in 2018, according to an article by The New York Times. Despite the progress, most portrayals of disability were still negative. Hollywood’s efforts to become more diverse are far from inclusive, the article states.
A 2018 report conducted by The Ruderman Family Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation established in Boston, Mass., found that among streaming services, 20 per cent of the characters were authentically portrayed by actors with disabilities.
According to Lacey, the lack of representation of different disabilities in the media has led to a false portrayal of disabilities. It represents and pushes the idea that disabilities are undesirable, depressing and limiting, she said.
RespectAbility, a diverse and disability-led non-profit, said what people see and hear affects how they think and feel about themselves and others. The non-profit strives to demonstrate that examples of disability in the media should be focused on the contributions and value of people with disabilities.
Lacey said she sees the importance behind their mission.
“When you see people portrayed with schizophrenia on television, they’re often the person that’s out of control, they’re paranoid, they don’t take their medication, they’ve committed a crime, it’s the worst part of a [disability],” Lacey said.
Overall it is about portraying people with disabilities properly, she said.
“[It shouldn’t be] about somebody in a wheelchair who overcomes something,” Lacey said. “We see them as victims or as the villain and that’s not an image that we want to promote.”
![Mainstream media and news outlets typically have a one-dimensional outlook on disabilities, Lacey said. Graphic of cellphones over people's heads where you can see their brain as a different colour through their phone. Graphic by Sierra Mclean]](https://charlatan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GRAPHIC_1.png)
Invisible disabilities
According to Lacey, the issue of representation does not waver when it comes to invisible disabilities.
“It’s really a shame that we don’t see more people with those invisible disabilities being represented because having a disability doesn’t define who you are,” Lacey said.
Apart from working at ABLE2, Lacey is a parent to a son with autism and has noticed the confined view of her son’s disability. Society’s exposure to the autism spectrum can be seen in popularized TV and films that do not show the full picture, Lacey said.
She mentioned Rain Man as an example, a 1988 film with a main character who has autism and savant syndrome.
“If you watched Rain Man and that was your only kind of access to somebody with autism … you would assume all people with autism had [savant syndrome], and they certainly don’t,” she said.
Lacey said she would like to see more consultation and casting of people with disabilities in the film industry.
The one-dimensional representation of disabilities also extends to other media, such as news outlets. At the end of a newscast, Lacey said there is always a feel good story which often centres around an individual with a disability.
“[They have] done this fantastic thing and you don’t want to diminish that, I mean it’s an accomplishment for a young man who is living with Down syndrome to complete a triathlon, but you know it’s there every day,” Lacey said.
![There needs to be better representation of all disabilities in mainstream media, Lacey explained. Graphic of a person in a wheelchair watching TV. [Featured graphic by Sierra Mclean]](https://charlatan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GRAPHIC_2.png)
Advocacy as an important step
According to Lacey, the media and news tend to focus more on people with physical disabilities.
“A lot of times we only see people who have a physical disability or who may be in a wheelchair,” Lacey said. “But there are a number of invisible disabilities.”
Invisible disability is an umbrella term that captures a whole spectrum of hidden disabilities such as learning disabilities, chronic illness and mental health.
Stacey Bielaski, a board member with ABLE2, is passionate about sharing her own lived experience with disabilities and using it to help others.
Bielaski was diagnosed with a learning disability at a young age. She later attended a school with a specialized curriculum where she received extra support. Once she transitioned to high school, Bielaski was met with a lot of stigma surrounding her disability.
“In high school, I wasn’t really supported because they weren’t really focusing on what I could achieve or what I thought I could do,” Bielaski said.
After experiencing a lack of support, Bielaski was driven to become an advocate for those with disabilities.
“I want to be more,” she said. “I want to help other children or teenagers.”
Debunking stereotypes
Overall, representation is key to start tackling negative stereotypes, Lacey said.
“I think that things could be turned around a little bit and the media could be doing a lot more to promote positive images,” Lacey said. “People with disabilities still have a much harder time getting employment because there’s still this idea out there that people with disabilities may not be fully skilled or able to do the jobs.”
Lacey explained that people with disabilities have been stereotyped as unreliable workers.
“If there were more positive portrayals of people with disabilities being successful, I think that sends a really good message to young people who may be struggling to find their way with their disability and are trying to learn how to live with it,” she said.
Though Baldwin said they are sometimes overwhelmed by the journey ahead, they said they “wouldn’t want to be doing anything other than breaking the mould.”
Currently, Baldwin is working to help their community through the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital’s “Dear Everybody” campaign, a movement to end stigma and bias against those with disabilities.
“I believe there’s room to advocate but also just be me,” Baldwin said. “As much as I love doing work around activism, I also just want to be cast [in roles] as anyone else would and really be there to make disability seem casual and normal, because it is.”
Featured graphic by Sierra Mclean.
