So when I was at the movies yesterday, I saw a trailer for a movie about a sick/disabled girl who isn’t able to go outside. And she starts a relationship with a boy who wants to show her the joys of the world and she leaves for the first time and convinces him to take her on an adventure because she would rather die knowing that she saw the world than stay trapped in her house.
You know, that typical sappy Indie film trope?
And I’m sitting there, jaw dropped, like, “Hell yes, a sappy carpe diem movie featuring a disabled main character? Why haven’t I heard about this? My followers would normally be all over this!”
And then I realized that it’s based on a bestselling novel??? So right then and there I pulled out my phone and looked it up and realized that it’s called Everything, Everything.
So I’m excitedly reading the Wikipedia synopsis and SPOILERS she’s not even disabled! The big plot reveal is that her mother lied to her and she’s not sick at all and so she and her boyfriend get to live the rest of their abled lives together!
Why? Why the hell do abled people insist on doing this to us? What sort of sick pleasure do they get out of dangling representation right in front of our noses before taking it away?
And why do film industries pick up these stories like babies picking up candy when disabled indie authors like myself and others have been working for years to try to include actual disability representation?
The only source of comfort from this is that I at least saw the infuriating plot twist in the synopsis because I would have probably started crying if I had bothered to read the book or watch the movie and had gotten invested in a story about another disabled person only for them to not be disabled.
That’s just such a shitty thing to do.
I just…fuck abled writers man.
PLEASE CAN YOU PUT A SPOILER TAG ON THE TOP ON THIS POST BECAUSE NOW THE FILM IS KINDA RUINED FOR ME.
GOOD! IT’S A SHITTY FILM AND IT DESERVES TO HAVE IT’S SHITTY PLOTPOINT OUT IN THE OPEN SO THAT DISABLED PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THEY’RE GETTING THEMSELVES INTO!
Are you fucking kidding me?! I was so looking forward to this movie!!! Thanks for spoiling it so I don’t have to spend the money to go see it.
A few months ago I listened to an excellent radio play (a rare example of new drama on Radio 4 NOT written by the Dramabot 3000 and in the 'Lucy's Complex Dilemma' vein) about a man dealing with agrophobia and telling the story of his previous relationship over the course of an intensely traumatic tube ride. And it had a twist but it was, y'know, good, not 'he wasn't really disabled lol' and it had a cathartic resolution but it wasn't 'and then he wasn't disabled any more'. And it made me cryyy. Which is actually pathetically easy but still.
Aaaand it’s not available on iplayer any more, but if I ever hear it repeated I’ll post it. It was called Wide Open Spaces by Jane Wainwright, and if it was available it would be available here :(
