Reflection
An observation of disability outside of academia
Viktoria Geldner
Eavesdropping can lead to interesting insights.
I am practicing a talk about people with cognitive disability in movies in front of a friend. I present several movies to her. In these, people with cognitive disability are either used for comedic effect or presented as tragedy struck onto their surroundings. In the end, she asks: “Why can’t there be movies where people with disability are just normal?”
She means: Does disability always have to carry meaning? Can it not – just exist? And why is that?
But, on the other hand, are there movies in which, for the nature of the medium, anything does ever just exist?