In ancient Greece, women were forbidden to act on stage, so men played female roles instead. If a visitor landed on our planet in 2020, he could easily believe that a similar ban exists in film and television regarding disability: in the vast majority of cases, able-bodied actors portray characters who are blind, deaf, autistic, or living with other disabilities.
It is precisely the drive to dismantle this distorted and absurd unspoken rule that guides the work of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which fights for the real and genuine inclusion of people with disabilities in film. "I am convinced that popular entertainment influences culture," Jay Ruderman, the Israeli-American attorney and foundation president, told the Jerusalem Post. "And because it is so influential, it is crucial to bring about change in this space—it is a path that can truly alter how people think."
The foundation's call is for all studios and production companies to commit to this direction. Only then can we have cinema and television that truly represent "the diversity in which we live." This shift could finally help society normalize disability. "When society is not inclusive, disability gets treated as charity, as the other—as people who instead of being fully integrated need help and pity." These are not peripheral concerns: to see disability is to accept it.
The Ruderman Foundation works on multiple fronts. The Seal of Authentic Representation is gaining increasing attention—an award given to films and television series that demonstrate real commitment to including disabled actors.
«I am convinced that entertainment influences culture, so we must encourage changes capable of transforming how people think»
«I am convinced that entertainment influences culture, so we must encourage changes capable of transforming how people think»
Among works that have received the seal, we can point to Tales of the City, a Netflix series that launched deaf actor and director Dickie Hearts in the role of Mateo, a deaf butler; General Hospital, an ABC soap opera featuring Maysoon Zayid, an actress and disability advocate with cerebral palsy and one of America's first Muslim comedians, playing Zahra Amir; Years and Years (reviewed by Matteo Cinti), a British drama series produced jointly by the BBC and HBO, with actress Ruth Madeley, who has spina bifida, playing Rosie Lyons, a single mother with the same condition; Loudermilk, an Audience comedy series in which actor Mat Fraser, who has phocomelia, appeared in the 2017-2018 season. There is also Raising Dion, a science-fiction series based on the comic book and short film now streaming on Netflix, which features a wheelchair-using character played by nine-year-old Sammi Haney, born with brittle bone disease. The foundation also recently honored the film Give Me Liberty by Kirill Mikhanovsly (discussed by Claudio Cinus).
The seal of "authentic representation" is awarded by the Ruderman Foundation to productions that meet two criteria: disabled actors must have a role of at least five lines, and the work must be intended for a general audience. To help train these actors, the foundation signed an agreement with Yale School of Drama—the first time a drama school has partnered to enable disabled actors to pursue professional training. The inaugural scholarship winner was Jessy Yates, an actress and comedian with cerebral palsy who began performing in Cleveland theaters before moving to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and appearing in Speechless (2016).
The foundation also partnered with Variety magazine, participating in Variety's 2019 Inclusion Summit in Hollywood, which drew attention to the absence of people with disabilities in the entertainment industry. When the Ruderman Foundation called on networks to commit to increasing the presence of actual people with disabilities in their productions, CBS was the first to respond positively. "In general," the president explained, "things move faster in television than in the film industry." And the moment seems favorable now—pandemic notwithstanding—because the entertainment world is hungry for authenticity. Authenticity that, it turns out, also pays off in terms of audience. And therefore, money.