When beloved actress Meryl Streep used her lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes Sunday as an opportunity to denounce the president-elect, her fans â along with critics of Donald Trump â predictably went wild.
Streep was praised for her candor and bravery. The Academy Award winner left fellow A-listers with tears streaming down their faces as she described how her heart âbrokeâ when Trump mocked Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter with arthrogryposis, at a campaign event in 2015.
The president-elect denied that heâd mocked Kovaleski, and dismissed Streep as a âHillary flunky.â His supporters claimed the speech epitomized everything thatâs wrong with the liberal elite. But they werenât the only ones with criticism: Many members of the disability community pointed out that Streepâs comments stand in stark contrast to the ways in which people with disabilities are shut out of awards shows and the entertainment industry as a whole. Outside of Streepâs reference to Kovaleski, there was barely a mention of anyone with a physical disability during Sundayâs show.
Hollywood is willing to touch on the issue of disability without actually inviting any members of the community to partake in the conversation, according to New York Times best-selling author and disability activist Kody Keplinger.
âI couldnât help rolling my eyes,â Keplinger told The Huffington Post. Sheâs a co-founder of Disability in KidLit, an online resource regarding the depiction of disability in childrenâs and young adult literature. âThe applause in the room felt almost self-congratulatory.â
â"Can Hollywood really pat itself on the back when disabled actors are still so rarely cast -- even to play people like themselves?"â
Nearly 1 person in 5 in America has a disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But Hollywood hasnât made much room for this demographic. In 2015, only 2.4 percent of notable characters in the top-grossing 100 movies had disabilities.
Whatâs most disheartening, Keplinger notes, is that when people with disabilities are depicted on the big screen, they tend to be played by actors who are able-bodied in real life.
ââWe would never do this,â Iâm sure many were thinking. âWe would never mock someone with a disability,ââ Keplinger said. âBut how many of the actors in that room have been paid millions of dollars to play someone with a physical disability? There is a difference between playing a part and mocking someone, absolutely, but can Hollywood really pat itself on the back when disabled actors are still so rarely cast â even to play people like themselves?â
In 2015, Eddie Redmayne won an Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of famed physicist Stephen Hawking in James Marshâs âThe Theory of Everything.â It took months of âphysical trainingâ for Redmayne to nail the gestures of a person with Lou Gehrigâs disease.
Last year, âMe Before You,â Thea Sharrockâs heartbreaking romantic film about a stud who becomes paralyzed and falls in love with his caretaker, featured actor Sam Claflin in the lead role. Claflin doesnât use a wheelchair.
Nor is this a recent phenomenon. One of Dustin Hoffmanâs career-defining roles was as a man with autism in Barry Levinsonâs 1988 hit âRain Man.â
The list goes on. And the issue is just as prevalent in television. Ninety-five percent of characters with disabilities on TV are portrayed by able-bodied actors.
And yes, representation matters.
âImagine what it would feel like to be a woman and for the only women you ever saw in films to be played by men. Imagine what it would feel like to be a member of an ethnic minority and for the only portrayals of your race you ever saw in films to be given by white people,â Scott Jordan Harris wrote in an opinion piece for Slate in 2015. âThatâs what itâs like being a disabled person at the movies.â
Streep concluded her Golden Globes speech with a quote from her late friend, the actress Carrie Fisher: âTake your broken heart and make it into art.â
Now if only Hollywood would just extend that invitation to people with disabilities.