Writing in the Huffington Post, Lennard Davis takes Hollywood
and Broadway to task for regularly casting actors without
disabilities to portray characters with disabilities, as when
Abigail Breslin (left) was selected to play Helen Keller in the
upcoming revival of “The Miracle Worker.” An excerpt: The media
helps to shape and define how society at large thinks about
disability. The more that television, films, theater, and other
forms of performance reflect a world filled with diverse peoples
and bodies live, the more egalitarian and fair our society will
be. The one way to achieve this goal is have not just characters
with disabilities appear regularly in the media but to know that
people with disabilities play them. Lennard Davis is professor
of English, disability studies, and medical education at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.