Things to do instead of spending your money on Me Before You
It has been a while since I've published any writing. I've been recovering from a bout of pneumonia and the flu, which I was hospitalized for back in March. Since getting sick, I've lost a lot of arm strength and am dealing with a new normal, which means needing more help and more rest. I've also spent the last months working hard to get my life back to its usual pace and trying really hard not to die. It's kind of ironic that Me Before You, a movie that glamorizes a person with a disability choosing to commit suicide, is the event that brought me out of my writing funk. Rather than rehash all that's been discussed and framed in fifteen million ways about why this movie sucks, I thought I'd take a different spin on this protest and provide you with a list of things you can put your energy towards that will help the world gain a more positive perception on life with a disability.
#1: Don't clutter-up your psyche with stigma and stereotypes
When I was a kid, I remember seeing Steel Magnolias for the first time. Holy crap is that the saddest movie ever! I always tensed up when Julia Roberts' character went into convulsions after her sugar went low (she played a character with Type 1 (T1) diabetes) and when she died due to kidney failure, I cried for hours and hours. After that, every time I met someone with T1 diabetes, I imagined Julia Roberts shaking violently with orange juice running out of the corners of her mouth during a sugar crash, which wasn't fair or kind. In the movie, the protagnonist fights to have a baby and that pregnancy is what ultimately kills her. I always assumed that people with T1 diabetes couldn't have kids, like many assume people with neuromuscular disabilities like mine can't have kids. That movie, based on fictional characters, shaped so much of my perspective on life with T1 diabetes. The stereotypes, the stigma, all that crap, got into my psyche.
Fast forward to after I attended college at Edinboro University and shared a dorm with a whole bunch of students who were quadripeligic, many who had just graduated from extensive rehabilitation related to adjusting to their spinal cord injuries. Knowing what I knew about spinal cord injuries from my friends who lived with them first-hand, I went to see Million Dollar Baby (which is produced by the same company that produced Me Before You). When Million Dollar Baby released in the theaters, I didn't belong to a disability community of advocates and activists to spoil the film for me and, looking back, I really wish I had. At the end of the movie, when the lead character is injured and offered a community college brochure instead of rehabilitation, I about rolled on out of the theater. The blatant inaccuracies, the absolute insult to people with disabilities everywhere, hurt my heart. People were leaving the theater crying, like I did after first watching Steel Magnolias, and I left the theater absolutely enraged. I thought of all the people that just got a "taste" of disability and recovery from injury that was sooooo wrong. I thought of all the parents and friends that would feel good about injecting their depressed kids who acquired disabilities with poison because the "alternative" was "life" with a disability. The thesis of that fictional story hurt us and future quadripelgics so, so much.
Now here we are with Me Before You. A movie that is basically the result of movies like Million Dollar Baby, again reinforcing that people with disabilities can be loved enough to be let go; that people with disabilities have no quality of life; that people with disabilities should feel humiliated and shamed by their very burden that they bring upon others. Yes, there's a hot guy in the movie. Yes, Daenerys Targaryen, a hero from Game of Thrones is in it. And yes, it could be considered as sad romance that pulls at your heart strings, BUT...But. I won't pay money or encourage it. I won't take children to see it. And I will keep talking about it because people should think deeply about these issues and how stories resonate deeply into our psyche.
Suggested visiting: Edinboro University of Pennsylvania's Office for Students with Disabilities
Suggested viewing: "Ableist, Stereotypical, and Offensive" or: Why I Hate "Me Before You" by Dan Harvey
#2: Have sex with a disabled person
Probably one of the top complaints I hear from people with disabilities is that it is difficult to hook-up or get involved in a romantic relationship due to false ideas regarding our presumed lack of sexual ability or presumed inability to "feel" sex. People with all kinds of disabilities get it on in all kinds of ways all of the time. We make our kids the "old fashioned way". We reach climax. Me Before You does not help disprove these inaccuracies, and since most people don't feel comfortable discussing their bedroom behavior with the public, a person without a disability won't really understand just how wrong Me Before You is until that person gets down with the D. So rather than go and see a movie about a man who thinks he can't be “a man” because he has a disability, take out a person with a disability instead. If you do, you'll learn that Hoyer or ceiling lifts often pull double duty as sex swings.
Suggested reading: Carrie Salberg's "Dating While Disabled: A First Hand Account"
#3: Promote emotional health and wellness
Recently, a friend posted a great comic showing two buildings. One building is a place for people who need treatment for depression and suicide prevention. The other building is an assisted suicide facility, like Dignitas, where Will Traynor goes to off himself in Me Before You. The depression and suicide prevention building has stairs leading up to it. The assisted suicide facility has a ramp leading up to it. In summary: people with disabilities struggle to access services and supports, which promote emotional health and wellness, yet, many of us could "qualify" for the alternative - assisted suicide - with just the right framing of our "wheelchair bound suffering" taken from the Me Before You Screenplay of Misinformed "Autonomy". Most people with disabilities are working hard and fighting to survive on a daily basis, and yes, some do give up like the fictional Will Traynor, but we shouldn't give up on them or passively cry into our shirt sleeves at the movies.
We should all be working to make mental health services available to people with disabilities. If you know someone with a disability who struggles with depressive thoughts, or who needs to connect and communicate with someone due to social or spiritual isolation, get in touch with your area's local Independent Living Center or encourage your friend to seek out help in their community.
Suggested reading: Dear Julianna: Letters to Children from Adults with Neuromuscular Disabilities
Suggested PSA: "Live On. Disabled Lives Are Worth Living"
#4: Support true diversity in the arts and entertainment industry
There are people with disabilities who are struggling to make it in the field of arts and entertainment right now. Rather than spend $25 on two tickets to Million Dollar Baby Part 2: Revenge of Euthanasia, put that money into supporting the efforts of someone who really does have a disability, who is trying to succeed in a business that barely recognizes his or her existance. You could pay and subscribe to Mike Ervin's hilarious blog, Smart Ass Cripple, or buy Zach Anner's book, or go see Ally Bruener perform a comedy set, or watch Shannon DeVido perform on stage in NYC. All of these artists should be on the big screen, stage, or page, but are often overlooked to make room for actors who "look right" for Hollywood's idea of disability, or writers, like JoJo Moyes, who make their living writing formulaic drivel about experiences they have barely researched that get turned into screenplays. Hollywood and Moyes don't deserve another dime. They've already done enough damage with the dimes they have.
#5: Tell and listen to real disability positive stories
Last, but not least, you could watch one of my favorite documentaries, On A Roll: Family, Disability, & The American Dream, on the legend, Greg Smith, who died last week on the day of the Me Before You nationwide release. Greg fought for disability rights and for life each and every day of his life. Like many who have lived and died before, Greg believed what another hero activist I admire, Harriet McBryde Johnson, believed that storytelling is a survival tool. The great and nuanced stories told about disability are often about us and not by us. These stories breed pity, fear, and sorrow. Most of the time when able-bodied artists "crip up" they essentially metaproject their viewpoint onto the audience (this-is-how-I-would-feel-therefore-this-is-how-it-should-feel). Take the 120 minutes of wasted cinematic opportunity that is Me Before You and put 53 of those minutes into watching Greg's documentary. Put the 27 leftover minutes toward a discussion about this film. It will feel a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
