Some friends of mine asked me to write a short blurb for their blog about disability in the media. You can check it out here towards the end of the most recent post, or read below.
Nashville Takes On Disability in Season 5, But Are They Doing It Right?
Hollywood has come a long way in recent years when it comes to representing people with disabilities in film, TV and stage. Whether it’s creating more storylines on mainstream shows for those who are differently abled (i.e. Superstore, Glee, Spring Awakening) or actually casting disabled actors in lead and supporting roles ( American Horror Story’s Jamie Brewer has Down Syndrome, while Speechless’ Micah Fowler and Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte both have Cerebral Palsy). While a once overlooked community is now getting the opportunities they deserve, there still seems to be a bit of division in Hollywood on how disabled characters are portrayed.
1. We are the inspiration porn, we are pitied, helpless characters everyone feels sympathy for.
2. We are actually represented as normal human beings with real feelings and problems just like everyone else. We just happen to have a disability - but we don’t let that stop us from living our lives.
Which brings me to the show Nashville. Spending its first four seasons on ABC before being picked up by CMT in its current 5th season, the show focuses on fictional country musicians both popular and up and coming, trying to make it in the country capitol of the world. Starring Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) and Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), the show has seen its share of cheating, addiction, and coming out of the closet storylines like most primetime soaps. This current season opens up following last season’s cliffhanger where Panettiere’s character Juliet is involved in a fatal plane crash. This new season’s story line has me a little irritated about how Juliet handles the aftermath of her accident. All Juliet does is complain how she can’t do anything while being stuck in a wheelchair, how she’s not “normal”, and that she can’t go out in public like “this”. Not to mention how useless she thinks she is as a woman in a wheelchair raising a baby. While it can be challenging, I know lots of women with disabilities in wheelchairs that raise children just fine.
The first episode The Wayfaring Stranger picks up with the young singer left for dead in a field of wreckage when she is saved by a passerby. She is the only survivor of the accident and we later find out her injuries include current partial paralyzation of her lower body (which the doctor says may be temporary ) due to shattering vertebrates, which is currently leaving her wheelchair bound. After surviving such a traumatic experience and losing sensation in your legs anyone would be terrified, that’s understandable. So I get Juliet’s bad attitude towards the situation. What bothers me is the way the writers are handling the storyline of Juliet’s new disability. We hear the cliche “I know you’re gonna walk again”, “You’re so brave”, and how they thinks she’s a miracle from various characters throughout the episodes. Later her estranged husband Avery (Jonathan Jackson) takes her to the accident site per her request and while pushing in the fields her chair gets stuck to which Juliet exclaims “Dammit.” Sure all of us in the two-wheel community have been there, but instead of our Dammit-stupid-wheel-got-stuck-again swearing, Juliet’s tone is a more irate Dammit-I’m-useless-in-this-thing statement. On that note, Juliet is supposed to be a multi-million dollar country star. Couldn’t they have gotten her a better looking wheelchair than that rinky dink cheap hospital chair she’s rolling around in?! Seriously.
In Back in Baby’s Arms, the second episode, we see Juliet trying to feed her baby Cadence to which the child does not respond. Avery offers advice on how to feed her but Juliet instead takes her incompetence as a mother and seems to blame it on the fact that she is now in a wheelchair, saying “You just do it. I’m useless” while rolling away. Avery then tells her she is not useless, only for her to turn around and exclaim “Well I might as well be! How am I supposed to raise a daughter like this?!” Like this of course meaning in a wheelchair. Her husband assures her she is not alone and he will be by her side to which she replies “Yeah I have you for now. How long are you gonna want to take care of a crippled and a baby?” I’m sorry but there’s nothing I hate more than the words “crippled” and “retarded”, especially when it is being used on a national platform. It is derogatory. Moving on, Juliet asks Avery to look for the woman who saved her because she can’t go out (because you know, she’s in a wheelchair and that’s embarrassing and all); she can’t let people see her like this. Later Juliet goes to a church where she believes the woman who saved her is a parishioner. We see a Pastor come out to Juliet’s van as she tells him “Thank you for coming out here. Getting in and out of this car is an ordeal.” Gurrrl, you have a wheelchair accessible van with a ramp! That is not an ordeal. Most of us wheelchair users would kill for an accessible car to make our lives easier! Stop complaining.
The latest episode Let’s Put It Back Together Again, we see Juliet struggling more adapting to her new life. While talking to Avery she drops something and is unable to pick it up from her chair in which she becomes frustrated. She is also challenged with the obstacle of stairs, aka to the rest of the disabled community a place not being ADA compliant..A few scenes later and upset she tells Avery “Tell me this is what you imagined? Pushing me around for the rest of my life in a wheelchair like a sack of potatoes?!” She goes on saying both her and her husband would be better off if she would have died in that plane crash hinting life in a chair is a far worse fate. The next scene Juliet suddenly gets sensation back in her legs after her baby pees on her. I mean really CMT? A 3-story arc?! Hey I became paralyzed for three episodes but now i’m getting feeling back in my legs and all better. It doesn’t work like that. I hope that’s not the case and from what I’ve heard Panettiere’s character won’t be getting out of that wheelchair anytime soon. Still, I hope as the season continues the cringeworthy cliched storyline of being disabled gets better. The episode ends with Juliet singing with hope in her voice the phrase ”I’m on my way” (as to say to recovery) while playing the keyboard.
I as a disabled woman in a wheelchair myself am disappointed so far in the direction CMT is taking the character of Juliet. It’s sending the message that people in wheelchairs see themselves as freakish and good for nothing, while others see them as miracles and inspiration. Seeing as I’ve been watching this show from the very beginning I hope CMT takes into consideration how the disabled community can take offense to this and hopefully revise the storyline by shying away from the stereotypical portrayal of persons with disabilities. We are a community of world class athletes, NASA engineers, journalists who write for the Times, surgeons, artists, musicians and so much more. Again I understand this character acquires a disability (whether it will be temporary or stays permanent we shall see), but I ask the writers and CMT to do better research on the lives of those living with disabilities, or here’s crazy idea, maybe even have an actual person with a disability as a consultant?! So even if the character of Juliet stays permanently wheelchair bound for the show, there’s no reason why she can’t still get back out on that stage and continue to be a country superstar. Now that’s something I would like to see!
Nashville airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CMT.
