Just in time for the Oscars

...a dispatch from bewilderness

collage by the author, Judith Hannah Weiss

When my mother was the age I am now, she had a stroke at the dinner table and slid to the floor. She had spinach in her mouth. I pulled the spinach out. She had seven strokes in all. Nearly totally paralyzed on half her body, she still managed to smile with half her face.

I grew up with Aunt Nennie, who was blind and in a wheelchair, paralyzed by polio, and a dad who could barely walk. Disability inhabited the way we lived. Curbs, sidewalks, streets, restaurants, cars, bathrooms, trains, busses, planes, parties didn’t work for us.

A few decades after they died, the Americans with Disabilities Act, changed public bathrooms. However, though it required that public bathrooms could now accommodate a wheelchair, it did not require sufficient space for the disabled person to turn the chair and leave the room.

In real life, disability is great. I mean, it sucks. But in Hollywood, disabilities are gold. These are among the actors who have won Oscars for playing characters with disabilities or illness:

Bradley Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Joanne Woodward, Jessica Lange (for two different roles), Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Leonardo DiCaprio (for two different roles), Jodie Foster, Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson…

Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman, Julie Christie, Angelina Jolie, Tom Hanks, Debra Winger (for two roles), Bette Davis (for three roles), Julia Roberts, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Matthew McConaughey, Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto and Julianne Moore…

Jon Voight, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Cruise, Gary Sinise, Hillary Swank, Woody Harrelson, Audrey Hepburn, John Malkovich, Jamie Foxx, Patty Duke, Alan Arkin, Holly Hunter, Marlee Matlin, who is, in fact, deaf, and Troy Kotsur, who is, in fact, deaf as well. Plus Jane Wyman in “Johnny Belinda” as a deaf-mute who is raped.

Earning awards for a category of its own: Joaquin Phoenix, in the remarkably titled, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,” earned awards for playing a quadriplegic. That title just blows my mind.

Important: I don’t mean if you’re an actor, you shouldn’t play a disabled person, or that if you’re a producer, you shouldn’t make films with a disabled character. I do mean that real disabled people don’t tend to win awards and are often seen — if we’re seen at all — as unattractive and inconvenient.

Note: According to the last U.S. Census, one out of every five of Americans has a disability. Disability is the only minority anyone can join at any time.