{"id":464397,"date":"2020-03-09T02:23:08","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T09:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=464397"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:19:35","slug":"yes-it-is-about-disability-reflections-on-disability-and-media-criticism-after-sundance-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/03\/09\/yes-it-is-about-disability-reflections-on-disability-and-media-criticism-after-sundance-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, It *Is* About Disability: Reflections on Disability and Media Criticism After Sundance 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><b>Yes, It <\/b><b><i>Is<\/i><\/b><b> About Disability<\/b><b>: Reflections on Disability and Media Criticism After Sundance 2020<\/b><\/h4>\n<h5><b>Laura Dorwart<\/b><\/h5>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">*Editor\u2019s note from Alice Wong: full disclosure&#8211;I am working as a consultant for Netflix on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and this essay was commissioned by the DVP.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 2020 Sundance Film Festival, which I was lucky enough to attend as part of the 2020 Press Inclusion Initiative, offered plenty of watershed moments around disability representation in film. The most obvious was the opening night documentary <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentary.org\/project\/crip-camp\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, co-directed by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimLeBrecht\">James (Jim) LeBrecht<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NicoleNewnham\">Nicole Newnham<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Crip Camp and Disability Representation in Film panel with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TheAtlantic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TheAtlantic<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sundance2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Sundance2020<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt isn\u2019t our lot in life to be excluded. We can fight back. We started looking at all the liberation movements going on at the time, and we decided we needed one of our own.\u201d -Jim LeBrecht<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Laura Dorwart (@laurawritesit) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laurawritesit\/status\/1221593544365707264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A surprising number of the other films on offer in 2020 also dealt with disability and mental illness, whether explicitly or not. In Lawrence Michael Levine\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sundance.org\/projects\/black-bear\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Black Bear<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, for example, Aubrey Plaza\u2019s protagonist slices headlong into a couple\u2019s illusory pastoral scene of domesticity. But she also runs from, and through, the minefield of her own trauma history, navigating alcohol use disorder against a backdrop of abusers and enablers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sundance.org\/projects\/herself\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">film <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Herself<\/span><\/i><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(directed by Phyllida Lloyd) features <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dublinlive.ie\/lifestyle\/fair-city-actor-down-syndrome-16092796\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daniel Ryan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an actor with Down syndrome, in a notable supporting role. And the film\u2019s protagonist, a single mother (played by co-writer Clare Dunne) dealing with the aftermath of domestic violence in contemporary Dublin, addresses both her facial difference (see <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/carlyfindlay.com.au\/2017\/06\/11\/facial-difference-as-evil-in-wonder-woman-and\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carly Findlay\u2019s work<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on facial difference in film) and the murky emotional landscape of mutual caregiving in ways that are integral to character and thematic development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what I found most fascinating, and most indicative of how far we have yet to go in terms of the cultural conversation around disability representation in film and elsewhere, was the reporting on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and other films at this year\u2019s festival. In narrative framing, headline phrasing, tone, and content, criticism of films that feature disabled performers or address disability often perpetuates stereotypes in predictable, often unconscious patterns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In some ways, this was to be expected; after all, our cultural, personal, and political baggage around disability inevitably shows up in the way we write about it. What\u2019s more, disability and mental illness are still murky waters for many critics to navigate and, more importantly, interpret in art, given their frequent erasure both onscreen and off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If shame around disability\u2014what we reveal when we refuse to look, to witness, to surrender the illusion of sameness, or to accept that disability justice is not a matter of individual overcoming\u2014is in fact the enemy of the story, then recognizing our own role as critics in perpetuating that shame can only help us tell better ones. I hope we can eventually move beyond these patterns in order to afford stories about disability, and those by disabled creators, the kind of critical weight and complexity they deserve.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Naming Disability\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From its very title, you can tell that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is \u201ca different kind of story about disability.\u201d That\u2019s what LeBrecht told audience members at one talkback during Sundance when questioned about the obviously deliberate reclamation of the term \u201ccrip.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">An audience member asks about the reason for the title. Jim LeBrecht explains that the campers started to reclaim \u201ccrip\u201d and take it back for themselves as a matter of pride. The title also signaled that this was a story told from an insider\u2019s perspective. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CripCamp?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#CripCamp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sundance2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Sundance2020<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Laura Dorwart (@laurawritesit) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laurawritesit\/status\/1221613062022582273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The documentary draws in part from archival footage to chronicle the experiences of campers (including LeBrecht himself) at Camp Jened, a 1970s, Woodstock-adjacent summer camp for teens with disabilities that was instrumental in sparking both a disability rights revolution and at least one memorable crabs outbreak. And it was certainly not made to make nondisabled spectators comfortable. From the film\u2019s title to discussions of legendary disability rights activist, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is unapologetically a movie about disability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But according to a number of reviews of the documentary, it\u2019s anything but. Even in major outlets, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2020\/film\/reviews\/crip-camp-review-1203475888\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">many film critics insisted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that this (very-much-about-disability) film was not, in fact, \u201cabout\u201d disability. Instead, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/review\/crip-camp-review-sundance-1272290\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it was about ability<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Or different abilities. Or focusing on what we \u201ccan\u201d do instead of what we \u201ccan\u2019t.\u201d Or something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;In the end, Crip Camp isn\u2019t about disability&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AskDebruge?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@AskDebruge<\/a> <br \/>\ud83e\udd14<br \/>No, sir. It&#39;s called Crip Camp. It is explicitly &amp; entirely about disability<\/p>\n<p>What it is NOT about is your anxieties, assumptions &amp; misconceptions about disability.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/G8eeBNVWp5\">https:\/\/t.co\/G8eeBNVWp5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dr. Jason Dorwart (@HamOnWheels) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HamOnWheels\/status\/1233128645549383680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These patterns, incidentally, follow in the footsteps of two distinct histories of cultural navigations (and sidestepping) of disability: the freak show, which attempted to contain the specter of disability through the collective, ritual practice of fear-driven voyeurism and sensationalistic othering, and the institution, which excluded disabled people from participation in public life in part due to a culture of fear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, we see these legacies around disability in many ways: in parents who yank children away from visibly disabled people in public for fear of \u201coffending,\u201d for example, and in the many infantilizing, distancing, and euphemistic alterna-terms for disability. While these gestures may be well-meaning, they (whether in person or in writing) promote the practice of looking away from and erasing disabled people rather than acknowledging, listening to, and learning from them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This tendency, although ostensibly meant to be empowering, effectively decenters disabled people from their own stories.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can also work to push the negative implications of disabled identity back onto people who have already refused them. Imani Barbarin writes in \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/crutchesandspice.com\/2019\/07\/11\/whenicallmyselfdisabled-your-opinion-doesnt-matter\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">#WhenICallMyselfDisabled, Your Opinion Doesn\u2019t Matter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d at Crutches and Spice: \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everything good in my life, everything I have worked for came through not denying the word \u2018disabled\u2019 but embracing it. It doesn\u2019t make any of it easier, but it has set me free. I\u2019m free. My greatest burden associated with my disability wasn\u2019t the diagnosis, but the shame others imposed on me because of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Claiming that a story by disabled creators is not about disability, but about ability, also implicitly assumes that the spectator themselves is nondisabled. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/12\/20\/opinions\/what-its-like-to-be-me-disability-rebecca-cokley-opinion\/index.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rebecca Cokley writes<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> about the unintended consequences of euphemisms for disability in a 2017 piece for CNN, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These aren&#8217;t words anyone like me (meaning disabled) came up with\u2014they were defined by society because the concept of \u2018disability\u2019 makes nondisabled people feel uncomfortable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This common claim also (unwittingly) reifies the word \u201cdisabled\u201d as inherently shameful, dipping it once again into the stagnant pool of stigma that warns us to \u201cstay away\u201d from the word and its many implications. The refusal to name and center disability works to erase disabled identity, culture, and community in order to protect the illusion of sameness and invulnerability in which so many of us shroud ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Challenging Assumptions About What Disability \u201cLooks Like\u201d Onscreen<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The refusal to name disability and mental illness for what they are can also hinder our interpretations of character development and storytelling, even in films that aren\u2019t explicitly focused around disability themes. Naming disability for what it is, without fear, can also work to challenge underlying assumptions about what it means for a film to be \u201cabout\u201d mental illness or disability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disability is everywhere, and is thus represented and referenced everywhere, whether well or not, whether correctly or incorrectly, and whether we name it or not. And when we don\u2019t, as writers, notice and name disability\u2014not only with the word itself, but with our critical interpretations\u2014we often miss the mark, thus relegating \u201cdisability-related films\u201d to the usual bargain bins marked with stereotype, clich\u00e9, and stigma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This, too, is partly a matter of perspective. Commissioning more <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/07\/29\/ep-30-film-criticism\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill critics<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Journeys_Film?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kristen Lopez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/amuredda?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Angelo Muredda<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), as well as disabled filmmakers (like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dominickevans.com\/dominick-evans-bios\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dominick Evans<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, founder of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdis.com\/\">#FilmDis<\/a>) would inherently lead to more interpretations that treated disability as a possible part of any given piece of art, rather than as something that must be earmarked with an obvious narrative arc and subsequently treated with kid gloves that work to limit the possibility of story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Making Space For Anger<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another persistent tendency in cultural criticism around disability and mental illness is the urge to present disability as a problem to be hastily addressed and made \u201cright\u201d in the space of a review (or, alternatively, with the help of benevolent abled onlookers).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dominant disability narratives, as Amanda Leduc points out in her book <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/02\/10\/qa-with-amanda-leduc-on-fairy-tales-and-disability\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, are often packaged around a pat ending that \u201csolves\u201d the \u201cproblem\u201d of disability through erasure of it altogether, whether by death, cure, or charity (i.e., pity). In other words, they make off with the emotional loot of feel-good vibes or catharsis in a sort of narrative robbery, without addressing systemic oppression or even the actual people involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Echoing David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.press.umich.edu\/11523\/narrative_prosthesis\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Narrative Prosthesis<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much\/transcript?language=en\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stella Young\u2019s iconic work<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on \u201cinspiration porn,\u201d much of the reporting that addresses disability attempts to make it less than what it is. Limiting the scope of disability makes it easier to consume in bite-sized pieces of emotional capital: the bullying survivor who inspires pity and compassion; the overcomer who finds a cure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When a story by a disabled creator or about disability is more complex and steps outside those bounds\u2014by involving sexuality, for example, or anger about injustice\u2014critics often try to reduce that complexity, oversimplifying and even misinterpreting what we see in order to cram it back into its predetermined frame.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One way we do this rhetorically is by writing about a disabled character or disability-focused story as a teaching moment, a parable for an implied \u201cthe rest of us\u201d\u2014belying an assumption that disabled people exist for the benefit and edification of nondisabled onlookers.\u00a0 Buzzwords like \u201cheartwarming,\u201d \u201covercoming,\u201d \u201ctriumphant,\u201d and, of course, \u201cinspirational\u201d are often clues that a review will take this shape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We can also see these tendencies in criticism that glosses over the reality of disability rights as a political and social movement in favor of presenting it as a series of feel-good and tearjerker moments strung together by acts of individual goodwill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But anger, for disabled people as for all marginalized groups, can be a propelling force. In \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.17953\/amer.39.1.770m7m3413453050\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Musings from an Asian American Disabled Girl<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d Alice Wong offers advice to her younger self about the value of anger as it pertains to maintaining disability pride and agency in the face of oppression. \u201cKeep reading and stay angry,\u201d she writes to a younger Wong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But in a great deal of cultural criticism, disabled anger and rage are not allowed-for emotions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crip Camp<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, for example, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/suindependent.com\/sundance-2020-crip-camp\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">many reviews focused<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the more immediately palatable (and predictable) emotional aspects of individual pain, loneliness, and triumph rather than allowing space for the righteous anger that pervades much of the film to breathe. By opening up the range of emotions we are \u201callowed\u201d to associate with disability, we can work to push back against the false narrative that disability rights were and are eventually \u201cgiven\u201d to disabled people in some sort of benevolent act of charity instead of hard-won with strategic political planning, direct action, and yes, rage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><b>Letting Disability Be<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mapping out the way we write about disability as cultural critics is not just a matter of avoiding offense or speaking more sensitively. It is also a matter of noticing how we map our own existential anxiety, shame, and discomfort onto the bodies and minds we perceive as other (which may even be our own, as we internalize these attitudes). The stereotype- and stigma-laden tendencies we take on when we interpret disability representation often lead us to miss the point\u2014to miss the story in favor of a trite narrative we\u2019ve already heard before.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are ashamed, in many ways, by the familiar, by the stock characters of dystopian dreamlands. When we nightmare nervously about sweaty-palmed exams or a stranger bursting in on us in the buff, it\u2019s because we have already been told countless times about what it implies to be a bad student or a naked stranger. Similarly, many of us think we know the endings of stories about disability, inhabited by a predictable set of stock characters, because we\u2019ve heard them all before: that they should engender pity, perhaps a charitable tearjerking sort of uplift, and most of all, embarrassment and apology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If I were to contribute to a style guide for journalists and critics writing about disability, my personal recommendation\u2014which would likely get me kicked off the editorial team on the basis of insufferableness\u2014would be to let disability be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To let it live on the screen as it is, as open-ended and kaleidoscopic and confusing as everything else. To allow it the same complexity, creative analysis, and critical breathing room as every other human experience. To be unafraid to fix an analytical lens on it instead of allowing it only a blink-or-you\u2019ll-miss-it glance for fear of offending (or, more commonly, for fear of having to confront your own anxiety). To get close to disability, critically speaking, instead of giving it a wide berth and a furtive look. To stop treating disability like Medusa or a car crash: either something you should look away from or something at which you can\u2019t stop staring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this way, as critics evaluating disability in art, we might eventually move beyond awareness to analysis, past pity to empathy, and from inspiration to\u00a0inquiry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_464396\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-464396\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"464396\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/03\/09\/yes-it-is-about-disability-reflections-on-disability-and-media-criticism-after-sundance-2020\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?fit=1080%2C1080&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1080,1080\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;A closeup of a white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes smiling at the camera. She is wearing teardrop earrings.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-464396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=350%2C350&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A closeup of a white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes smiling at the camera. She is wearing teardrop earrings.\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=250%2C250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?resize=50%2C50&amp;ssl=1 50w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/41757777_277142972896930_4476142976375279054_n.jpg?w=1080&amp;ssl=1 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-464396\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A closeup of a white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes smiling at the camera. She is wearing teardrop earrings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Laura Dorwart<\/strong> is a writer with bylines at The New York Times, Bitch, Bustle, The Guardian, SELF, McSweeney\u2019s, VICE, Forbes.com, Playboy, SheKnows, TalkPoverty, and many other outlets. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego; an MFA in nonfiction writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles; and a B.A. from Barnard College. Laura lives in Oberlin, Ohio, with her husband, Jason Dorwart, and their daughter. Follow her work on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laurawritesit\">@laurawritesit<\/a> or at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lauradorwart.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">www.lauradorwart.com<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Support Disability Media and Culture<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\"><b>DONATE<\/b><\/a><b>\u00a0to the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, It Is About Disability: Reflections on Disability and Media Criticism After Sundance 2020 Laura Dorwart *Editor\u2019s note from Alice Wong: full disclosure&#8211;I am working as a consultant for Netflix &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/03\/09\/yes-it-is-about-disability-reflections-on-disability-and-media-criticism-after-sundance-2020\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Yes, It *Is* About Disability: Reflections on Disability and Media Criticism After Sundance 2020<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":464421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6701202,1],"tags":[159346,10372239,2005041,55897910,125524999,587152396,58990044,261599112,587152383,587152491,57299,587152492,117331,1934,587152384,587152836],"class_list":["post-464397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-blog-posts","category-uncategorized","tag-ableism","tag-disability-community","tag-disability-culture","tag-disability-identity","tag-disability-in-film","tag-disability-language","tag-disability-representation","tag-disability-tropes","tag-disabled-filmmakers","tag-disabled-narratives","tag-documentaries","tag-film-criticism","tag-film-festivals","tag-language","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-film-festival","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/2.png?fit=780%2C530&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1WOh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}