Its Time to Talk About Disabled Super Heroes

On a quest to secure an interivew with Daredevil Born Again star Charlie Cox, it got me thinking about disabled superheroes, or rather how Hollywood seems to treat disabled characters--espeically as a disabled person with Cerebral Palsy. It would be impossible to talk about this without talking about the Devil from Hell's Kithchen himself -- Daredevil. The reason why Daredevil works is becuase his disablity is the very thing that gives him his powers. However, it is the treatment of his disablities that concerns me -- or rather the perception of how disablities work to the general public.

The main issue is that cause of these disabilites is from a labatory or other related accident, a reuglar staple in superhero lore. Daredevil's sight is lost from a chemical spill. Professor X and Captain Marvel Jr's legs are crushed by falling debris. While these are perfectly accectable exsplanations for aquired superpowers -- they are really no different than Peter Parker's spider bite or Bruce Banner being caught in an explosion.

And it creates the idea that people are not born with disablities. While Matt Murdock uses his accident to his advantage, many other chracters simply treat it as something they just dont want to deal with. This could have been an oppourtunity to edcuate the movie audience about spinal biffida or musular dystrophy, rather than explaining it away as a freak accident.

Charles Xavier originally revealed the cause of his paralysis in a flashback in X-Men #20. Over the years, He has lost and regain the use of legs through magic, cloning, and even swapping bodies with an alien race.

Simarliy, Batgirl regined the use of her legs from an experimental surgury. Batman who had his back broken by Bane used magic to heal his spine. While you could argue that this is all part of the craziness that is comics, I think it also does a real disservice to disabled fans and readers as it implies that disablities are somehow temperoary.

The mainstream characterization of how they characters deal with their differently abled-ness is also a bit all over the place. Adaptations have done a fairly repectful job of showing the different ways that disabled characters adjust to the world. Daredevil uses a text to speech phone, and his film counterpart folds the cash in his wallet so he can tell the bills apart.

However, modern writing seems to be fixated on how disabled people just want to be normal. Freedie Freeman lements on how he is just a joke, and spends a lot of time in the sequel spending too much time as his super powered alter ego. Charlie Cox's Daredevil handles this best, telling Karen of the time he rememberd his sight; but its not done from a place of jelaousy.

From a perfomance point of view, many of the actors being these disabled actors are very invested in getting the details right. Convincing the audience that the chracter is actually disabled connects us to the character. Shazam's Jack Dylan Grazer trainined for two months to learn how to walk on crutches, confirmed in my recent interview. Charlie Cox went full method on Daredevil, fitting his eyes with special lens during the first season.

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“I don’t know if you know this [or not] but on the first season, I was trying to figure out how to do it. I went to this specialist, an opticianist – and I had these lenses made that were identical to my eyes but they completely blinded me. You put them in and I couldn’t see a thing and I thought great, 'I’ll do that and I don’t have to do any acting.' "

-Charlie Cox

(Roberts, J.) 9 Nov. 2016. How Charlie Cox Blinded Himslef for Daredevil. ScreenRant.

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Going forward, I would love to see more accurate writing for born disablities in the media, particualry in Hollywood. Not only would it help furhter education about the disabled community, but it would serve as an inspiration for disabled fans that their is a place for them.