Tonight is one of Hollywood’s biggest nights –Â The Academy Awards. This week, I started thinking about how many of these most prestigious awards have been given out to movies about people with different disabilities.
From true stories like “My Left Foot” to depictions like “Rain Main”, these movies have gained the highest praise the movie industry has to offer. In my opinion, they’ve also made people with disabilities a little more relatable. That’s  because they’ve shown them in real-life situations that can happen to anyone. Each movie also showed what the person would do in response to their surroundings. Though there were a handful of movies that depicted disability in some way, shape or form, I’ve chosen three to talk about in today’s post.
“My Left Foot” is the story of a man named Christy Brown. The movie shows how he lived his life with the use of only his left foot due to Cerebral Palsy. When “My Left Foot” was in theaters I was surprised to see the story of someone’s life with Cerebral Palsy being shown in the movies. It was one of those times where I felt like C.P. was being shown not as something that’s contagious (as some kids used to say) but, something that was meant to be overlooked.  It helped emphasize that people should focus on the actual person instead of what they weren’t able to do.
“Rain Man” may have been the first time that someone with Autism was depicted on the “silver screen”. One of the reasons that I chose to list it here is because in the movie, although his brother didn’t know that he existed, when he found out about him and started interacting with him, Raymond showed that despite his disability, he was an intelligent person.  I feel like this movie  helped dispel the myth that a person who is disabled can’t be intelligent.
There’s also the movie “I Am Sam” which starred Sean Penn.  This movie is about a father with a developmental disability that’s trying to keep custody of his daughter after they’re abandoned by her mother. Although it didn’t win an Academy Award, it showed the struggle that people with disabilities sometimes face in order to keep custody of their children.
Oscar night is always exciting, even if you’re just watching from the comfort of your own home. It’s also refreshing to know that it’s filled with great diversity.
What is your favorite Academy Award winning movie?
Thanks for reading..
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