Lauren Appelbaum looks at the way a new TV show, featuring the characters from the popular franchise Madegascar, deals with disability. The show has a recurring chimpanzee character named Dave who is Deaf and communicates using ASL, as well as his…
Ava Rigelhaupt, an autistic person, writes her reactions to the new Netflix reality series, Love on the Spectrum. Overall, she appreciated it's nuanced portrayal of autistic people and thought the team put a lot of thought into portraying them fairly…
Lauren Appelbaum looks at the legacy and history of Born This Way, a docuseries that followed seven people with Down Syndrome. These women and men have shown abled people that disabled people can live full and happy lives. The show also had a…
Lily Coltoff writes in praise of the new documentary, Code of Freaks, which addresses disability representation in film and television. Code of Freaks is highly critical of the way directors have chosen to present disabled people, including the lack…
Lauren Appelbaum presents the thoughts of Neil Jackson, a former attendee of the camp highlighted in Crip Camp. Jackson discusses how the unique way the camp was set up allowed for a radically different experience than most of the other available…
Lauren Appelbaum looks at the Disney Jr. show, Fancy Nancy, and its autism episode. Appelbaum expresses especially how glad she is to see that the autistic character is voiced by an actual autistic person, and that it treats the autism in a very real…
In a SPOILER heavy post, Imani Barbarin discusses the different portrayals of disability in the second season of Netflix's show Jessica Jones. On the whole, Barbarin sees lots of parallels to the lived experiences of disabled people that are very…
Scott Jordan Harris examines the fundamental reasons that disabled characters should be played by disabled actors, from the right to be properly and accurately represented, to better authenticity, to disabled actors deserving work not stolen from…
Imani Barbarin addresses Lupita Nyong'o's role in You as a disabled person, taking the opportunity to point out not only the ableism and racism in Hollywood, but the ableism in the Black community and the racism in the disabled community.
Tatiana Lee examines the ways Apple TV+ works to consciously incorporate disabled people in their streaming platform. In addition to including captioning for Deaf people, they also have audio description in several languages for any blind or low…