Raising Television’s Sensitivity Quotient

People connected with ABC’s “Good and Evil” might have saved themselves some trouble if they had picked up the phone and called the Braille Institute in Los Angeles and asked for Carmen Apelgren. The call may not have changed the course of history but it might have made life slightly less troubled for the new half-hour comedy series.

For suddenly it’s “Mr. Sunshine” time all over again. The short-lived 1986 television series starring Jeffrey Tambor as the blind Prof. Paul Stark kicked up some dust over how television should portray people with physical disabilities. Something similar is happening in the current debate over “Good and Evil” where Mark Blankfield is George, a psychiatrist recently blinded. George was an oafish bumbler when he could see. He’s an oafish bumbler now that he can’t.

But back to Apelgren. She’s the Braille Institute’s community activities coordinator and as such serves as an adviser to the creative folks of Hollywood when it comes to movies and television shows depicting blindness.

No calls came to Apelgren earlier this year when “Good and Evil” was just another sitcom idea. Or when the pilot was shot. Or when the show was being considered for a spot on the prime-time schedule. No calls from ABC or producers Witt-Thomas-Harris or Touchstone Productions. And now they find themselves at the receiving end of telephone calls, letters and some general condemnation from the visually impaired, especially the National Federation of the Blind.

What’s being argued here are the limits of humor, the rights of creativity and how deep go the layers of sensitivity.

How funny is funny?

Is one person’s joke another person’s white cane?

Few might find “Good and Evil” anything but parody, comedy, absurdity. We see George blithely marauding through a laboratory’s glass service or stumbling wildly and innocently into others, his cane turned into a frantic goosing device that would bring honor to the memory of W. C. Fields.

The National Federation of the Blind finds Dr. George unlaughable, unmemorable and an offensive stereotype that reinforces misconceptions of where and how the blind may work. It is discouraging and damaging to the newly blind, the federation says, and it presents wrong conceptions in the minds of those who may one day find themselves without vision.

They’ve asked ABC and the producers to either drop the character or try some behavior modification on the psychiatrist.

The network and the show’s executives have refused, sticking with a solitary statement declaring that “Good and Evil” is “an exaggerated parody of life . . . Not one character in this series is intended to be realistic or believable . . . If this series were in any way realistic we would agree that a comic portrayal of a clumsy blind person would be in questionable taste . . . “

While all this has taken place, the National Federation claims that at least two advertisers have left the show because of protests and others are wavering. The producers continue shooting. The show, in its first five weeks has won the general love of television critics, but has lingered in the bottom third of national ratings.

The network’s policy and standards department has, as it does with all of ABC’s entertainment programs, reviewed and evaluated the show’s contents within its place in prime time (Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m.) and what it calls “its audience expectations.” Translated, that means those of us up at that hour can cope with slapstick. ABC has stood firm against the protests, saying no harm was intended, a laugh’s a laugh, and besides, these are evolving characters, and who knows what might happen next.

Which again brings us back to Apelgren of the Braille Institute. Twenty years ago as TV and film writers searched for more accuracy than fantasy in their creative pursuits, they began to dial the Braille Institute’s number. They first found Betty Clark, now Betty Clark-Mong of the Braille’s Rancho Mirage office, who had developed procedures to educate writers, actors and directors.

Here’s how the Braille program works. Apelgren first meets with writers or actors and discusses the characters and their portrayal. She talks about blindisms, the physical characteristics individually developed by the blind for their daily lives. Such people as orientation and movement specialists are brought in to talk about the training the newly blind receive. The press facility is visited where the techniques of Braille publications are shown.

Then the actors are given exercises. Apelgren might have an actor sit alone in a room, eyes covered. The assignment is to listen, to try to develop a greater sensory awareness of the surrounding space. A second exercise is to again blindfold the eyes and then to do household chores: Wash dishes, make a sandwich, take trash out.

Apelgren is working with Paramount’s “Jennifer Eight,” starring Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman, a movie about a blind teacher. Originally her office was consulted on the accuracy of props for the picture as well as consulting on the film’s poster. Later, she consulted with Garcia and Thurman directly.

When the television weatherman portrayed by Dick Van Patten on “WIOU” faced blindness through macular degeneration, a disease of the retina, the actor was guided through his assignment by several people from the Braille Institute along with one with macular degeneration, Apelgren.

Is she familiar with “Good and Evil” and the protests over the television show?

She is familiar with both and is able to see the show. “The whole thing is slapstick,” she says. “Everybody seems outrageous and in context so is George. He’s outrageous, but I wouldn’t say funny. If the producers had contacted me with the script early on I would have told them it was a silly idea. They would get flack for doing it.”

Sharon Gold of the California chapter of the National Federation agrees when it comes to flack. “This show is exploiting all the stereotypes sighted people have of the blind, the stereotypes that keep us from jobs and from our place in society. The show helps make stereotypes seem true. What George does is what the public expects all blind people to do. We asked the network and the producers to take George out. They tell us they can’t modify one character since the whole show is a parody of life. Well, we’re not ready for a parody of blindness.”

Betty Clark-Mong, the originator of the Braille’s entertainment consulting service, has yet to meet the George of “Good and Evil” but she offers some of the advice she earlier gave “my writers.”

“Write your scripts,” she says, “and take out whatever a blind person can’t do, like drive a car or read the morning newspaper. Just let the blind be people. Don’t make them different. I’m not different.

“Don’t take humor out of people because they can’t see. Allow them to be people. People try to make us different and that’s not what we want.

“Whatever you were prior to blindness is what you take into blindness.”

Ironically, the National Federation of the Blind accidentally found out about George last summer when a satellite transmission of the pilot somehow was taped and ended up with the organization.

Just as the network’s affiliate stations were getting the picture.