Hollywood Needs New View of Disabled

Calendar’s review of “The Switch,” the CBS movie about a man paralyzed from the neck down in a motorcycle accident, starts out with the nauseous phrase “courage to endure . . . when all seems humanly lost” and goes on to claim that the film “recharges” and “renews hope for a hoary TV genre” (“Pulling the ‘Switch’ in Life or Death,” Jan. 16).

That might be the opinion of critic Ray Loynd, but in the view of the disabled community, what needs “recharging” and “renewal” is Hollywood’s approach to disability.

Based around Larry McAfee, who understandably becomes depressed in the wake of quadriplegia when faced with the maze of disability-related institutional callousness, “The Switch” was largely about the non-disabled Dr. Russ Fine, the real-life director of the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of Alabama. Fine is portrayed as a radio talk-show doctor who befriends McAfee, bringing the dilemma of whether to install a self-activated death switch on McAfee’s ventilator.

Screen time was disproportionately consumed by the right-to-die issue, leaving marginalized the story of the many disabled individuals all over this country who were in touch with McAfee, advocating his freedom from institutionalization and his right to live with dignity.

The film, then, became just another buddy saga, where the non-disabled person saves the cripple from himself, helps the cripple see the light and choose not to die.

The danger of the view expressed in “The Switch” is that it advocates far more than equal rights for the disabled. It presents a case for the right-to-die for disabled persons. Using cancer as an analogy to McAfee’s disability, “The Switch” furthers the right-to-die cause in a misleading and incorrect way. McAfee is a lucid quadriplegic, not a terminally ill person with a short time to live.

“The Switch” could have provided an illuminating view of the disability civil rights movement in this country. The movement has been vocal in its contention that there is a lack of civil rights in nursing homes. It has been actively fighting for the release of disabled persons from nursing homes, promoting government-funded services to allow persons with a disability to live at home instead of becoming institutionalized, and advocating the employment of disabled persons.

These are the issues McAfee faced after becoming a quadriplegic. The lack of knowledge about such programs led McAfee to despair, a feeling of loss of control and the desire to kill himself. It was the disability community that showed him the truth.

What will it take for Hollywood to switch its channel on disability? Must the disabled riot? Must we arm our wheelchairs with Uzis? Hollywood has got to stop its continual oppression and exploitation of the disability community and its failure to fully portray our socioeconomic issues and our civil rights movement.

This latest “Switch” once again was only turned on by prevailing ablest attitudes.