3 October 2008 Protests of the newly opening film, Blindness, are planned or already in progress in countries around the world. The film is based on a 1995 novel in which an epidemic causes widespread blindness leading to the collapse of society. The film, which has been viewed by some simply as a horror movie and others as a more sophisticated allegory, is viewed by the National Federation of the Blind as supporting some of the worst stereotypes of people’s experience of blindness and visual impairment.In a Press Release of 30 September 2008, the National Federation for the Blind states:
The National Federation of the Blind, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of blind people, today announced its strong objections to the forthcoming Miramax film release Blindness and announced that its members would protest at cinemas across the nation when the movie opens on October 3. The film is based on a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, in which the inhabitants of an unnamed city suddenly go blind. Fearing that the mysterious blindness is contagious, the government quarantines the blinded citizens in an abandoned asylum, where moral, social, and hygienic standards quickly deteriorate and the blind extort valuables, food, and sex from one another. Only one woman, played in the film by Julianne Moore, remains able to see, feigning blindness to remain with her husband. She is portrayed as physically, mentally, and morally superior to the others because she still has her sight.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do. Blind people are a cross-section of society, and as such we represent the broad range of human capacities and characteristics.
Not surprisingly, pretty much everyone involved with the making of the film or the film industry accuse protesters of being mean-spirited and uninformed. They suggest that there is no intent to demean people who are blind and stand up for the freedom-of-expression right to portray anyone or any condition, pretty much anyway they want to.
The controversy bears some similarity to the recent protests of the movie Tropic Thunder, which was seen as perpetuating stereotypes and stigmatizing language related to intellectual disabilities. The use of blindness in movies (and literature) is certainly not a new phenomenon. A few of the films that come to mind are Wait until Dark (1967), Afraid of the Dark (1992), and Jennifer 8 (1992). Of course there are hundreds more, but these come to mind specifically because they are among the many that play on people’s fear of blindness, and portray people who are blind as helpless victims. Of these three, only Afraid of the Dark actually deconstructs the vulnerable victim stereotype to any extent, and it might be argued that it questions the stereotype only briefly and perhaps does so largely as a rationale for spending most of the movie exploiting it.
Will the protest do any good? Well, if the hope is that the protest will result in the film being closed, in vast numbers of the general public boycotting the film, in the people who made the film actually understanding that they are doing something harmful, or in the whole film industry promising never to do this again, The chances for success are small. The recent protests of Tropic Thunder did appear to have some effect on the box office during the first few days, but seems to have had little effect over the life of the film. I am sure that some people did not go because of the protest, but others were drawn to it by the attention that it brought to the film. However, if the hope is that this can serve as an opportunity to demonstrate that people who are blind are not all hapless victims, that they have the same range of strong and weak attributes of the rest of the world, that they are capable of forming their own opinions, and that they can take action, stand up for their rights, and protest being treated badly, the protest has the potential for success.
The stereotypes of blind people that portray them as vulnerable victims do real harm. Rightly or wrongly, people, including filmmakers, have a right to express their ideas, even when they reinforce negative stereotypes. That same right to expression gives us all the right to protest.
Tags: blindness
