The apology from Anne Hathaway and Warner Bros. Pictures is just another installment in the continuing stigmatising, stereotyping, and inappropriate portrayal by people without disability in mainstream entertainment and media of people with disability.
Hathaway’s character in the movie has three fingers on each hand, a condition that’s similar to ectrodactyly, a limb disability. There are also many other people with disability who may have lost a limb(s) whole or partial, through accident, health-related issues, other genetic conditions, or from Thalidomide damage.
In 2020 we should not need others to point out to the entertainment industry the ongoing discrimination and distress that this can cause people with disability and this applies not only children with disability, but to those of any age.
This portrayal continues to promote difference and diversity in a perverse manner. We are all unique individuals and we should respect these differences and celebrate them, not continue to promote stereotypes that a disability makes you somewhat less of a person or use a disability to propose a more sinister edge to an unlikeable based character.
AFDO supports genuine, respectful and real portrayals of people with disability by people with disability. The entertainment industry needs to stop apologising after the event and just wake up!
