Daredevil, the Movie:
One Older Crip Reviews Another
by Rus Cooper-Dowda
Daredevil, The Movie opened recently in theatres across the country. That was both good and bad news for us in the disability community.
|
Murdock is blind. That's cool.
|
If the image of The Supercrip bugs you, this film might make you grind your teeth.
Yet I thought the script played with stereotypes about the disability experience in interesting ways. There's the stereotype that, because he's blind, Daredevil's other senses are more refined. But what refinement! He can know someone is lying because he can hear hearts skip beats and smell increased sweat production! In real life, this would make him a real disability movement asset -- we'd have our own mobile lie detector!
Like most of us, Daredevil is not above using his differentness -- his inability to find sweetener at a coffee shop without assistance, in this instance -- to ask another kind of sweetie for a date. I liked that, too.
Without any undue focus on it, the film shows standard adaptive equipment; we see the strategies that many of us with disabilities use to make it through the day. Also cool. We see lawyer Murdocknonchalantly "borrowing" a friend's shoulder to get through an unfamiliar crowd in a new place. But we're talking about the superhero Daredevil -- so we also see his inner radar at work; his cane that doubles as billy club and grappling hook.
I'm an older crip myself. I'm glad we see his scars and hear his obvious aching. It does my heart good to see him have to reach for the Darvon after a long day and night of bringing justice to the streets. A little real life never hurts.
I did tire of justice being portrayed as "blind." I wished that Elektra-The-Girlfriend's tight protective outfit had covered her chest and midriff as well as Daredevil's leather covered his...uh, parts.
But what frustrates me the most about the film is that those who made it did not seem to even consider as part of their audience the blind community, who just might have a high interest in a film where a guy like themselves was the main character. The official website to promote the film is not accessible to screen readers or voice output.
The movie's publicity department doesn't seem to be marketing to the movie's natural constituency -- the huge disability community! (With all those friends and relations, too!)
I had hoped to experience "Daredevil" in a movie theater that had visual narration, a technology that voices unspoken components of the film to blind ticket-buyers. The nearest movie theater I could find with THAT access feature was three states away.
Two other films out this year will offer superheroes with disabilities -- "The Hulk" and "X-Men 2. The plot of the latter centers on a special education school for those considered "mutants."
Now that should be interesting.
Rus Cooper-Dowda is a minister and freelance writer in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Posted Feb. 23, 2003
Back to home page
|
