Study Shows More Disability Stories Onscreen, but Few Disabled Actors
The study published Wednesday also showed that television is far behind film when it comes to representation of characters with disabilities.
Pixar’s film “Luca” includes a character born without an arm, but it isn’t his defining characteristic.Credit...Disney/Pixar
July 28, 2021, 7:56 p.m. ET
Let’s start with the good news: Significant depictions of disability on film and television shows have nearly tripled over the past decade compared with the previous 10 years.
Almost all of those titles, however, still don’t feature disabled actors.
That was the conclusion of a new study released Wednesday by Nielsen and the nonprofit organization RespectAbility, which analyzed the representation of disabled characters on film and TV shows released from 1920 to 2020