{"id":56657,"date":"2018-09-02T15:45:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T13:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2018\/09\/02\/why-are-disabled-actors-ignored-when-it-comes-to-roles-like-the-elephant-man-frances-ryan\/"},"modified":"2018-09-02T15:45:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T13:45:52","slug":"why-are-disabled-actors-ignored-when-it-comes-to-roles-like-the-elephant-man-frances-ryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=56657","title":{"rendered":"Why are disabled actors ignored when it comes to roles like the Elephant Man? | Frances Ryan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC\u2019s casting of a non-disabled actor in its remake shows how normalised exclusion is: we need to widen the talent poolThe BBC has been widely criticised over its decision to cast a non-disabled person in its remake of The&nbsp;Elephant Man. The role of Joseph&nbsp;Merrick \u2013 who had severe physical deformities \u2013 will be played by the Stranger Things actor Charlie&nbsp;Heaton. Notably, actor Adam Pearson \u2013 who has neurofibromatosis type 1, a condition which was once thought to affect Merrick \u2013 has said he wasn\u2019t even given the opportunity to audition. As Pearson told LBC, it\u2019s part of a culture of exclusion for disabled actors. \u201cIt\u2019s&nbsp;a systemic problem, not only in the BBC but industry-wide.\u201dFrom Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man to Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything, it\u2019s routine for non-disabled actors to play disabled characters, often gaining critical acclaim in the process. At best, it takes work and exposure from talented disabled actors and further adds to an arts and culture that pushes disability representation \u2013 much like race, sex and class \u2013 to the sidelines. At worst, it sees non-disabled actors mimic the characteristics of a minority group without any involvement from the community it depicts. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2018\/sep\/02\/disabled-actors-bbc-elephant-man-normalised-exclusion\" target=\"_blank\">Why are disabled actors ignored when it comes to roles like the Elephant Man? | Frances Ryan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC\u2019s casting of a non-disabled actor in its remake shows how normalised exclusion is: we need to widen the talent poolThe BBC has been widely criticised over its decision to cast a non-disabled person in its remake of The&nbsp;Elephant Man. The role of Joseph&nbsp;Merrick \u2013 who had severe physical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}