Content area
Full Text
Keywords
intellectual disability, developmental disability, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, film review
As part of a research project exploring cinematic represen- tations of people with intellectual and developmental dis- abilities (IDD), we offer here a review of the Canadian film Defendor (Stebbings & Tabarrok, 2009). Our research group is a mix of people who have IDD and people who don't have IDD. It includes three people living with IDD, two academic researchers, and four graduate-level university students. The purpose of this collaborative research project is to look criti- cally at how people with IDD are portrayed in mainstream films. As co-researchers, we all work together on the proj- ect and are all involved in choosing the films, analyzing the films, and in the writing of any reports or papers and preparing presentations. We have chosen to write this film review in plain language so that it will be accessible to read- ers who have IDD.
All of the films we have chosen to include in our project have met the following criteria: a person with IDD is either the lead character or a main character; the film is a fictional por- trayal (not a true story); it is a mainstream film that many people will have seen; and has been released between 2000 and the present. Also, all of the films are English language films and are available for rental or purchase.
Together, we watch each film at least twice. After each view- ing, we have a group discussion about the film. In these dis- cussions, we ask ourselves questions about what messages we think the film gives about IDD. We think it is important to consider what people who don't have IDD would learn about people with IDD by watching these films. We also talk a lot about how we feel about these messages. When people receive the wrong messages about people with IDD from these films, this can have negative impacts on the lives of all people with IDD.
We have been working together for the past two years and have, to date, reviewed nine films. The Canadian film, Defendor, is one of the first films that we watched. We all enjoyed this movie; for some of us, it has been one...