If You Were Pissed About Scarlett Johansson in Rub & Tug, You Should be Pissed About the Latest Joaquin Phoenix Movie
Today, after major (understandable) backlash and outrage from the trans community and its multitude of supporters, Scarlett Johansson dropped out of the upcoming movie, Rub & Tug, where she was set to play a transgender man.
Why the outrage? I’ll explain briefly, but also encourage you to read this article from Vox today explaining the controversy. Essentially, trans actors, and those supporting the LGBTQ community raised concern and the point that trans actors frequently don’t get cast for ANY Hollywood roles, and here, where the role is specifically written for them, they’re not able to represent their own community. Furthermore, the Hollywood studio making this movie, was also going to set to potentially make hundreds of millions of dollars off the very community they were excluding in their movie. How could that be?!
And if you were pissed about that, and thought it was discriminatory in its nature, I applaud you. If you thought Scarlett Johansson was wrong for taking the part to begin with, I agree with you.
However, if you thought that a transgender actor should of course had the lead in Rub & Tug (which, btw, is my new favorite movie name and should also be a band name), but you’re perfectly fine with Joaquin Pheonix’s latest movie where he plays a quadriplegic, then you are a hypocrite. If you hadn’t thought about it, let me please open your mind a little.
What is Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot?
This film, staring acting powerhouses, Joaquin Pheonix, Jonah Hill and Rooney Mara, is about a fantastic famous cartoonist, John Callahan. Callahan became a quadriplegic after a car accident, and it was then that he began his career as a cartoonist. His cartoons depicted topics many in his field wouldn’t go near, and inspired Pelswick, and Quads, two animated series.
The movie is a “dark comedy” and follows Callahan’s controversial career, and as focuses on the lasting impacts of his spinal cord injury. Beyond that, I can’t provide much context, because I have no interest in seeing it.
Why I’m Frustrated, and You Should be Too
As a person who is a paraplegic as a result of a car accident at the age of 5, I have so many thoughts and feelings about this, so I apologize in advance if they don’t come across as overly eloquent. I’m fucking sick and tired though, of hearing big names in Hollywood call for more diversity and be representative of people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community. A worthy fight? Yes.
BUT WHAT ABOUT US?!
My entire life I have watched movies and you know how many relatable movies I’ve seen that have had a disabled actor in the movie? None. Not a single one.
Don’t get me wrong, there are several movies and television shows out there that have had people with disabilities as characters, but almost none of them have had disabled actors representing themselves. (This is with the few exceptions like the son in Breaking Bad, JJ on ABC’s Speechless, and NCIS: New Orleans.) Furthermore, most of the roles have the disabled person in a sympathetic role.
I remember watching The Secret Garden as a child and it broke my heart. I thought that the child in the wheelchair depicted was a reflection of me. And while it was a heartwarming movie overall, that character made me sad. Then, there’s You Before Me — another movie where an able-bodied actor plays a disabled person. And where the disabled person hates that they’re in a wheelchair so much, that they want to die.
I’ll give you a short list of movies and TV shows to look at for yourself: Theory of Everything, Superstore on NBC, Glee on Fox (seriously, shame on you Ryan Murphy), Wonder, You Before Me, Ray, My Left Foot, Scent of a Woman, Coming Home
I could go on and on and on and on, but I encourage you to think about times where you’ve seen a person in a movie or on television have some type of disability. What was that character like? Did the majority of their narrative revolve around their disability or in a way that made you feel sorry for them? Was the character played by a disabled person?
Fact is, the way Hollywood presents disabled people greatly impacts the way society perceives us. More importantly, it greatly impacts the way we view ourselves. I can’t tell you what it feels like to constantly see movies or TV shows where there are snide comments like, “her husband is in a wheelchair” like it’s a bad thing — I’m looking at you, The Office US. Or how in The Shape of Water, because the girl is “different” she assumes no one will ever be with her, so she fucks the watermonster. We end up looking at ourselves asking: are we to be pitied? Are we not as good as our able-bodied counterparts? Are our lives worth living?
Seriously. These are real questions I’ve asked myself after seeing TV shows and movies with disabled people, where clearly a person with a disability was not consulted and was not used as the actor.
We’re Left Out of the Conversation Altogether
I recently listened to an episode of my favorite podcast, Lovett or Leave It, in which they talked about diversity in Hollywood. The panel was greatly diverse — women, people of color, someone who was gay. Ya know who it was missing? A person with a disability. Not only that, but people with disabilities being represented in Hollywood wasn’t even mentioned as an idea for the ENTIRE hour+ long show. I was angry and sad, that someone as inclusive and progressive as Jon Lovett didn’t even think about the disabled community.
And then I remembered that he wasn’t alone. That’s the conversation all over the place. The only people speaking up for the disabled in Hollywood, are other disabled people. Why?! We need our able-bodied peers to speak out just as much as men need to be speaking out for more roles for strong women!
How Realistic is Change?
Change can happen. There’s no reason for it not to. It’s 2018 — Donald Trump is president, there’s another Jurassic Park movie, and something called Avocado Ale exists. There are disabled actors out there, even though producers and casting directors will try to tell you they looked, but they couldn’t find a person with a disability to play the part. That’s bullshit.
When SNL (rightfully) got shit a few years ago for their lack of diversity in their cast members, the show claimed they looked but couldn’t find comedians who were people of color. Yet they were quickly slapped back because it was that they weren’t looking in the right places. The same is true in the instances of disability representation in Hollywood.
What Can You Do?
Join me. Join in me in calling this bullshit hypocrisy out on social media. Boycott these films. Boycott any actor who thinks it’s OK to star in a movie where an able-bodied person is in a disabled role. If you’re a journalist or movie critic, ask these producers and actors why they think this is OK, but it’s unacceptable for a white person to play the role of another race. And engage in conversation, continue the conversation, and don’t let it go.
If you’re a person of power in Hollywood, start hiring disabled people. We have a hard enough time getting jobs as it is. Ask yourself why you’re giving away parts that are literally written for us, to other people.
If you’re an able-bodied actor, make us part of the conversation. Start speaking up for us and demanding that things change.
Before I Go…
There are entire books written on this topic, so I could go on for days, but I hope this opens the eyes of many. I hope this makes you feel just a slice of the frustration myself, and others like me feel every time we see a movie like this come out.
I also hope I have made it clear, that there does need to be greater diversity in film and television — for people of color, women, the LGBTQ community…AND people with disabilities.
Finally, don’t go see Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. Instead, buy John Callahan’s book or look at his cartoons. But don’t go see this movie.
