Queerness and disability have a long-standing history, with queerness itself being considered a disability until recently. Even now, those of us on the inside know how difficult it is to live in a world that is predominantly both queerphobic and ableist. It is, thus, high time for authentic mass media portrayals of queer characters with disabilities. With Disability Pride Month just gone by, here is a list of 4 TV shows and movies that painted queerness and disability in just the right mix, while also being realistic, raw, and beautiful.
Margarita With a Straw (Movie-Hindi)
Kalki Koechlin plays a bisexual young adult with cerebral palsy discovering the joys of life and queerness in this much-lauded film. Koechlin’s acting is unvarnished and vulnerable, evoking in us feelings of empathy and not pity, towards the layered character that is Laila. The movie makes us see her passion for music, the effortless lyricist in her, and her knack for chess despite her low dexterity, just to name a few.
Laila moves to New York for her studies where she falls for a blind gay activist named Khanum. It’s seemingly a fairytale romance with them understanding and helping out with each other’s care-taking in a way that is utterly genuine and intimate. It is perhaps one of the best depictions of access intimacy on the Indian screen. When Laila cheats on Khanum with a guy from her class, she justifies it by saying “Jared mujhe dekh saktha tha, isliye” (Jared could see me, that’s why). It goes on to show how internalized ableism is a very real thing and that Persons with Disabilities are humans with faults too.
One of the most profound scenes of the movie is when Laila comes out to her Aai (Mother) as bisexual. The latter retorts with the typical ‘that’s not normal’ argument and Laila retorts with a sharp ‘That’s what the world said about me too’. The hypocrisy in her mother, who always tells Laila she’s every bit as normal as any able-bodied person, is revealed so simply in that single scene.
Special (TV Show-English)
A show full of wit and fun, it tells the story of a gay writer with cerebral palsy as he navigates life. Right at the beginning of the pilot, Ryan comments on how having an invisible disability feels like being biracial, a sort of limbo. It’s a deep thought, how he’s forced to consider himself privileged because he has it easier than others, when navigating the world.
During a moment of deep vulnerability, Ryan tells his mom about how his whole life: “CP has been the main course when really it just needs to be an appetizer. Or, better yet, just taken off the menu altogether.” Internalized ableism makes an appearance here too when Ryan goes on a blind date, and when the date turns out to be deaf, he says he “can do better than a deaf guy.” Special is an underrated series that talks about disability without resorting to an angsty storyline.
The Way He Looks (Movie-Portuguese)
This sweet summer coming-of-age film weaves the tale of a blind teenager who comes to terms with his sexuality when a new student arrives in class. The film poignantly portrays an unconditional friendship in Leo’s relationship with his best friend Gi, who walks him home and opens the lock on the gate every day after school.
With kids in class making fun of his braille typewriter and bullying him any chance they get, Gabriel, the new guy, asking him to be taught how to use it is a breath of fresh air to Leo. They sneak out in the middle of the night to watch the eclipse together and Gabriel explains what an eclipse is oh-so considerately using three stones for the Sun, Earth, and Moon, and Leo’s hands on them. Throughout the movie, we are constantly reminded of how overwhelmed Leo feels, with his parents always at his toes; it’s like he cannot take one step without them watching over him.
The beauty of The Way He Looks is in the small things. It’s in the way Leo opens his own lock one sudden afternoon or how he sneaks out and rides on Gabriel’s bike with the wind swishing through his hair or how he asks his father to teach him to shave. These moments fill us with the liberated feeling of independence and finally being able to accept and love oneself unapologetically.
Holding Moses (Short Film-English)
This touching short film is a documentary about a queer mother of a child with a very rare genetic disorder. Directed by her own girlfriend, it is a poignant showcase of the untold stories of caregivers of Persons with Disabilities. Holding Moses leaves you both heaving for breath and full of fresh air at the same time.
It is a film that shakes you to your core, reaches into some unknown part of you, and holds tight, unshed tears clogging your throat. Again, it’s not pity that Holding Moses makes us feel. It’s empathy for both mother and son, the former who grieves the loss of the child she thought she was going to have and the latter who loves so fully despite his entire physical and intellectual systems being compromised.
The shows and movies on this list portray a spectrum of queer disability, ranging from disabilities like cerebral palsy and blindness to extremely rare ones like the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome in Holding Moses. However, one thing they all have in common is that they depict the raw and gritty reality of disability without resorting to using pity as a device to achieve an impact on the viewer. They are rare gems that paint Persons with Disabilities as just fellow nuanced human beings as opposed to using their disabilities to craft the entirety of the characters. Watching them this month would give us the validation, comfort, and consequently, the queer rest we all deserve.
