November 26, 2016 - 22:41
One of the most recent portrayals of disability in film was The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking. While many critics (and Hawking himself) greatly praised Redmayne's performace, he is still an able bodied actor playing a disabled individual, which is problematic. Some have argued that he did a fantastic, realistic job and that it was necessary to use an able-bodied actor because the film begins before Hawking's disability, while others have argued that there is predjudice in the casting and that it was robbing disabled actors of opportunity and representation. I thought it would be interesting to hear how the actors themselves thought of the movie and its meaning and representation. In this clip, Redmayne, the director, and the actress who plays his wife discuss the film, Hawking, and the ideas behind the movie. It's really long, and obviously you don't have to watch all of it, but I was really curious to see what you thought of the movie, its meaning, his representation, and its implications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcB_mueuLn8