Press Release: The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film

Check this out!  Full press release is here.

Release Date: 7/24/2012

TCM to Examine Hollywood's Depiction of People with Disabilities in The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film in October  
Lawrence Carter-Long Joins TCM's Robert Osborne for Historic Month-Long Film Exploration, Presented in Collaboration with Inclusion in the Arts  
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will dedicate the month of October to exploring the ways people with disabilities have been portrayed in film. On behalf of Inclusion in the Arts, Lawrence Carter-Long will join TCM host Robert Osborne for The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film. The special month-long exploration will air Tuesdays in October, beginning Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. (ET).

TCM makes today’s announcement to coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) on July 26. And in a first for TCM, all films will be presented with both closed captioning and audio description (via secondary audio) for audience members with auditory and visual disabilities.

The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film features more than 20 films ranging from the 1920s to the 1980s. Each night's collection will explore particular aspects, themes, or types of disability, such as blindness, deafness and psychiatric or intellectual disabilities. In addition, one evening of programming will focus on newly disabled veterans returning home from war.

TCM's exploration of disability in cinema includes many Oscar®-winning and nominated films, such as An Affair to Remember (1957), in which Deborah Kerr's romantic rendezvous with Cary Grant is nearly derailed by a paralyzing accident; A Patch of Blue (1965), with Elizabeth Hartman as a blind white girl who falls in love with a black man, played by Sidney Poitier; Butterflies Are Free (1972), starring Edward Albert as a blind man attempting to break free from his over-protective mother; and Gaby: A True Story (1987), the powerful tale of a girl with cerebral palsy trying to gain independence as an artist; Johnny Belinda(1948), starring Jane Wyman as a "deaf-mute" forced to defy expectations; The Miracle Worker (1962), starring Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan and Patty Duke as Helen Keller; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), with Jack Nicholson as a patient in a mental institution and Louise Fletcher as the infamous Nurse Ratched; The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the post-War drama starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy and real-life disabled veteran Harold Russell; and Charly (1968), with Cliff Robertson as an intellectually disabled man who questions the limits of science after being turned into a genius.

The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film also features several lesser-known classics ripe for rediscovery, including the atmospheric Val Lewton chiller Bedlam (1946), the intriguing blind-detective mystery Eyes in the Night (1942); A Child is Waiting (1963), with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland; the British family drama Mandy (1953); and a bravura performance by wheelchair user Susan Peters in Sign of the Ram (1948).

Each year since 2006, TCM has dedicated one month toward examining how different cultural and ethnic groups have been portrayed in the movies. Several of the programming events have centered on Race and Hollywood, with explorations on how the movies have portrayed African-Americans in 2005, Asians in 2008, Latinos in 2009, Native Americans in 2010 and Arabs in 2011. TCM looked at Hollywood's depiction of gay and lesbian characters, issues and themes in 2007.

"The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film is a valuable opportunity to take a deeper look at the movies we all know and love, to see them from a different perspective and to learn what they have to say about us as a society," said Osborne. "We are very proud to be working with Inclusion in the Arts on this important exploration. And we are especially glad to have Lawrence Carter-Long of the National Council on Disability with us to provide fascinating, historical background and thought-provoking insight on how cinematic portrayals of disability have evolved over time."

"From returning veterans learning to renegotiate both the assumptions and environments once taken for granted to the rise of independent living, Hollywood depictions of disability have alternately echoed and influenced life outside the movie theater," said Carter-Long, who curated the series. "Twenty-two years after the passage of the ADA and over a century since Thomas Edison filmed 'The Fake Beggar,' TCM and Inclusion in the Arts provide an unprecedented overview of how cinematic projections of isolation and inspiration have played out on the silver screen – and in our lives. When screened together, everything from The Miracle Worker to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest reveals another layer where what you think you know is only the beginning."

Reconstructing Lives (Edinburgh, until February 2013)

Current exhibit at Edinburgh Castle: 

Reconstructing Lives

National War Museum
Fri 9 March 2012 - February 2013
Free with admission to Edinburgh Castle

From the official description:
"Reconstructing Lives takes a fascinating and moving look at the experiences of those who have lost limbs in war, whether military or civilian, and the technology which helps rebuild their lives....On display you'll find prosthetics, ranging from a 16th century iron hand to  a modern i-limb hand developed by Touch Bionics."

Here's a report with photos, by someone who visited the exhibit.  And here are blog entries about the exhibit, by museum staffers.

CFP: Commemorating the Disabled Soldier (Ypres, Belgium, 4-6 November 2013)

[From H-Disability]

Call for papers

Commemorating the disabled soldier: Comparative approaches to the history of war, disability and remembrance, 1914-1940

International conference (Ypres, Belgium, 4th-6th November 2013) & special issue First World War Studies

Organized/edited by Prof. Pieter Verstraete (KU Leuven), Dr. Martina Salvante (Trinity College Dublin) & Prof. Julie Anderson (University of Kent) – with the financial support of the Province West-Flanders, the In Flanders Fields Museum, the Centre d’Histoire des Sociétés, des Sciences et des Conflits & the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders.

2014 will mark 100 years since the outbreak of the Great War. On the occasion of this important anniversary the Centre for the History of Education of the KU Leuven (Belgium), the Centre for War Studies of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and the Centre for the History of Medicine of the University of Kent (United Kingdom) propose to organize an international conference aimed at reflecting on the impact of that specific event on soldiers’ bodies and minds. Millions of men all over the globe, in fact, returned home limbless, sightless, deaf, disfigured or mentally distressed.

In the last decades disability history has attracted an increasing interest in the scholarly community, thus becoming a well-established field, which has been highlighting, among others, the experiences of impaired people, medical and rehabilitative techniques, charitable institutions and welfare measures, public reception and private emotions. The First World War has somehow represented a watershed both in the visibility and the treatment of impairment and disablement owing to the massive amount of men who suffered physical injuries or mental disorder symptoms as a consequence of the conflict. These men happened, therefore, to embody the destructiveness of war and performed as human and living ‘sites of memory’. Because of their heralded heroism in the battlefields, shattered soldiers, however, were commonly considered worthy and in need of an (economic and medical) assistance that disabled civilians had not experienced beforehand. In spite of such considerations and of the yet numerous studies focusing on the interrelation between war and disablement (Julie Anderson, Joanna Burke, Ana Carden-Coyne, Deborah Cohen, David Gerber, Sabine Kienitz, Marina Larsson just to mention few), there has never been organized so far an international conference dealing exclusively with such a topic in an historical and comparative perspective.

Disabled veterans have always been involved in the commemorations of the Great War, but they have never been the focal point of any celebration. That is why we believe that the upcoming centenary of 2014 may provide us with an important opportunity to reflect upon the impact of war on the individual lives of those (and their families) who came back impaired, as well as on the institutions (charities, governmental agencies, ministries, associations, etc.) taking charge of their care and assistance during and after the conflict. Hence, we’d like to explore the question of the political, social, medical and cultural legacies of war disability in postwar society. The conference as well as the special issue will be specifically interested in strengthening comparative and transnational approaches. Contributions on rather unknown case studies and geographical/national areas are especially welcomed.

The gathering of international scholars coming from different countries would be, therefore, the occasion for in-depth discussions, reviews of previous studies, and outlining of future research perspectives. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to: medicine/surgery and treatment, rehabilitation and vocational retraining, associations and self-advocacy, charities and care-giving, war pensions, experience and memory, visual and textual representation (of the disabled themselves), suffering and pain, the place and function of the disabled body at inter-war commemorative activities, the international shaping of a global discourse on the mutilated body, the influence of war-related discourse on the over-all care for the disabled in general etc. Although the main conference will be focused on the First World War the call for papers, however, also is open for contributions that deal with the impact of subsequent conflicts on the soldier’s body and mind.

Besides the organization of an international conference which will be held on November 4th-6th 2013 the organizers also envisage first of all a special issue in the International Journal of the Society for First World War Studies. The Editor-in-chief already has approved the idea and the issue would be published in 2014. Furthermore, the organizers aim at publishing a book that would gather some/all of the papers presented at the conference. That would be the first book presenting a wide array of (trans)national cases on the subject of disability and the Great War, by getting together, thus, diverse hypotheses, methodologies and sources; In this way it would make European scholars as well as European citizens aware of the existence of disabled soldiers from the Great War and their particular place in the upcoming centennial celebration.

Practical & financial information

We are very pleased to announce that we will be able to accept and reimburse 13 scholars a sum of maximum 500 euro’s to cover their travel expenses to and from Ypres/Belgium where the conference will be held. Besides that the organizational committee will also pay for the accommodation (2 nights). Included also is a visit to the world famous and recently renovated In Flanders Fields Museum as well as a guided tour on the second day to the Western front line.

Please do also note that after the international conference “Commemorating the disabled soldier” will be ended, there will be another conference organized dealing especially with the relation between medicine and the Great War. Closely linked to this event two exhibitions will take place in Ghent and Ypres on the history of psychiatry and medicine in relation to the Great War. Unfortunately we will not be able to pay for additional nights.

Time line & deadlines

Submission of abstract and short CV: December 1st 2012 – Abstract=600 words/CV=Maximum 20 lines
Letter of acceptance (abstract): January 2013
First draft of the manuscript: June 1st 2013
Comments by the editors: September 1st 2013
Conference at Ypres: November 4th-6th 2013
Second draft of the manuscript: December 1st 2013
Final manuscript for First World War Studies: February 1st 2014

Submission of abstracts

Abstracts containing no more than 600 words and a CV of no more than 20 lines should be sent to Pieter.verstraete@ppw.kuleuven.be before December 1st 2012.

Looking forward to some thought provoking contributions as well as fruitful discussion,

The editorial committee,
Pieter Verstraete, Martina Salvante & Julie Anderson

Disability Blog Carnival #83 is up now!

Go visit Never That Easy for a "Happy Arbitrary Day" collection of diverse links and contributions around no particular theme--which is rather novel for the Disability Blog Carnival!  The July edition, #84, is scheduled to be hosted at Stream of Caitlinness--more details about that one as they become available!  Thanks as always to the hosts, contributors, commenters, readers, and linkers of the Disability Blog Carnival; it takes a community to maintain a vibrant blog carnival for over five years.

Louis "Big Louie" Moilanen (c1885-1913)

Louis Moilanen, portrait
image description:  photograph of a very
tall man in formal wear, holding a top hat,
posed next to a chair

Louis Moilanen
Let me see you smile. Do not spurn me. Looking for some one to love. Let’s get acquainted. Introduce me to yourself.

---The text on the business card of Louis Moilanen, while he was with the circus


Louis Moilanen was born in Finland, and came to America when he was four years old, with his parents.   They were a farming family in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The child soon became as tall as an average man, and then taller still.  By his teen years, special clothing and shoes had to be made for the boy.  He worked at the copper mines nearby, hauling timbers, until his size made that unmanageable--mines were built for smaller bodies.  As an adult who was at or above eight feet in height (as usual, reports vary), he joined the Ringling Brothers circus for three seasons.  Upon his father's death, Louis immediately returned to the family farm to help his mother.

Louis Moilanen worked as a bartender, and was elected justice of the peace for Hancock MI, which is some evidence of his community's respect for the young man.  He was just 27 when he died from tubercular meningitis, in 1913.  Of course, there had to be a specially-built coffin for Moilanen, and it took eight pallbearers to carry him to his rest. 

The 100th anniversary of Moilanen's death is coming up next year, and there are plans to put an 8'3" marker at his grave, to commemorate the centennial.

June 13: Infante Philip, Duke of Calabria (1747-1777)

Infante Philip, Duke of Calabria (1747-1777)
An 18c. portrait of a young blond boy, standing,
wearing ornate dress, and a red sash

Ever heard of the Infante Philip?  He had a lot of names.  He was born and baptized in the Kingdom of Naples, as Filippo Antonio Gennaro Pasquale Francesco de Paula.  His title from birth was Duke of Calabria, because he was the Heir Apparent of the Kingdom of Naples, son of the king.  He was named for his grandfather, King Philip V of Spain.  His birth was much heralded, coming as it did after five girl babies, in a world that valued sons, and especially firstborn royal sons, so much more.   A beautiful fan was painted to commemorate his birth.  But Philip would never rule a kingdom. 

Philip, son of King Charles, grandson of King Philip, was born with disabilities that became more apparent as he grew.  His head was large for his body; he had seizures; he did not learn to speak.  Witnesses said he didn't easily make eye contact.  He was raised with his siblings and tutored with his younger brother, Charles.  When Philip was twelve, a group of doctors and officials were charged with determining if he was competent to reign; they watched him for two weeks, and said no, Philip cannot fulfill that inherited role. 

So, as a young man, relieved of the right and obligation to be king, Philip, Duke of Calabria, lived in palaces at Capodimonte and Caserta.   He was not hidden; his regular public appearances were important for clarifying the reasons behind his younger brothers' positions.   He apparently enjoyed eating and drinking, and a particular quirk was mentioned in one account:  he enjoyed having gloves put on his hands--layers and layers of gloves, finger by finger, sometimes more than a dozen layers of gloves on each hand.  (I wonder what today's occupational therapists would make of that!  Was there a special case of Philip's glove collection, numbered by size, so they would nest just right?)  Into adulthood, palace staff had some difficulty keeping Philip from "embracing" women at the court; they tried to keep him away from women, but he learned to slip away. 

Philip, Duke of Calabria, died in the fall of 1777, from smallpox.  He was thirty.  He's buried in Naples, at the Church of Santa Chiara.  I wish I knew that when I visited Naples several years ago; I might have gone to pay my respects.

UPDATE April 2015:  I found a mention of Infante Philip in a 1770 Pennsylvania newspaper; evidence of how widespread knowledge of his disability was beyond Naples.

Disability Blog Carnival #83, call for submissions

The June edition of the Disability Blog Carnival will be hosted at Never That Easy on June 25, and there's a post there right now with the call for submissions...

about anything disability related your little heart desires: an old post that's a particular favorite of yours that you wish more people had seen, a brand, shiny new post that you're going to write specifically for the Carnival, a rant, a rave, a list  - whatever floats your particular boat. 

Now seriously, folks, that's a call that anyone can respond to! (Go read the rest, including a good reminder to make your blog as accessible as possible if you're participating, to welcome a diverse range of carnival goers.)    Leave NTE a link over there, or here, by June 23, and watch what happens.