“There's nothing more debilitating about a disability than the way people treat you over it.” (Solange Nicole). In the film ‘Radio’, a football coach named Jones befriends a disabled student nicknamed Radio despite the outrage of other people, who ended up showing that the social issue of ‘Radio’ is discriminating against people who have disabilities. “Radio” is a hard-hitting film that effectively demonstrated people’s prejudices, due to the fact that the main character Radio is locked in a shed, manipulated into going into the girl’s locker room, and arrested for no explanation other than the fact that he’s disabled. This movie’s main character is actually based on the true story of James Robert "Radio" Kennedy, who’s still alive today. …show more content…
The director made this decision to create a semi-biographical film because he wanted to tell people a true story of discrimination, to show that it’s still relevant. Throughout the course of this film, Radio is made fun of just because he’s different. Within the first half hour, he is tied up and locked in a shed by the football players because they thought it would be funny. Coach Jones discovers this, and has to set him free, marking the beginning of their friendship. One of the main instigators who bullies Radio is a football player named Johnny. Johnny is an incredibly complex character who learns and develops throughout the film, much like the viewer.
He’s the son of Frank Clay, a man who taught him to treat Radio as nothing more than a punchline. The actor, Riley Smith, accurately depicts the struggle of whether to swallow his father’s views, or to develop his own. In my opinion, he was the perfect choice for this character. He becomes friends with Radio by the end of the film, even giving Radio his football varsity jacket. However, he wasn’t always so compassionate, unfortunately. He decided to manipulate Radio into going into the girl's locker room by telling him that the girl’s coach needed to tell him something. Radio realizes that this was wrong after going into the locker room, and blames himself, but Johnny was the real one to blame. “Radio” is such a classic film because of the accuracy of the story. It received a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes (Rotten Tomatoes). However, I feel that it deserves a 90% or more. Radio’s character was very vibrant and true to life, and it resonated with the majority of viewers. However, not everyone felt that way. Radio was also discriminated against by a police officer. He had trouble communicating with the officer who had stopped him because he was suspicious, and because of that, the officer became frustrated and decided to arrest him, when he had committed no
crime. Some people may feel that the main social issue in this film was Radio being discriminated against because of his race. While his race may have played into how he was treated, that wasn’t the main social issue. Not everyone in this movie was white, which may have been a decision on the director’s part to show that he was discriminated against not because of his race, but because of his disability. This film’s main social issue is people’s prejudices against disabled people. Because of people’s biases, Radio had to suffer through life when he shouldn’t have had to, which was the main point of the movie. Because of this, I feel that “Radio” was a very effective film in terms of diverting attention to its social issue.
The police officer then used his car to cut off the path that Radio was attempting to take to continue on his way. The police officer jumped out, and forcibly pushed Radio against his car and handcuffed him. He used the fact that Radio was colored, and disabled, and assumed that he must be up to no good. He definitely did not have the correct judgement on the situation, however, because the officer ended up filling out piles of paperwork while Radio ate lunch with the other officers. As the movie progressed, the levels of discrimination against Radio decreased. As said before, the beginning of the movie was full of discrimination. People just didn 't know who he was. But, once they figured out that Radio was a very kind, genuine person, people stopped discriminating against
All these and more evidences used in the book support Peterson’s thesis and purpose—all of them discuss how having a disability made Peterson and others in her situation a part of the “other”. Her personal experience on media and
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
A hero can be anyone, short or tall, big or small, and not necessarily empowered with super abilities. Heroes can be someone to look up to for their acts, and personalities, in the case of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredible Close Oskar Schell is the unlikely hero. He exemplifies traits associated with the common hero like courage, as he enters into scenarios that under normal circumstances he would never dare confront. While also being slightly untraditional in the sense that he is only nine years old and suffering from depression as result of the loss of his father, and other ailments. Throughout Oskar’s journey he becomes molded into a stronger person as he comes to closure near the end of the novel thanks to those he encounters along his path.
The Special Olympics date back all the way to the year 1968. Many see these Games as a time to honor someone who is able to “overcome” a task, but author William Peace sees this as an insulting portrayal of people with disabilities. Peace is a multidisciplinary school teacher and scholar that uses a wheel chair and writes about the science behind disabilities and handicaps. As a physically handicapped individual, Peace is able to observe a negative portrayal of disabled persons. In his article titled, “Slippery Slopes: Media, Disability, and Adaptive Sports,” William Peace offers his own personal insight, utilizes several statistics regarding handicaps, as well as numerous rhetorical appeals in order to communicate to the “common man”
The word “miraculous” pretty much describes James Robert “Radio” Kennedy’s whole life. In 1947, he was born into a small family in South Carolina, and he suffered from a severe hereditary mental handicap. Both James Robert Kennedy’s deceased father, and younger brother, George Allan “Cool Rock” Kennedy, suffered from the same condition. Radio could not read, write, or speak, making it impossible to play and learn like other kids. When James was young, he would push a shopping cart around Anderson, North Carolina, and listen to a small radio. The town accepted James, but did not spend much time trying to get to know him. Although James had a fairly quiet life, he was in for quite a roller coaster ride. That ride started when he met one man in the fall of 1964.
The movie starts off by introducing a little boy named Matt. We find out that Matt is completely deaf. His grandfather doesn’t take the new lightly and is slightly in denial on the fact that his grandson is deaf. The baby’s mother talks about deaf schools and teaching the boy sign language. The grandfather doesn’t believe in those kind of institutions and believes his grandson would learn how to communicate through Oral education; teaching him how to read lips. The movie fast-forwards into the little boy’s life in elementary school. He’s put into a special-education class, when he’s clearly fine; his only problem is that’s he’s deaf. After watching this scene in the movie, it had me thinking. Not only was this little boy being singled out for one small difference than others, but he was seen as dumber than others because of it. Although this happened years ago, this reminds me of society today. Often time’s people treat others that don’t blend in, differently. People also believe they’re much better than others who have a form of disability, when in fact this is not true. Throughout his childhood he’s often bullied by other kids for being deaf. His grandfather starts to teach him how to talk by making him feel his vocal cords as he speaks. He also encourages him to join the wrestling team. It was difficult for him to adjust to the team because he would hav...
The hardships of living with a disability are communicated using minor characters as props and how they are misconceived as being unintelligent or even abnormal. For example, a waitress suggests that Raymond is a “very clever boy”. Fascinatingly, she is the only minor character who treats Raymond with respect and sympathy, in contrast to Charlie and the general public who evidently takes advantage of his condition. In addition, the mise-en-scene composed of high key lighting and a wide-angle shot creates an ambient atmosphere, which makes it seem as if Raymond is unique, in contrast to abnormal or strange.(Cinematheque, 2010, p. 1). This conversation with the waitress shows that Ray’s disability makes him unique, in a positive way, especially because the general public seem to be uneducated about mental disabilities in this film; this is evidently shown where a man is seen screaming as Raymond, as he stands in the middle of a busy intersection. As a result, the director breaks down these misconceptions and generalisations about the, as if he is reprimanding that the disabled are a part of our society and that they should be treated with respect.
The two essays “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs and “A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris are excellent pieces of work that share many similarities. This paper would reflect on these similarities particularly in terms of the author, message and the targeted audience. On an everyday basis, people view those with disabilities in a different light and make them conscious at every step. This may be done without a conscious realisation but then it is probably human nature to observe and notice things that deviate from the normal in a society. In a way people are conditioned to look negatively at those individuals who are different in the conventional
Disability is like a bruise on an apple; sometimes it is evident, sometimes it is hidden. Consider Claire Hovey; she has arthritis – a hidden disability affecting one’s joints. Claire used to think of “pain as a hurdle” (Hovey, 2015); thus when diagnosed, she expected to tackle pain “with grace and poise” (Hovey, 2015) managing it silently (Hovey, 2015). However, self-doubt and fictional comparison brought negative psychological effects (Hovey, 2015) and she soon realized that neither were beneficial for her daily rehabilitation (Hovey, 2015). In contrast, Robert Ward lives with learning disabilities and a speech impediment – also hidden. For him, there was no diagnostic point; instead the learning curve came as he realized
District 9 is a film that takes us into a realm of a different world from the one that we know now. It combines extraterrestrial life with immense science fiction to illustrate a story we could only imagine to ever actually occur. Although it was created for entertainment purposes, the motion picture can be compared to many different types of individuals and situations. District 9 displays many underlying concepts throughout the movie about racism, prejudice and discrimination. While studying and analyzing the plot and characters, these concepts became more translucent to me, the viewer. This paper will discuss the treatment of District 9 residents and equate their treatment to people with disabilities.
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...
Disability: Any disease or problem that goes uneducated by people all over the world, especially in the United States. A disability is something that almost everyone has heard of but doesn’t know about in depth. “More than 600 million persons, 10 per cent of the world’s population, have a disability” (Pineda). You will see and hear of people that have a disability and use words that shouldn’t be used. A common connotation when you hear about people with a disability, is that those human beings are “mentally retarded”, “retarded”, or “special ed” but they are completely the opposite. People with a disorder don’t have a choice whether they are like that or not and putting them in that situation doesn’t help their self esteem any. “When you focus on someone 's disability, you 'll overlook their abilities, beauty and uniqueness. Once you learn to accept and love them for who they are, you subconsciously learn to love yourself unconditionally”, said Yvonne Pierre from The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir. Being a normal person, you shouldn’t have any right in judging and making fun of disabilities people when you could be just in the wrong. Many people don’t know the extent of their words and how they insult people without knowing. Humans all over the world should
Walker, Jesse. Rebels on the air: an alternative history of radio in America. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Print.
...eglected social issues in recent history (Barlow). People with disabilities often face societal barriers and disability evokes negative perceptions and discrimination in society. As a result of the stigma associated with disability, persons with disabilities are generally excluded from education, employment, and community life which deprives them of opportunities essential to their social development, health and well-being (Stefan). It is such barriers and discrimination that actually set people apart from society, in many cases making them a burden to the community. The ideas and concepts of equality and full participation for persons with disabilities have been developed very far on paper, but not in reality (Wallace). The government can make numerous laws against discrimination, but this does not change the way that people with disabilities are judged in society.