By River Heart
Creative industries are characterised by a gig economy featuring short-term, intensive contracts, word-of-mouth recruitment, ten-hour days, and precarious work (Flew, 2011). Such conditions can pose challenges for filmmakers with disability to flourish. While federal anti-discrimination legislation requiring reasonable adjustments has existed in Australia since 1992 (Tyler, 1993; Thornton, 1997), industry policies rarely meet the diverse needs of filmmakers with disability.
Accessibility is often characterised by adjustments such as wheelchair-access, handrails or captions (Includability, 2022) and inclusion is performed through high-visibility marketing campaigns (Sun, 2019). Little available data exists about adjustments in the arts for people with invisible disabilities or neurodivergent people, such as the availability of quiet spaces or measures to address sensory overload. People with disability report push-back about whether their needs are considered ‘reasonable’ or ‘cost-prohibitive’ (Bonaccio et al, 2020). As a result, they may engage in their own risk management exercises, weighing up the value of disclosure or pre-emptively screening themselves out of employment.
As a disabled filmmaker, I have lived experience of inaccessible productions. I am an art director, producer and propmaker with a combination of degenerative auto-immune conditions. I use mobility aids and experience chronic pain. I was first diagnosed whilst working as a prop finisher on a feature film. When my right hand seized up and immobilised in unprecedented pain, I didn’t tell anybody. I finished the entire job one-handed in fear that I would be replaced, or my capacity be underestimated. This is not an uncommon experience among industry professionals who navigate disability and creative contract work.
Available data indicates that people with disability make up only 5.3% of Australian production crew, despite comprising 17.7% of the Australian general population (Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network 2022). Over the course of my professional, industry and research experience, I have heard repeated narratives about the limitations of disability inclusion practices. Disclosing is one of the main hurdles. Filmmakers with disability are engaged in a process of continually coming out, battling perceptions, and anticipating being read as ‘high risk’. There is often a lack of transparency about what adjustments and budgets are available to support participation, with such information being released on a discretionary and need-to-know basis. Despite rapid advances in universal design practices, particularly in assistive technologies such as text-to-speech, adaptive equipment and remote access, these approaches still do not achieve disability justice (Costanza-Chock 2020).
The experiences of filmmakers with disability provide valuable lessons for the screen industry to re-evaluate ‘business as usual’ and re-shape production practices. Within the industry, disability is often thought about in relation to legal and policy definitions and risk assessments, which draw on the medical model of disability. This model relies on notions of deficit, impairment and ‘loss’ (of function, mobility, capacity) as key indicators. It views the disability as intrinsic to the individual and as the factor that makes it difficult for the individual to function in certain ways or interact with the world. The social model of disability, by comparison, differentiates between impairment and disability. It understands impairment as a state of the body that is ‘non-standard’ according to Western medical norms. Disability, on the other hand, is a disadvantage or restriction as a product of the social environment – for example stairs, low lighting, or long periods of standing without chairs (Goering, 2015). It is an essential distinction to consider, particularly in production spaces or educational institutions, as it emphasises how environmental, social and institutional norms that are, in many instances, adjustable, pose barriers to disabled filmmakers (Silvers, 1989).
The social model issues structural challenges to industry, imploring us to re-think the capitalistic fast-film pace of production, critique cost-benefit analyses that value profit over people and demand more sustainable and accessible creative production methods. Special initiatives, such as internships, attachment schemes and disability equality plans that aim to support filmmakers with disability, must sit alongside initiatives for universal design. The industry needs to move in earnest towards transparency and upfront communication about available adjustments. We require funding subsidies by state and federal screen bodies to support accessible and disability-led film sets. By making accessibility standard practice rather than exceptionalism, it will benefit all crew and make safer sets for everyone.
As an industry teeming with innovators, designers, and imaginers, we need to be more creative in the ways we imagine not only accessibility but disability justice and disabled futures (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018; 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic prompted workplaces to adapt to flexible environments that disabled people had been requesting for years. Through our collective knowledge, filmmakers with disability can drive industry protocols and new standards, establishing parameters for ethical practice that are not simply tokenistic or concerned with legal compliance but involve meaningful inclusion and structural change. There is a significant role to be played by our educational institutions that seek to reflect and improve industry standards. Listening to filmmakers with disability will not only support improved vocabulary, cultural competency, and on-set practices but will contribute to an environment in which filmmakers with disability can flourish and thrive.
References
Bonaccio, S., Connelly, C.E., Gellatly, I.R. et al., 2020, The Participation of People with Disabilities in the Workplace Across the Employment Cycle: Employer Concerns and Research Evidence, Journal of Business and Psychology, pp.135–158, viewed 11 September 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9602-5
Costanza-Chock, S., 2020. Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. The MIT Press.
Flew, T., 2011. The creative industries: Culture and policy. Publishing, London.
Finkelstein, V, 1996. Outside, ‘Inside out’ Coalition. pp.30-36
Goering, S. 2015, Rethinking disability: the social model of disability and chronic disease. Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine. 8, 134–138
Hadley, B., 2020. Allyship in disability arts: roles, relationships, and practices. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 25(2), pp.178-194.
Includability resources, 2022. Creating an accessible and inclusive workplace. Includability Website, accessed 23 September 2022, https://includeability.gov.au/resources-employers/creating-accessible-and-inclusive-workplace
Piepzna-Samarasinha, L.L., 2018. Care work: Dreaming disability justice (p. 182). Vancouver: arsenal pulp press.
Piepzna-Samarasinha, L.L., 2022. The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network, 2022. Everyone Counts: Preliminary data on diversity in the screen industry from The Everyone Project. https://www.sdin.com.au/reports
Silvers A. A fatal attraction to normalizing. In: Parens, editor. Enhancing human traits. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press; 1998.
Sun, X., 2019, Disability, more than the wheelchair. Together We Are. https://www.queensu.ca/connect/equity/2019/12/03/disability-more-than-the-wheelchair, accessed 14 October 2022.
Thornton, M., 1997. Domesticating disability discrimination. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 2(3), pp.183-198.
Tyler, M.C., 1993. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992: genesis, drafting and prospects. Melbourne University Law Review, 19, p.211.
River Heart (they/she) is an art director, project manager and higher degree researcher working across film, theatre, festivals and educational institutions. They are currently completing their Masters in Screen Production (Digital Filmmaking) at Griffith University and are the Student Engagement Manager at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. With an interest in the intersections of diversity and accessibility in the Arts, River is a creative leader building unique and generative spaces to encourage collaboration, innovation, and excellence.