Disability Representation in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (film)
I've been thinking about this topic ever since watching the movie and wanting to post my thoughts about this somewhere. I want to talk about disability as it exists in the book/world more generally, eventually, but I think the movie did some interesting things with casting that I want to discuss specifically.
First: Casting actors with visible disabilities, particularly for the roles of characters not explicitly designated as disabled in the book. In the film, Wovey (the girl tribute from District 8) has Down syndrome, Bobbin (the boy tribute from District 8) has no forearm/hand on one arm, and Tanner (the boy tribute from District 10) has one eye that remains closed. I could be wrong about this, because sometimes I miss descriptive details when I'm devouring a book as fast as I did TBoSaS, but I don't recall any of these disabilities being explicitly mentioned in the book. I think these casting decisions were great because:
A) Disabled actors deserve to be cast in a selection of roles just as expansive as nondisabled actors do, including roles for which the narrative is not centered entirely around their disability, and
B) Disability is a fact of life, including in the setting of Panem--perhaps ESPECIALLY in the districts, where people are expected to very literally sacrifice their bodies doing dangerous work in service to the Capitol. Workplace injuries are surely common, especially in districts where people operate heavy machinery and/or use sharp tools, and children are often already working by the time they are eligible for the Reaping. Additionally, the pre-10th Games Capitol certainly wouldn't treat disabled children any differently re:the Hunger Games, and the post-10th Games Capitol might even see a disabled tribute as an opportunity to create an 'inspiration' narrative or a way to make the betting interesting.
But I have to talk about Dr. Gaul and her heterochromia. Historically, the way that media has often coded a character as a villain or antagonist is by giving them a disability or visible difference. I did a case study on this in college using Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (sigh, even the franchises you love sometimes hurt you) so I feel like I'm activated like a Disability Studies sleeper agent every time this happens in something I'm reading/watching/etc. Viola Davis does not naturally have heterochromia, so this was an intentional choice for the movie specifically (again, I don't think Dr. Gaul explicitly had heterochromia in the book). One day, I want to live in a world where any type of character can have a facial difference because it's part of the natural variation of human appearance, but We Live In A Society, and that society has a history of villainizing people with visible differences and disabilities in a very real, non-fictional context. So, yeah, this disappoints me, because it feels like they made her eyes different colors as a way to make her physically 'off-putting' to 'match' her creepy personality. Movie, you were doing so good!
I feel like The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie is a perfect example of the fact that the work of doing better by marginalized communities is an ongoing process, and mistakes can be made at the same time as progress. What matters is that we keep pushing for better, and that we involve those communities in every step of the process.
That was mostly what I wanted to say, but if I think of anything else, I'll add it! Also, I have not yet read Sunrise on the Reaping, so I don't have the context for any additional information we may gain about any of these characters in that book.
