During the second half of 2021, when all movie producers decided to publish the long-waiting-in-the-drawer hits, I was excited to catch up on all the good stuff. One of the movies I was really waiting for was James Bond ‘No time to die’. As excited as I was sitting in the cinema, watching Daniel Craig in the car chases, somewhere in the middle of the movie I realized I really do not remember the previous part. Nor the movies that came before. Heck, I could not even figure out the titles. Therefore, ambitiously trying to understand the whole story, I took it upon myself to at least attempt to watch some of the recent ones. And then it stroke me. One, those movies are far more boring when you watch them at home. Two, what up with the faces of all the bond villains?
Casino Royale, Le Chiffre:
Raoul Silva, Skyfall:
And, of course, there’s Safin from No Time To Die.
All faces wounded, disfigured with some horrible torture-based back story. Then Ernst Stavro Blofeld from Spectre gets away with his face in one piece for most of the movie, but then this happens anyway:
Which makes Dominic Greene from Quantum of Solace the only Bond villain who the writers spared any mutilation. But then he dies anyway, drinking gasoline in the desert. So no silver lining for this guy either.
And then it stroke me. I just thought of the whole parade of evil master minds, from Captain Hook from Peter Pan, through Mason Verger from The Hannibal, Darth Vader from Star Wars, Dr Poison from Wonder Woman, don’t let me even start with the Batman franchise with Joker, Penguin or Two-Face – all being a proof that body deformations have been used to create the most iconic villains of our times. They either suffered mutilations as a result of their evil experiments or the other way round – they became evil after they suffered an accident of some sort that turned them into revenge-seeking beings with no human emotions left.
However, not only villains are created in the labs, also a fair share of super heroes happen to pop up as a result of radiation, venomous spider’s bite, or other ungodly experiments. They must look weird too, right? Well… Somehow, they either get hotter (Captain America) or kind of look the same (Spider Man). Tortured heroes keep their cool looks with some scars added to their body (Bond) but somehow their face is never intact… and even if they change a bit, it works (anyone else thinks Hulk is quite handsome? No? Only me?)
Yes, as old as the human kind exists we tend to fall for ‘halo’ effect and to assume that beautiful people are also good, smart and/or qualified at minimum. Interestingly, as vividly depicted by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray, we also tend to assume that evil plots and wrong doings would have impact on person’s physique. Simply, if people do bad things they will be punished by either an accident or deformation of their face of some sort. That we can recognize a bad character through someone’s looks.
That’s one side of the coin. The other is the assumption that if you have been through either an accident-related or in-born deformation, you tend to grow bitter, hating the world or turn mentally instable therefore you are destined to create evil plots of total world destruction. I am sure that only thanks to work of many MI5 agents that we still haven’t seen Katie Piper turning at least one continent into ashes.
Villainizing people with disabilities is a real thing. Multiple researches have shown that is actually the most common way of portraying them in the movies. Think about it. The most frequent image of a person with disability we all are coming across is not a brother, sister, a friend, a co-worker, a parent. No. Is a villain. The most successful movie about a person dealing with mental problems was The Joker. Would people equally go to see it if it was telling the story of James or Jaydene, real people who have some sort of psychiatric disorder but it does not turn them into a clown gangster?
We are all humans. Different makes us uncomfortable, sometimes scared. And if the media keeps portraying people who look or behave a bit differently as evil, we will happily accept that assumption. The real people with disabilities rarely get any media space. Most of the time, when companies are casting characters in the wheelchair for the advertisement, we see the ads with people looking fully healthy, just sitting there. Maybe even athletic. Maybe they play basketball, riding around. This is comfortable for the viewer. This is how people in wheelchair look like, no? Right… We forget 90% of conditions that cause people to be in need of wheelchair support are related to body misfunctions, that will make them look different. Cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, to name a few… Just in the US alone there is over 3 million wheelchair users. Among them, hopefully, rather limited number of international villains. Different races, hair colors, different hobbies, family status, likes and dislikes. Even Stephen Hawking somehow turned out well, despite all the genius he could use for evil.
In the James Bond world a person on a wheelchair would not land a job even as a secretary or a lab assistant. No, the secretary of M is a hot-looking chic. Q, the lab genius is a stereotypically geeky, cute boy. And Hawking would be the twisted mastermind that would make Spectre look like children’s play. That’s the world’s order.
I do not think that the villainizing of disabilities in the movies will ever change – it is based on deeply rooted prejudices and fears of human, it simply works too well. However, what should definitely change is – it should not be the dominant image in media. People with disabilities have right to be portrayed as regular citizens functioning in society. Going to school. Going to work. Having plain, everyday problems. Otherwise we are risking dehumanizing the whole group and that is just scary. And if you think it’s an exaggeration, talk to parents of kids with disabilities and listen to stories how they manage every day situations, such as other children running away scared, name-calling or bullying. How easily we forget that a person looking differently has the same feelings, same dreams, same fears.
Oh yea. On Deadpool. My ray of sunshine in the gloomy world. If you haven’t watched it, do. In the movie, he did get his body deformed as a result of chemical experiment. It did not alter his quirky personality, it did not make him villain. Just the opposite. It made him the coolest super hero of all times. A regular guy that makes you laugh and saves the day at the same time. Dealing with his changed physique as well, but in the way that made him an example for other people who struggle with the same. And it inspired people like Jadiant, a young man, who suffered from whole-body burn to see himself as something great and take on this devil-may care attitude. Once you watch the Deadpool, check out Jadiant’s story and Ryan Reynold’s reaction to it. Such examples is what we need more of. A real person dealing with tremendous challenge with exemplary strength and cheerful spirit. We really need less Jokers, but more Jadiants in the media space.
Ryan Reynolds’ Reply to Burn Victim’s Deadpool Cosplay Goes Viral (distractify.com)