The call to action was an
offensive play title. The response was a movie. Now the call comes
again—an
offensive movie.
In the spring of 2007,
when the Minneapolis theater company Brave New Workshop put on
a show titled “The Rise of the Celebretards,” people
with disabilities and their allies took action. They later made a documentary
that shows their organized response to the play title and to the public
use of the “R-word.” Ironically, just when that film, “Offense
Taken”, was set to premiere, a similar thing happened —this
time with the national release of a movie full of “retard” slurs.
The two August movie
premieres reveal America’s deep chasm on
the issue of respect for people with disabilities. On the one hand,
popular culture can’t seem to let go of using demeaning disability
words as “funny” put-downs. On the other hand, the disability
rights movement is now at a place where the power of language is
crashing up against the advancement of dignity and human rights.
People with developmental disabilities want to be regular people
and are tired of old hate speech that keeps them in a subhuman place.
On August 13th, Kelly
Lee and Brad Duncan of St. Paul-based Advocating Change Together
(ACT) were among hundreds of disability rights activists participating
in public awareness or protests across the country at opening night
of the movie “Tropic Thunder” (released
by DreamWorks). A coalition of groups, including Special Olympics
and Arc, organized a national boycott of the comedy, which features
dialogue drenched in ridiculing use of the R-word.
Lee and Duncan, along
with ACT staff Rick Cardenas and Mary Kay Kennedy, handed out fliers
to moviegoers at the Highland Theater in St. Paul, telling about
the issue of disrespectful language and inviting people to the
premiere of “Offense Taken”. Lee and Duncan told
moviegoers that they have personally experienced name calling, and
that the word “retard” is especially hurtful. “I
got teased and called retard when I was a kid,” said Lee. “It
hurt. My mom tells me now that names can’t hurt me. I kind
of agree, but deep inside I know names do hurt.”
Many of the moviegoers
were teenage boys or young men. One young man commented, “I use language worse than anything I’ll see
in this movie,” and said he was not offended by the language.
Duncan observed, however, that “almost everyone wanted to hear
what we had to say.”
About 100 people turned
out to Interact Theater for the August 21 premiere of “Offense Taken”. Interact was the site of the
first community meeting that led to the film’s creation. The
documentary was the result of 16 months of organizing by a coalition
of local disability groups in response to a similar situation, when
Brave New Workshop used “celebretard” in a show title.
The documentary follows local self-advocates and allies through a
year of planning and taking action, as they interview self-advocates,
people on the street and family members, host a public forum, take
part in a training, speak in classrooms, and set up a shredder at
the state capitol for a rally where advocates brought in hate words
and ran them through the machine to cheers and applause.
The film was produced
by Self-Advocates Minnesota (SAM) and filmed and directed by Jerry
Smith of the Institute on Community Integration. “What
struck me about this project was how quickly and effectively individuals
and groups
came together,” said
Sherry Gray, one of the many volunteers who worked to make the
film a reality. A number of organizations were involved, including
Advocating Change Together, the Institute on Community Integration
at the University of Minnesota, Metropolitan Center for Independent
Living, Arc Greater Twin Cities.
The film was proposed
in the summer of 2007 as a way to extend the issues to the wider
community, to help spread the word that this isn’t
merely an issue of “politically correct” language. Rather,
it is an issue that goes to the heart of whether persons with disabilities
are fully credited – and honored – as part of their communities.
And one cannot be a full member of a community when one comes with
a derogatory, demeaning or distancing label.
After the premiere,
a large group stayed to discuss the video and how to use it to
launch a local public awareness and human rights campaign—in
schools, churches and community groups. Wilbur Frank, of Arc Southwest,
spoke about how she plans to use the video as a part of the play being
produced by United We Stand players, a group of self-advocates from
Mankato. Frank noted that her theater troupe, composed of self-advocates
and allies, has been inspired by the year-long campaign already mounted
by the coalition whose actions are documented in ”Offense Taken.” An
excerpt of the movie will close out the group’s play, which
will be performed at the statewide Arc convention, October 11 and
12 in Mankato.
The brainstorming extended
to other media forms as well. Audience member Sally Koenecke from
the Lake Minnetonka Communications Commission, urged folks to call
their local community access station to get the film shown locally
around the state. In the two weeks since the screening, several
people have already begun to contact cable access to schedule the
show in their area. Another audience member, Alexanda Bornstein,
was motivated to start a Facebook group, “Offense Taken: Shredding
the ‘R’ Word.” ![end of story]()
For more information, visit www.offensetaken.org
Bret Hesla is a former
Access Press assistant editor. He was involved through ACT in the
production of “Offense Taken.”
