Barriers to Diversity in Film – A Research Review – Aug 07

others perceive severe impairment and as such, the film makes a
contribution to exposing their attitudes.
Terms used about disability are also problematic. For example, words
such as ‘cripple’, ‘loony’ and ‘retard’ are not acceptable to those who
are so labelled. The BFI study also argues that the slightest degree of
eccentricity is classed as mental illness. There is particular resentment
of the image of people with learning difficulties, who appear to have a
genre all to themselves - the ‘idiot comedy’. The genre is traced to
Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Harold Lloyd, through to the
70s with BBC series such as Some Mothers do ‘ave them, right up to
Dumb and Dumber (1994), Kingpin (1996) and There’s something
about Mary (1998) (BFI 2003). Another study argues that the
newspapers are guilty of perpetuating negative stereotypes, with the
use of emotive words such as ‘psycho’, ‘nutter’ and ‘lunatic’, language
that is used to demonise people. The author cites a study which
indicated that audiences saw a strong link between violence and
mental health, and had derived most of their attitudes from the media
(Cassey 2005).
A recent study analysing the representation of mentally ill people
argues that their portrayal falls into one of two extremes: violent
sociopath or quaint and down-at-heel. The characters are typically
depicted with a violent angle, their motivations are not deeply
understood and they therefore behave in totally unpredictable ways.
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