Back Stage

October 7, 2008

Actors' unions launch disability rights campaign

By Lauren Horwitch

Actor Robert David Hall, a double amputee who serves as national head of the Tri-Union Performers With Disabilities Committee. Back Stage photoTalks of strike authorization and Phase One agreements took a back seat today as representatives of the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and Actors' Equity announced a joint campaign to improve working conditions and visibility for performers with disabilities. The press conference held at SAG Hollywood headquarters and simultaneously broadcast in New York and Washington, D.C., this morning, coincided with the beginning of National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

SAG national president Alan Rosenberg introduced the disability-rights initiative known as the Inclusion in the Arts & Media of People With Disabilities (I AM PWD), to educate the public about the lack of inclusion and discrimination performers with disabilities face. The campaign will focus on removing physical barriers that interfere with actors' abilities to audition and work — including adding wheelchair access, sign-language interpretation, and scripts in Braille and/or large print — and urging producers to create a greater number of more-accurate characters with disabilities.

Rosenberg noted a key objective will be to convince producers to include actors with disabilities in studios' diversity programs and to track the number of roles played by disabled actors for the guild's annual Casting Data Report, which records the number and types of roles played by seniors, actors of color, and women. He noted that SAG's negotiating committee has been discussing that inclusion with the AMPTP for 15 years, most recently during the guild's negotiations for the TV/theatrical contract.

"After numerous forums, panel discussions, and showcases…to highlight the wealth of talent within the community, performers and broadcasters with disabilities are still nearly invisible in the media," said Rosenberg. "We now say enough…. Discrimination has to be changed."

According to a 2005 SAG study — the latest data available — only one in 50 characters on television in 2003 displayed a disability, and just one-half of 1 percent of those uttered a word on screen. According to the American Association of People With Disabilities, 56 million Americans have disabilities.

Actors Robert David Hall, Linda Bove, and Geri Jewell shared their experiences facing discrimination in the industry. Hall, a double amputee who serves as national head of the Tri-Union Performers With Disabilities Committee, said he was routinely denied auditions before landing the role of Dr. Al Robbins on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. "When you don't go on auditions, you don't get jobs," he said. "It's that simple. When I managed to get an audition it was usually a small role as an angry or pathetic disabled guy. I thought I was more than that."

A veteran cast member of Sesame Street and co-founder of the nationally recognized Deaf West Theatre in North Hollywood, Bove, who is deaf, emphasized that hearing-impaired actors are not necessarily seeking jobs but rather the opportunity to audition and communicate with their colleagues on set. "Provide us with a sign language interpreter and the playing field is leveled. Provide us with the same sorts of access that you provide others with disabilities…and there is no more disability," she said.

Jewell, a comic with cerebral palsy who is best known for her breakthrough role as a regular on The Facts of Life, said, "The real disabilities in life are prejudice and hatred, abuse, hypocrisy, greed, and despair…. The more we become aware of what the real disabilities are, the more we will respect and honor and value all of us who have something to contribute."

L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke — the first African-American woman to serve in the California legislature — pointed out that the few film and TV characters with disabilities are usually played by able-bodied performers. She likened the practice to Caucasian actors in blackface portraying African Americans: "It's the same concept. Give people a chance to have careers in those things where they have the abilities and that they can make a difference…. Disability-rights issues are human-rights issues. They should be treated with the same consciousness and the same kind of respect."

The I AM PWD campaign will officially begin in January 2009. For more information, visit www.iampwd.org.