[nabs-l] Rehashing an old yet interesting topic

Mon Jan 12 21:34:14 UTC 2009

Dear NABS,

In this message Chris Kuell wrote "I'm guessing the audience will largely 
consist of impressionable teenagers who will soak up the inaccurate 
portrayal of blindness and leave it to fester in their subconscious."

I thought that this might also be the case.  However, when we were 
protesting the movie, there were teens who came out from watching the movie 
who were just as disgusted as the rest of society.  They told us that that 
is not how they see blind people whatsoever.  Others who were entering the 
theater said, "oh I wasn't going to watch that any way," or "the movie had 
bad reviews so we were going to watch something better."  It's good to know 
that our "impressionable teens" have some sense, at least at the movie 
theater we protested.

Most of the folks who watched the movie "blindness"  seemed to be 30 and up. 
a large portion of whom disliked the movie.  Some even trickled out early 
they were so appalled.  It's no wonder that the movie lost money.

-B.J.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Wright" <gymnastdave at sbcglobal.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 8:22 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Rehashing an old yet interesting topic

Please read the article below. I know it's sort of rehashing an old bitter
topic but I do feel that it is an interesting read all the same.

Best Regards:
David Wright

Email: dwrigh6 at gmail.com
Mobile: 512-203-2474

http://www.knfbreader.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Deborah Kent Stein" <dkent5817 at att.net>
To: "NFB of Illinois Mailing List" <il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 9:22 PM
Subject: [il-talk] Article about "Blindness"

I just came across this fine piece about the movie "Blindness" in Breath and
Shadow, an online journal  of writing about disability.

_______

The Indignity of Blindness By Chris Kuell

I had a lively debate with my sixteen-year-old son a few days ago. We were
discussing the movie Blindness, which opened on October 3, and is based on
the
novel written by Portuguese author José Saramago. Like most teenage males,
my son thought the previews looked great, with glimpses of epidemic, chaos,
violence and horror. I'm familiar with this type of movie's appeal, as I saw
I Am Legend and 28 Days with him-both films about the human struggle to
overcome
an unknown virus which turns people into raging, zombiesque creatures.
Saramago's twist is that people become blind and are segregated, which he
postulates
will naturally lead to societal devolution.

The story begins with a man waiting at a red light. Suddenly and without
cause, he goes blind. A good Samaritan helps him home, and he too becomes
blind.
The first blind man sees an ophthalmologist, who goes blind, and so on. The
only person to escape the plight of blindness is the doctor's wife, who
fakes
being blind so she can stay with her husband when all blind people are
rounded up and confined in an abandoned asylum.

I understand the allegorical nature of the book/film--how if you pull out
one of the supportive beams of a society, it will quickly
crumble--Basically,
a variation on William Golding's classic novel, The Lord of the Flies.

Saramago's choice of blindness as his epidemic was in no way random. After
all, blindness is fairly rare, highly misunderstood, and feared by every
sighted
person. It is impossible to imagine what blindness is like, so it is easy to
believe it's horrible. To envision that without sighted people to help them,
blind people would quickly devolve into animals who defecate where they
sleep, steal and rape and lose their humanity. A quote from the book is
illustrative:
"It was too funny for words, some of the blind on their knees advancing on
all fours, their faces practically touching the ground as if they were
pigs."

Society, full of misconceptions and false impressions of blindness, easily
swallows this. Short of zombies, nobody could believe such degradation could
come from anyone else except maybe the mentally retarded or people with
psychological problems, and of course, nobody would dare portray those
groups in
such an ugly light.

So why is it okay to portray blind people this way? The truth is, the
average blind person can do the average job as well as the average sighted
person.
I can sense the disbelief, as most readers have bought into the myths of Mr.
Magoo and their own subconscious fears--as I once did. That's why
able-bodied
blind people have a greater than 70% unemployment rate. That's why blind
people with masters degrees wind up bagging groceries if they can find a job
at
all, because the sighted public just can't believe they can do much more.
That's why people talk to them as if they are slow, or ask the sighted
person
they are with what they want to eat, or ask if they'd like someone to cut up
their food for them, or if they need help in the bathroom. You can't imagine
how degrading it is to be pulled by the arm like a child or a dog, or told
you can't ride the roller coaster because you might get hurt, but a
10-year-old
can ride all she wants.

Of course, no film/novel like this is complete without somebody to save the
day. Chaos can't win, the human spirit must prevail, and Saramago's savior,
the only person who can possibly lead the blind animals from the madness is
of course, the doctor's sighted wife. After she leads her grateful followers
out into the filth of the city, there comes a cleansing rain, and just as
suddenly as the blindness came, sight is returned. Hope is renewed.

The truth is, many blind people live alone, or together, without the
guidance of a sighted savior. They travel independently, to cities and
places they've
never been, and do just fine. They cook and clean and work and play and
love--all without sighted help.

Films like this feed into society's fears and misconceptions, and are highly
offensive and damaging to blind people. How would the public react if the
victims
were women, suddenly struck by breast cancer? Or Caucasians, suddenly having
their skin darkened, followed by isolation and inevitable social collapse?
There would be outrage.

Saramago's novel has literary merit, and those who have made it through the
difficult prose (he doesn't use quotation marks or much punctuation, and one
sentence I found was 128 words long) might think it brilliant. People prone
to ignorance aren't very likely to make it through such a difficult read.
However,
the film adaptation is being promoted as a horror flick, available to anyone
with 2 hours and ten bucks to spare. I'm guessing the audience will largely
consist of impressionable teenagers who will soak up the inaccurate
portrayal of blindness and leave it to fester in their subconscious. Then
one day when
a blind person comes looking for a job, it will surface, and that blind
person won't stand a chance.

I know-I am that blind person.

Postscript: My son and his friends never went to see Blindness. It was
pulled from our local movie theatre less than three weeks after its release.
According
to my research, the movie has regained only about a third of what it cost to
make it.

Budget estimate: $25,000,000 (www.imdb.com)
Worldwide Gross, as of November 7, 2008:
$8,683,577(www.the-numbers.com/movies/2008)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris Kuell is a blind writer and advocate living in Connecticut. He is the
Editor-in-Chief of Breath and Shadow. A version of this essay appeared
previously
in The New Haven Register.

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