[nabs-l] Rehashing an old yet interesting topic

Mon Jan 12 23:41:01 UTC 2009

Wow.  I didn't know all this.  I'm gld at least my parents wouldn't
watch such an apalling piece of, forgive e, CRAP like Blindness.
Beth

On 1/12/09, Bruce Sexton <bjsexton at comcast.net> wrote:
> 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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