[Nfbmo] The glass ceiling for blind performers

[Gary Wunder]

Although I enjoy the work I do in the National Federation of the Blind, I do
not claim to be a visionary. I do not experience many epiphanies that I end
up sharing with others, but I am blessed to be open enough to there
epiphanies that I may eventually come to share them.

 

In Julie McGinnity's presentation at the 2016 Missouri convention, she
challenged us to help blind performers to be more visible on stage and
screen. She noted that it is very common to see sighted people being cast as
blind people and rare to see blind people cast as blind people. I agree. She
goes on to suggest that the National Federation of the Blind should try to
address this and should open our minds and the minds of our society to the
idea that blind people can play the parts of sighted people. I like the ring
of this, but I have been trying to figure out for the last several weeks how
I would play a sighted person. Forgive my references to old television
shows; they are what I know. Some of you will remember the very popular
sitcom All in the Family. In reading reviews about that television show, the
actor Carol O'Connor was given high marks for his ability to portray through
facial expressions the shock, amazement, discussed, distain, and other
emotions he felt when confronted by his unconventionally thinking wife, his
daughter, and his liberal son-in-law. I believe that I could easily deliver
the lines that Carol O'Connor did in his role as Archie Bunker; I am even
conceited enough to believe that I could get the timing right. What I can't
figure out is how I would begin to master the facial expressions that won
him so much praise. Even without seeing the show, I could tell by the
laughter of the audience what Archie's verbal response was going to be, and
although both the facial expression and the verbal response got laughs, I
believe the audience considered the former funnier.

 

When I was an active television watcher, westerns were very popular. I
wonder how I could have played the role of Matt Dillon writing across the
countryside in pursuit of an outlaw, facing him down during a confrontation,
or, when the marshal's best efforts failed, shooting the outlaw. Part of my
question has to do with the actions I've just described, but perhaps a
bigger part has to do with the fact that I look blind. I do not look ugly or
strange, but I do not look like a sighted person. I do not make eye contact.
Some of my gestures look stiff and some of them are different enough from
those of sighted people that I have been advised to moderate them. Sometimes
I have been tripped up by something as simple as a smile. You look glum; is
something wrong? Don't smile like that; you look like a monkey or a little
boy. Okay, so I can work on the gestures, try out my smile on others, and
work hard to determine what is an acceptable range for showing emotion. But
does all of that add up to my ever looking as though I have vision?

 

I guess the question all of this leads to is whether, at least in my case,
failing to cast me as a sighted person would be discriminatory or
appropriate. Remember that the definition of discrimination is something
that is both unreasonable and detrimental. My not getting to play the roles
that made John Wayne a star is, from the perspective of my fame and my
wallet, detrimental. The question is whether it meets the second test, that
being that it is unreasonable?

 

I hope this note will spark some discussion, for if the National Federation
of the Blind should play a more active role in bringing equality of
opportunity to the performing arts, I would like to be a part of it. I would
like to be one of its most eloquent spokespersons. I look forward to your
reactions and your considered deliberations. 

 

Gary Wunder, President

National Federation of the Blind of Missouri