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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><h2>‘Wicked: For Good’ Script Changes Improve Disability Representation, but Issues Remain<o:p></o:p></h2><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'><b>Variety<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'><b>December 20, 2025</b> <b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Since its release back on Nov. 21, I’ve had several social media followers and friends ask me: “What did you think of ‘<a href="https://variety.com/t/wicked-for-good/">Wicked: For Good</a>?’” There’s a hidden undercurrent to this question. They aren’t asking me just because I’m an entertainment journalist and critic; I’m also a disabled person who routinely writes about representation on-screen. So the question they’re really asking is: “What did you think of how they handled Nessarose in the movie?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Nessarose, the half-sister to heroine Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), has been a character I’ve had trepidation over since the movie was greenlit. The first movie in 2024 was a pleasant surprise. I knew they’d have to cast an actual wheelchair-using actor or risk the ire of social media, and <a href="https://variety.com/t/marissa-bode/">Marissa Bode</a> has been a highlight of both the first film and its sequel.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Disabled women of color are still a rarity on-screen. Per this year’s Annenberg Inclusion Study, 61% of the disabled characters seen on-screen last year were men and 70.8% were white, so to see someone like Bode given a character who, historically, has never been played by a disabled woman on stage until March of 2025, is amazing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>The first movie gave director <a href="https://variety.com/t/jon-m-chu/">Jon M. Chu</a> and screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox an opportunity to combat some of the ableism from the stage play. In the film version of “Wicked,” Elphaba pokes fun at those who consider Nessa “beautifully tragic” and “tragically beautiful,” lines that are presented without irony in the original stage version. There’s also more inclusion presented in Oz. Little people aren’t specifically relegated to Munchkinland (though no little people seem to live there at all), and if you keep your eyes open, you’ll see ramps discretely integrated into the set design. I knew the first movie wasn’t going to be problematic because Nessa’s journey at Shiz University is woven through the earlier part of the film, and she is accepted like any other student.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>The reason an abled actress plays Nessa on Broadway is because Elphaba, hoping to reconcile with her sister, grants Nessa’s wish to be cured by bewitching her silver shoes and giving her the ability to walk. The magic cure, another common disabled stereotype, presents the idea that every disabled person wants to be fixed. So the question arose, how would “Wicked: For Good” combat the magic cure Nessa asks for in Act Two? Bode said earlier in the year that the plotline would be changed to be “less harmful to disabled people” and, honestly, what ends up happening is about what I expected. It is less harmful, but it’s not setting the world of disability discourse on fire.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>She doesn’t ask Elphaba to fix her but is irritated that Elphaba has never used her magic to benefit Nessa. Instead of giving Nessa the ability to walk, the shoes are enchanted to give her the ability to float. The slight change gives this a different vibe than the magical cure. Nessa, now the governor of Munchkinland, is still mired in a mix of mourning the loss of her father and condemnation of her sister, but it’s clear there’s an undisclosed change in her mentality. She doesn’t want to be fixed but instead wants to recreate the nostalgic feelings of her youth, and the feeling of love she once believed was present between her and her unrequited love, Boq (Ethan Slater).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>The Boq/Nessa storyline remains fairly similar on screen to the stage version, and it’s still problematic. Boq wishes to go off and see the world, only for Nessa to change the laws so Munchkins can’t leave, especially Boq. On the one hand, disabled people are still people at the end of the day, with all manner of flaws and the ability to hurt people they care about. The problem is that Nessa’s plotline still boils down to her villainy stemming predominantly from being rejected by an abled man. Interabled relationships on-screen are still a rarity for women; disabled men participate in them frequently. Boq doesn’t necessarily reject Nessa because she’s disabled, but because he’s still hung up on Glinda (Ariana Grande). There’s little in the way of depth to Boq and Nessa’s relationship.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Both characters have apparently been pining for people who haven’t appeared to have shown them any consideration since the first movie. Nessa’s 180 into witchery and fascism feels as abrupt as Boq seeing Glinda on a magazine cover and believing he can suddenly change her mind about getting married. So while Nessa isn’t rejected because of her disability, her journey still feels like a stereotypical disabled-woman arc. We never see her lead and only act as a villain.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Her ending is also expected because of the play. Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) uses Nessa as a pawn to draw Elphaba out, conjures up a tornado, and a house ends up dropped on Nessa. Nessa’s only given one major segment in the entire movie, and while it’s all necessary to the part, there doesn’t appear to be any good in Nessa’s life this go-round. We don’t see her do anything positive as a leader. She doesn’t get the guy. And she’s angry at her sister for her magical abilities.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>She flirts heavily with falling into the trope of the “bitter cripple,” wherein the character is written to have little in their life other than anger and sadness. This could have been negated had the movie not been split in two, as Nessa gets a lot of happy scenes in that first movie. And while it’s clear that her bitterness is more of a recent phenomenon, there’s nothing to counter it. The audience doesn’t even really get a chance to mourn her passing. They just see the famous shot of her striped socks under the house before Elphaba and Glinda start fighting. To watch this movie, Nessa died as she lived: alone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>None of these are specifically issues exclusive to the movie. They’re all issues inherent in the original 2003 movie musical. So, for me, because I knew they weren’t giving Nessa an entirely new plot, my expectations were not hopeful of a radical change. The movie is fine. Removing the ableist walking plotline is great, but it’s the one major change. The rest of Nessa’s plotline is still there and still troubles me. Marissa Bode’s acting gives more life to the character, but there’s little more to Nessa than existed at the beginning. It proves there’s more awareness of ableist tropes in movies. Knowing is half the battle.<o:p></o:p></p><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:115%'><hr size=1 width="100%" align=center></div><h2>35 years after ADA, people with disabilities still find hotels unaccommodating<o:p></o:p></h2><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'><b>NPR<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'><b>December 24, 2025</b> <b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Eileen Schoch traveled to her mother's funeral in Asheville, N.C. and found the hotel room — the one she'd called about in advance — wasn't accessible as promised.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Schoch, who uses a wheelchair after two strokes, couldn't use the room's toilet without assistance from her husband or daughter. The grab bars were in the wrong place. She couldn't get into the shower because it had a door too narrow for her wheelchair. She got sponge baths for three days.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Nor could she reach the tall bed from her wheelchair. The hotel gave her an uncomfortable cot, instead.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>"You feel that you're treated as a second-class citizen. And you don't count," says Schoch, a retired educator from Schenectady, N.Y.. "And it's not a nice feeling."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Schoch said she considered switching hotels, but she wanted to be close to other family members. After all, they'd picked that hotel because she'd chosen it first. The family brought business to the hotel, booking four rooms for three days.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Schoch asks: "After that experience, who would want to travel?"<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Despite 35 years of federal law requiring hotels to be made accessible for guests who use wheelchairs, those travelers tell NPR that hotels still fail to fully comply with basic and often easily achieved requirements for accessibility.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>NPR interviewed 50 wheelchair users. And more than 200 people who use wheelchairs, scooters and other mobility devices, or their family members and caregivers, responded to an NPR survey. They told NPR they want to travel and use hotels — for work, to visit family and friends, for fun or when they travel for health care — but they frequently run into problems.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>"It's anticipation and it's a little bit of dread," Don Bergman of Jacksonville, Fla. says of the moment he opens the door of a hotel room. "You hope for the best, expect the worst and then deal with what you got."<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>Among the stories NPR heard:<o:p></o:p></p><ul style='margin-top:0in' type=disc><li class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'>Wheelchair users described showing up at a hotel to find there's no accessible room available, even when they reserved one online or in a phone call directly to the hotel.<o:p></o:p></li><li class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'>Rooms designated as accessible often had design flaws, such as misplaced toilets and grab bars in bathrooms, or showers with thresholds and doors that block wheelchairs.<o:p></o:p></li><li class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'>Many complained of unsafe beds too high off the floor to reach from their wheelchairs. Some told us of falling when they tried to get in or out of a tall bed. Some broke bones.<o:p></o:p></li><li class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'>Respondents praised hotel staff who go out of their way to help but also expressed frustration when staffers seem to lack training to understand or fix problems with rooms that are inaccessible.<o:p></o:p></li></ul><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'>NPR found multiple reasons why wheelchair users continue to run into accessibility problems at hotels: the hesitancy of the hotel industry to do more, which can cost money; the often complicated ownership of hotels which creates confusion over who's responsible for making things accessible; a lack of consistent, forceful regulation by government agencies; and the high turnover rate of hotel staff.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:115%'><a href="https://www.wvxu.org/news-from-npr/2025-12-24/35-years-after-ada-people-with-disabilities-still-find-hotels-unaccommodating">Read or listen to the full story on NPR’s website.</a><o:p></o:p></p><div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:115%'><hr size=1 width="100%" align=center></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'> Suzanne M. Hartfield Turner</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>National Federation of the Blind of Ohio, Vice President<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>Ohio Legislative Director<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>Cleveland Chapter, President<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:24.0pt'><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>The National Federation of the Blind advances the lives of its members and all blind people in the United States. We know that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. Our collective power, determination, and diversity achieve the aspirations of all blind people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:12.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:18.0pt'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>P: (216) 990-6199<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>W: NFBOhio.ORG<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ohiosblind/photos/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>https://www.facebook.com/ohiosblind/photos/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>