The history of disability representation in cinema starts with a trope that still endures: the faker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 1897 French short film The Fake Cripple depicts a seemingly disabled man begging in the street, who is later ousted as a fake by a police officer. It\u2019s difficult to know the real-world impact at the time, but it\u2019s unlikely that the narrative warmed folks up to the notion of believing disabled people.<\/span><\/p>\n

While few creatives would take such an approach now, the narrative cemented a common trope that people continue to use when attacking \u201cbenefit scroungers\u201d today. And we\u2019ve seen it on screen again more recently, too: in the rightfully panned 2005 movie The Ringer, the main character tries to erase his debts by posing as a disabled competitor for the Paralympics. <\/span>One hundred years later, some writers still see no issue with perpetuating the belief that disabled people fake it for personal gain.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1907, The Faithful Dog became one of the first movies to manipulate disabled narratives to break the hearts of non-disabled people. The movie follows a blind, homeless man who dies despite his dog\u2019s valiant attempts to help him. It\u2019s a perfect illustration of the assumption that many people still have about disability: our lives are pre-destined to be miserably unfulfilled.<\/span><\/p>\n

This, too, has modern comparisons \u2013 far too many, actually. The first that springs to mind is the trauma-porn-packed romcom Me Before You (2016), where the disabled main character opts for assisted suicide, even though his finding love and joy had been a core theme of the movie before that point.<\/span><\/p>\n