Facial disfigurement on screen

Unless you have been living under a rock lately you will probably have heard about the movie The Theory of Everything which is about the life of Steven Hawking. Eddie Redmayne has received a lot of praise and award nominations for his portrayal of Steven Hawking and his decline due to his condition. The movie has prompted some debate about whether it is ok for a able-bodied actor to portray a disabled person. In my opinion yes it is, because as long as it isn't done in a bad or mocking way also it is just acting. Obviously it would be impossible for a non-abled bodied actor to have shown that decline that Hawking experienced. The same can be said for those who portray people with an mental illness for example a young Leonardo Dicaprio played a boy with a developmental disorder in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The same role wouldn't have been able to been portrayed by a child with that condition as they wouldn't be able to follow orders, remember lines etc.

So what about people with facial disfigurements? It is a common theme in movies that the bad guy has some characteristic which makes them look scary. Whether this is an eye patch, a facial scar or something else. In many cases the villains actions alone should be enough to show us that they are in fact bad or evil. This has resulted in Changing Faces creating a campaign to challenge this assumption. They made a short film featuring Michelle Dockery of Downtown Abbey fame which was shown in certain cinemas. You can see it below.



I think as with everything things should be done in moderation and with proper thought. A villain shouldn't just have scars etc. for the sake of it or as a lazy way to show how they are evil. On the other hand I don't think they should make all bad guys look perfect. In some cases it is a core part of their character take Two-Face from Batman for example. I was interested to read about the movie Under the Skin a while back as a positive example of a movie using someone who looks different. I haven't seen it but it features Adam Pearson who has quite an obvious facial disfigurement coming into contact with Scarlet Johansson's alien character. You can read more about that here, otherwise I would just be repeating the same stuff that is in the article.

Scene from the movie

To be honest I think it is not so much a case of giving people with facial disfigurement or disfigurement leading roles in movies/tv shows, although if possible and if somebody wrote something with that, it would be awesome if done right. Instead I think it would be good to slowly get people used to the idea that there are people with these conditions and they are perfectly normal, perhaps by using them as minor characters or extras. Its hard not to think about these big budget movies/tv shows and how awesome it would be if they gave screen time to people who look a bit different. Take Star Wars for example obviously its hard to know what will happen in the new trilogy but imagine if they had a jedi with a facial disfigurement who was shown kicking-ass and how memorable (in a good way) that would be. They don't need to be a main character but it would get people talking. Obviously Peter Dinklage is now very well known for Game of Thrones and his height is a main part of his character in it. But it was only after I read a comment online after seeing him in X-men Days of Future Past that I realised that his height wasn't in fact referred to at any point during the movie. My point is that this should be the case for people with facial disfigurements on screen, unless it is a major part of their character then it shouldn't be referred to. They don't need to make a big deal about it.

Thanks for reading.

*Just want to clarify that I originally used the word deformity when I wrote this blog and you can probably still see it on the links I posted. I didn't realise that some people may not like that word and obviously I don't want to offend anyone. So apologies for that.