Disability Cinema’s Next Wave

Abstract

Traditionally, the depiction of disability in cinema has mirrored the dominant worldview’s outside-looking-in perspective. By contrast, today’s New Wave of Disability Cinema starts from the inside and shines outward, with a different focus, POV, and intentions. Lawrence Carter-Long reviews the current crop of films that replace appeals for inclusion with proclamations of purpose, representing an overdue evolution in what stories are told and who gets to tell them. He argues that the unique skills of disabled artists have been too long denied agency by limited imaginations and an ableist gaze.