Have any of you(me) heard about the new movie Blind? It stars Alec Baldwin as a blind writer who has an affair with Demi Moore. Check out the poster. 
And here is the trailer:
Pretty harmless stuff. Sure, the screencap from the trailer is the same picture used in the poster, and they clearly have different backgrounds, but that is a little tiny issue in what will most likely be a forgettable movie. 
Apparently, something called the Ruderman Family Foundation is upset that Alec Baldwin is playing a blind man instead of, you know, an actual blind man getting the role. Come on, man. When is it all going to stop. Just look at this:
“Alec Baldwin in Blind is just the latest example of treating disability as a costume,” Jay Ruderman, the foundation’s president, said in the statement. “We no longer find it acceptable for white actors to portray black characters. Disability as a costume needs to also become universally unacceptable.”
Equating blackface with handing someone a walking stick is a bit bold, no? But it doesn’t stop there:
“This is nothing short of a social justice issue where a marginalized group of people is not given the right to self-representation,” the study reads. “We must change this inequality through more inclusive casting, through the use of Computer Graphics (CG) to create ability, through the media holding the industry responsible, through the avoidance of stereotypical stories, and ultimately through the telling of stories that depict people with disabilities without focusing on the disability. We also provide a list of resources where actors with disabilities can be proactively reached.”
They got it all figured out. The perfect solution to blind people not getting jobs portraying blind people is to use CGI to make them see? Why would they want a person who can see playing a blind person. Plus, do they have any idea how much CGI costs? I only get to see like three dragon scenes a season on Game of Thrones because that shit is expensive as all hell. You think a movie company is going to spend money on making a blind person see when they have Alec Baldwin willing and able to play the role and all they have to do is buy a pair of sunglasses? Me neither. And what does “through the telling of stories that depict people with disabilities without focusing on the disability” even mean? So you want people with disabilities to get all the roles depicting disabled people but not focus on the one thing that makes them suited for the role? Makes sense to me. Get your act together, Rudermans.
h/t Rolling Stone
The Last Stawp 