These are some of the potent words from the film Seeing Without Sight, directed by Alyscia Cunningham, as part of our November programming. 

This insightful, yet challenging film, is a documentary following the amazing journeys of women and girls with vision loss. Challenging, because it forces us to really think about our ideas of beauty and desirability and who gets to set trends, or say what’s ‘normal’. It also challenges us to think about vision and why we use this sense as a barometer to measure beauty. 

When it comes to film, it’s hard to see how disability is not treated as spectacle. Why can it not be written as a matter of fact for main characters, so that the disability doesn’t become a character, nor define the character in and of itself.

There are some films in the mainstream which attempt to redress the balance, but there is still a long way to go from a mainstream perspective. 

Marissa Bode’s Nessarose Thropp in the film musical Wicked is one example, whilst Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock in the Marvel series Daredevil, is somewhat better as it uses the loss of sight as a superpower. 

A Quiet Place in 2018 shows Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress as the character, Regan Abbott with more success also. 

Joaquin Phoenix as Joker in both films deals with mental health and neuro diversity, though one could argue that, as way of backstory of the villainous character, the film paints these as the reason for Joker’s antisocial proclivities.  

As streaming platform series, Apple TV has See, which tells the dystopian science fiction story about all of humanity losing its sight and the ways in which it has to find other ways of existence. Whilst not all cast members were blind (i.e. Jason Momoa), the cast included a significant number of actors who were visually impaired.    

What do you think? Did we miss anything out? Let us know in the comments section below.