FEATURE - DISABILITY INEQUALITY “RIDICULOUS”

DISABILITY INEQUALITY “RIDICULOUS”

While around 1 in 5 Australians have a disability, recent data suggests they are vastly under-represented both on screen and behind the camera. Susy Cornford talks to leaders in awareness and advocacy to find out how the industry can do more to drive change.

When Chloe Hayden landed the role of Quinni in Netflix’s Heartbreak High, it was an “euphoric, incredible, overwhelming feeling”

“You audition for a thousand jobs and might get one. But to be able to get to a job, and you’re a neurodivergent person on top of that, was just like an absolute dream,” she tells IF.

Hayden has been advocating for better representation and understanding of people with disabilities for years through her work as a motivational speaker, actor, performer, influencer, content creator, and disability rights activist and advocate. She is also the author of Different, Not Less: A neurodivergent guide to embracing your true self and finding your happily ever after.

The role of Quinni in Heartbreak High is one of the few portrayals of an autistic character played by an autistic actor, and this has been met with positive media responses. Autism advocate Mitchell Adams wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that Heartbreak High has “the best autism representation I’ve ever seen.” Fans of the show went to social media, with both neurotypical and neurodivergent praising the correct representation. Hayden hope all viewers take lessons from Quinni, and see themselves within her.

“I hope that autistic and neurodivergent people can see Quinni and see themselves represented; that for one of the first times ever in media they can look to an autistic character and go, ‘Oh, okay, I see myself in her’. Likewise, people that aren’t autistic can look at Quinni and change their perception of what media has told

us that autism is, and what society and the world as a whole has told us what autism is. I hope people can look at her and go, ‘Oh, okay, I get it now’. I hope she’s able to change minds and change opinions and be the person that I didn’t have growing up.”

Chloe Hayden as Quinni in ‘Heartbreak High’.

Representation like Quinni remains relatively rare on Australian screens. The Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network (SDIN) recently published preliminary data from The Everyone Project, which suggests that people with disability are vastly under-represented compared to the population benchmark (17.7 per cent), both on screen (8.9 per cent) and behind the camera (5.3 per cent). The data, while limited, was based on the diversity characteristics of 944 cast and 1,967 crew across 70 registered TV and film productions completed in 2021–22.

Hayden has learnt how much representation can influence perception.

“I don’t think people realise how intensely media’s portrayal of groups and people actually affects people. The media has such a hold on the way that we view humans in general. It’s not hard to have voices put into these places and to change what those media stereotypes are.”

Not-for-profit Bus Stop Films has provided a film studies program and filmmaking opportunities for people with disabilities since 2009. The organisation recently launched an employment program dedicated to connecting people with disability to jobs in the industry.

With funding from the Federal Government, Bus Stop will also run the Inclusive Crewing Project, which supports multiple paid employment opportunities for people with disabilities on a major project that it will shoot in 2023. In addition, it will see the development of department-specific resources for building the confidence of HODs to employ people with disabilities on their projects and in their teams.

Bus Stop co-founder and director Genevieve Clay-Smith tells IF the traditional structure of the screen industry has been hierarchical, performance-oriented and typically in servitude to one particular person and their vision.

Genevieve Clay-Smith on set with Bus Stop Films.

“So how does inclusion fit into that? Well, it doesn’t.

“It’s an industry that has been built in servitude to the above-the- line roles. The people in those roles need to understand the privilege it is to be in those roles; that there is an opportunity to put a ladder down and include others. Understand the importance of diverse representation and how that cannot happen without inclusion.”

Hayden thinks the time for equality is now. “The fact that it’s 2022 and there’s still inequality in the industry is ridiculous, especially in an industry that currently is trying to promote difference and trying to promote minorities. It is so past time that we actually involve minority groups within all aspects of the industry.”

Producer, writer and editor Stephanie Dower sees the restrictions of the industry as twofold; in attitude and physical accessibility.

“The first one is attitudinal barriers. I think the perception that society unfortunately still has of people with disabilities is very negative. It’s assumed that we can’t do a lot of what we can do. We haven’t had a lot of representation out in the world on screen, in positions of power, and so we haven’t been able to show the diversity of people with disabilities. We have the capabilities. We have the drive. We have all of this that we can offer,” she tells IF.

“We also have a lot of physical and other kinds of barriers when it comes to the way our industry works. We’re known for 12 or more-hour days. We’re known for fast turnarounds, and a lot of the time, very inaccessible locations physicality or geography-wise. Unfortunately, the way that we work is so set into our industry.”

Dower runs her own production company Dower Productions and is part of the Screen Queensland Equity and Diversity Taskforce. She would like to see a more targeted approach to making sets more inclusive for people with disabilities.

“We’ve seen a number of [diversity] initiatives over the past however many years. I think this is the time that the focus needs to be put back on disability to try and get that perspective into the mix.”

Stephanie Dower.

For her own part, Dower is using her spot on the Equity and Diversity Taskforce to make positive changes in the industry, such as wheelchair access and other amenities.

“I hope that I can bring a shared experience to the mix and really make sure that I work as hard as I can to make sure disability isn’t left behind.

“We are slowly starting to see those changes and I think people with disability are gaining a stronger voice as we meet more people in industry.”

Hayden believes the solution is “simply including us.”

“Inviting us into the picture, having us in writers’ rooms and having us behind the scenes, as directors, producers, writers, and actors, having us involved throughout the entire picture.

“Heartbreak High showed me just how easy it is to not just involve disabled people within all aspects of the process, but also to make these changes, to make it easy and to make it accessible.”

Screen NSW’s annual Screenability Film Fund offers up to three teams with at least one key creative who identifies as having disability $30,000 to produce a short film. Writer-director Steve Anthopoulos and producers Liam Heyen and Yingna Lu are behind 2022’s Voice Activated, which reflects Anthopoulos’ experience with a stutter.

The film, nominated for Best Short Film at the AACTA Awards, premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June.

Anthopoulos describes the filmmaking experience as a “parallel reality where I was forced to face the stutter, have everyone face it with me, and learn that stuttering doesn’t need to be such a big deal.”

Lu agrees it has been gratifying seeing Anthopoulos express himself freely, without self-judgement. “Watching that, it taught me that there is great personal power in acknowledging your disability,” she tells IF.

Yingna Lu, Steve Anthopoulos and Liam Heyen on set of ‘Voice Activated’.

(Photo: Phil Erbacher)

Lu believes it is important that state agencies consider initiatives and grants aimed at supporting practitioners with disability.

“It is useful to have government supported initiatives because then there is greater exposure for stories beyond the film industry network, and an acknowledgment that there is weight and expectation for all perspectives to be seen and heard.”

Heyen says Voice Activated would not have been possible without the Screenability fund, spearheaded by Screen NSW’s “incomparable” investment manager Sofya Gollan.

“I believe the continued impact of her work through the fund will be felt in the years to come as Screenability alumni move onto making features and television,” he says.

For people trying to enter the industry Heyen says: “There is a place for you in the industry and you are worthy of taking up space in front and behind the camera.”

On the importance of initiatives and grants Anthopoulos adds: “Australia isn’t Hollywood. Many of the biggest and most prestigious Australian film and TV productions are backed by government funding or rebates. Funding is such a central pillar in how our industry functions. So, it’s important that this system of funding filters down to emerging talent and Australians with unique experiences from different backgrounds. Taking away these initiatives wouldn’t make sense; the Australian industry isn’t self-sustaining enough to find and foster these creatives on its own.”

WHAT FILMS/TV SHOWS DO YOU THINK HAVE GOOD REPRESENTATIONS OF DISABILITY?

CHLOE HAYDEN: THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE

“I think kids TV often has better portrayal of what disability is and minority is. Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, has just brought in an autistic character, and sometimes it’s very unspecified. It’s coded disabilities, especially when it comes to autism.”

STEPHANIE DOWER: SPEECHLESS (TV SHOW 2016-2019)

“It was funny, and I think for me that’s the way into the disability perspective or the disability experience. It allows people to feel a bit more comfortable around things that they haven’t had experience with before.”

GENEVIEVE CLAY-SMITH: SEX EDUCATION

“They had a character with disability that actually turned out to be an antagonist, which is fresh because a lot of times people with disability are portrayed as innocent and very one-dimensional. This character had sexual desire, they were antagonistic, they were jealous. They were represented as a complicated person who happened to have a disability.”

YINGNA LU: BEAUTIFUL MINDS (2021)

“I don’t even think I read a logline that ever drew attention to the fact that the character lives with cerebral palsy. It was more of a story that centered on a relationship and a humorous situation.”

LIAM HEYEN: CODA

“As someone who is hard of hearing, and who has a Deaf family member who is very dear to me, I thought CODA was incredibly affecting, and I was thrilled that Troy Kotsur’s beautiful performance was acknowledged with an Acadamy Award.”

STEVE ANTHOPOULOS: SHADOW

“A fantastic film that represents disability in both a funny and revelatory way.”