Today we are joined by dear friend of the podcast, Adriana Mallozzi, CEO and Founder of Puffin Innovations. We discuss the life of Christy Brown, Irish artist with Cerebral Palsy who paints his left foot.
News Feed – Prisoners with Developmental Disabilities face unique challenges
Content Round Up – Extreme Ghostbusters DVD Release & Ghostbusters Frozen Empire
Disability Spotlight – Diana Elizabeth Jordan, actor and director
Transcript
Intro
AJ: Hey, guys, I just wanted to come in at the very top and let you know in this episode you may hear, or you’re gonna hear, some references to things occurring in March. That is because we experienced a few snags that caused a delay in production. We didn’t want this month to go by without acknowledging International Women’s Month and International CP Awareness Month, or cerebral palsy. Well, without further ado, let’s get back to the show!
On today’s episode of Acting Up With AJ and Crew, me and Shawnsy are chatting it up with our guest, our friend, Adriana Mallozzi. And today we’re gonna be talking about the film My Left Foot with the great actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrays Christy Brown, the real-life painter who painted with his, hence the name, his left foot. We’re gonna be talking about a mother’s love, family support, a big family at that, the early aughts of disability research, falling in love, unrequited love, being seen for the first time, and we’re gonna be talking about inspiration versus aspiration. It’s a CP-packed episode. We’re talking about My Left Foot coming up with our guest, Adriana Mallozzi, on Acting Up With AJ and Crew. [electronica theme music plays through the introduction with lines from the movie interspersed]
MR. BROWN: He’s a Brown. He’s a Brown, all right! Christy Brown!
AJ: Imagine playing a 1st grader in 9th grade.
ADRIANA: Like inspo porn where the speaker, when he’s announcing him that he’s about to enter “with such courage” and blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, ugh.
MR. BROWN: Brown and Son contractors are on the job.
AJ: I don’t know if you had this brand. My first brand power chair was Hot Wheels.
MRS. BROWN: I had my heart broken, Christy Brown.
SHAWNSY: His mother being able to understand everything that he was able to say.
MRS. BROWN: Sometimes I think you are my heart.
SHAWNSY: And repeat it because some people coming in not knowing how to hear for those non-articulate consonants.
CHRISTY: “…fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”
ADRIANA: If I didn’t know who he was, I would have thought he was a person with CP.
AJ: Ha! I’m not angry. I end up getting angry for them thinking I’m angry. I’m like, I’m not angry!
ADRIANA: I’m not angry. I just have CP.
DAD: This is Christy Brown, my son! Genius! [theme music and recorded clips fade out]
Relating to My Left Foot
SHAWNSY: Before we begin, a short synopsis of My Left Foot. “No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of five, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother and no shortage of grit and determination, Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet, and author.” So let’s jump into the conversation with our first topic, talking about him growing up and his childhood and his family.
AJ: Yeah. And by the way, Adriana, if you don’t mention, I had Adriana on because she is an advocate, and we talk about all kinds of issues all the time, various issues with disability. But I thought that it would be really awesome to have Adriana on because we both have significant CP, so I thought it would be nice to have a CP episode. So, but Adriana, I wanna start off with you, what you thought about his young life growing up, and what were your impressions?
ADRIANA: For me, I think I could relate a lot. Again, as you mentioned that you and I both have significant CP, so I’m a quadriplegic. I’m spastic—
AJ: Me too! We have the same CP.
ADRIANA: [laughs] —and athetoid. Yeah. So, I have what they call a mixed bag. And so, I definitely could relate to the mom being that advocate, the mom. My mom—[laughs] I almost said the mom in my life is my mom.
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
ADRIANA: And my mom had to advocate for me to get what I need in order to be in school. And also, when I was younger, if I needed something, my parents had to either get a loan to cover something as simple as a bath chair or as a wheelchair. And so, seeing what they were doing, where she was stashing away that money without anyone else knowing but him. And when the father lost his job, they were eating porridge and hating it and going with less coal because they all believed they didn’t have the money because she was saving for his wheelchair. And so, I think there were a lot of aspects of his younger life that I could relate to. And also, I loved how the kids included him in games and all of that stuff.
SHAWNSY: Well, yeah, I wanted to kind of bring up that he had that wheelbarrow that they used all the way until he must’ve been like 14 or 15 by the time he was out of that.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
SHAWNSY: And how that changed his world again ‘cause he was under that staircase for, like, kind of it seemed like that was his spot where they would put him, ‘cause that’s where he sat down. And then as soon as they got a wheelchair for him, all of a sudden, his world again expanded.
ADRIANA: Yeah. And I think also, the scene where the mom is carrying him up the stairs when she’s pregnant.
AJ: Oh, there’s so much that I can relate to with that.
ADRIANA: Same here.
AJ: ‘Cause I’m the oldest in my family, so I’m the big brother. And so, both of my sisters and my mom being a single mom, it’s not like we had no support. But mainly my mom, as you can relate, is the main caretaker. So when she was pregnant, I still had to be lifted and transferred, and she was doing it. I remember very distinctly when she was pregnant with my baby sister and she still lifted at me up, and she took me, one time she took me skating. And everybody was like, “What are you doing, Cynthia?” But she was still participating, and the way my mom always says it, it’s like when people are like, “Oh, my God, you’re so strong. What are you doing?” It is a lot. But then she says, “What am I gonna do? That’s my child. What do y’all want me to do, throw him in? I’m not gonna throw him in the garbage. I’m not,” you know? “He’s a part of the, he’s my son. It’s like, I’m not doing anything extra.” And then she also used to feel better because I guess that’s the internal thing that you’re dealing with, because you know how the rest of the world feels. And so, I do kind of, I’m getting better at it now as an adult, but you do kind of feel like, well, maybe I am a problem ‘cause people are always coming up to my mom saying that. Even when I was a lot more mobile, when I could do stuff like bear weight, people still came to my mom and said, “You should put him in a home.”
SHAWNSY: Yeah, that was the struggle for this character, too, growing up. Until he could, he proved that he could write and wrote out “mother” in chalk on the floor, he was treated as just an object sitting on the floor, like, to be fed. There wasn’t seen anything more than the service to him until he proved. And he had to do this multiple times throughout his life.
AJ: Except for, I wanna make this very interesting point for me, I think. Everybody else, generally, that was his surrounding except for the mom. I think the mom could see more. The mom could actually see him, and the mom would communicate with him. So, which goes back to our point. Go moms, you know.
[recorded clip from the film]
CHRISTY: [breathing heavily and quite fast]
SHEILA: You all right, Christy?
CHRISTY: [continues breathing loudly]
MOM: What’s Christy doing, Sheila? Is he all right?
SHEILA: He’s drawing.
CHRISTY: [breaths heavily, then stops, chalk scratches]
SHEILA: He’s drawing a triangle.
CHRISTY: [breathes harder]
SHEILA: No, Christy, don’t start there.
CHRISTY: [unclear] [breathes heavily, grunts]
DAD: There. Now that’s a triangle.
MOM: That’s not a triangle. That’s an A! [gasps] [recorded clip ends]
ADRIANA: But I think also, his siblings, his siblings recognized it as well. And they would point out like, “Oh, wait.” I think when they were doing math, I thought he was trying to do the fraction in chalk.
SHAWNSY: He did do that. He wrote 116.
ADRIANA: Yeah, and that’s what he was trying to convey. And they didn’t, the father definitely didn’t understand what he was writing at all. But I think that was more of lack of patience.
AJ: Yeah, I think, well, I think the dad just shoved it on—not shitting on the dad or crapping [chuckles], not crapping on the dad or whatever—but the dad is just like, oh, you know, don’t get your hopes up. It’s just scribble. And you’re like, no, I’m—
SHAWNSY: Well, this was also on understanding, like the big one with his speech to everything and his mother being able to understand everything that he was able to say and repeat it. Because some people coming in not really knowing how to hear for those non-articulate consonants that it just takes a little bit of time. That was the same thing with the dad where he was like, no, this is how you draw a triangle, and they’re like, it wasn’t a triangle. He wrote the letter.
ADRIANA: The letter A.
SHAWNSY: Yes, he wrote A.
AJ: And also, as far as his intelligence, ‘cause I don’t wanna skip anything, but I loved the scene, the mom falls down, and she’s in trouble. And he intuitively knows—
SHAWNSY: Determinatively.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: And—
ADRIANA: Yeah, it wasn’t intuitive. He was—
SHAWNSY: He threw himself to go save his mother.
ADRIANA: Yeah, he was cognizant. Well, even though he wasn’t, he was nonverbal, he was cognizant of what was going on.
AJ: Yeah.
ADRIANA: So it wasn’t intuition. He knew he had to do something to save his mom, and that was what he did.
SHAWNSY: Right. And then, AJ, we were talking this morning on the fact that the town immediately started telling stories that the mother fell while carrying him.
AJ: Yeah, like they could never—
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: It’s because in their scope, they couldn’t imagine, well, you know, he probably scooted down the stairs and like. And he did it. He’s responsible for his mom getting aid, but they would not put that together.
ADRIANA: No. And they called him a dunce when he was out in the corner, on the street corner with all the neighborhood busy bodies and hung out there talking about him as if. And that was another thing, right? Talking about him in front of him as if he weren’t there.
AJ: Yep!
ADRIANA: And that happens a lot. I mean, I know I’ve experienced it all the time, so many times in my life.
AJ: And not just when you’re young either.
ADRIANA: No.
AJ: People still do it. And I remember I was out with my mom’s boyfriend, and we were just at the gym. He carried me everywhere. We were very close. But with that aside, we were hanging out and one of his friends, just like, he was like, well, he wouldn’t look at me. And he was like, “Is he,” like, he used the R-word: “It he [bleep]?” That was in front of me. There was no acknowledgement of. I mean, even if I did have some cognitive barrier, acknowledge me and, you know, but he just went to right away, “Is he”—
SHAWNSY: Well, that’s like the difficulty in the uncomfortability of not interacting with that generic face, generic body type of way that we, society says that we should be talking to. And so, having somebody looking at you to. And he had a stare. He had an intense look to him, especially as a child, it was really brought across. He would look at you, and it looked like he was either angry or something. And I can see that with the father not understanding what that was, and is that aggression towards you, and not being able to and misinterpreting what that was in different ways.
ADRIANA: Right. Yeah, which is basically CP face.
AJ: Yeah.
ADRIANA: ‘Cause it’s all your muscles. And I’d say that sometimes if I have to take a picture, and I look mad, and I’m like, “Oh, I have CP face today ‘cause it won’t relax, and I can’t smile.” And—
SHAWNSY: And that’s the problem with society, the way that society is working is that it’s not, it hasn’t been exposed enough. So people, average Joes just walking around the streets who have never experienced that before and never been told what that looks like.
AJ: And I have to contend with that even with people that have years of experience, even in some cases when my family were. Let’s say we get into a passion, not like an argument where we’re swearing or whatever, but we’re just passionate. People always think I’m upset when I’m not. I’m just having conversation. But first of all, if I’m nervous about the conversation that I’m in, it’s gonna look like I’m angry because all my muscles get tight, and I’m like, I have to tell people all the time, “I’m not. [laughs] I’m not angry!” I end up getting angry for them thinking I’m angry! I’m like, “I’m not angry.” [laughs]
ADRIANA: That should be another shirt: “I’m not angry. I just have CP.”
ALL: [laugh]
SHAWNSY: We’re gonna start a whole t-shirt line. Acting Up With AJ clothing company.
ADRIANA: [laughing] Yeah.
News Feed
[mellow music break]
AJ: Here’s Cheryl Green with the News Feed. Cheryl has a story today about prison reform, accommodations for those who are on the spectrum. This story has a lot of layers, and I’m sure the intersections of disability justice and social justice will come into play. Well, let’s get into it. Here’s Cheryl. [epic news theme music]
CHERYL: Prisoners With Developmental Disabilities Face Unique Challenges. One Facility Is Offering Solutions. The article is by Claudia Lauer, March 3rd, 2024, from Albion, Pennsylvania.
“‘You are the Lighthouse in someone’s storm,’ reads the message above a mural of a sailboat bobbing on ocean waves under a cloud-studded azure sky. It’s an unexpected slogan for a prison wall.
On a nearby door painted deep blue, a bright yellow Minion character offers ‘Ways to say hello,’ lists of suggestions about how prisoners incarcerated in a segregated unit of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Albion can best greet each other. A handful of ‘sensory’ rooms in the unit offer calming blue walls where harsh fluorescent lighting is dimmed by special covers.
The unique environment is part of a program aimed at providing better serving prisoners with intellectual or developmental disabilities, a growing population that has presented a challenge for corrections officials as they try to balance the need for security with accommodations, according to experts.
Such prisoners often struggle with overstimulation, inflexibility and trouble with complex directions, resulting in strong reactions that can lead to further discipline. They also grapple with social boundaries, making them more vulnerable to abuse, violence or manipulation in prison, said Steve Soliwoda, creator of Albion’s Neurodevelopmental Residential Treatment Unit.”
Then there’s a photo in the article. Here’s the caption showing, “Prison psychological specialist Christine Ransom and Randy Kulesa leading a group session for inmates on December 14th, 2023, in the Neurodevelopmental Residential Treatment Unit at Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution in Albion, Pennsylvania. The prison unit is helping men with autism and their intellectual and developmental disabilities stay safe behind bars while learning life skills. The unit is the first in the state and one of only a handful nationwide.
In a regular prison setting, many of these prisoners with autism and similar disabilities ‘would normally have kind of gotten through their incarceration just quietly,’ said Soliwoda, who is also program manager at Albion. ‘Maybe they would have been a recluse or spent a lot of time in their cell. But their voices are heard in the program and they develop that independence and the social skills they need to survive when they get out of here.’
There is no comprehensive count of how many prisoners in the U.S. have autism or intellectual disabilities, though some studies estimate more than 4% are autistic and almost 25% reported having cognitive impairments, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics — nearly twice the rate of each in the overall population. Many advocates believe the number could be much higher because of underdiagnosis before prison or because of ineffectual or nonexistent screening at some corrections departments.
The Neurodevelopmental Residential Treatment Unit, located roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) outside of Erie, Pennsylvania, was started about three years ago and is the only facility of its kind in the state. The unit houses about 45 men — a small population that helps staff focus on individual treatment and limits some of the sensory stimulation of prison, Soliwoda said.
There’s an exercise yard not accessible by the prison’s general population, and prisoners stay in the unit to receive their medication and see specialized treatment staff. They can check out puzzles, yoga mats or drawing supplies to help them cope in overwhelming moments. One prisoner spends hours every day juggling in the common area to help calm his mind — something that wouldn’t be allowed in most units.
‘My first impression I got was, “Wow, this is more like a therapy and rehabilitation for criminals with all these paintings and like positive messages surrounding it,”’ said Christopher, a prisoner diagnosed with a form of autism.
Sean, a prisoner diagnosed with autism and intellectual disabilities, said he felt safe here. ‘It’s not like the general population where I would be more prone to being bullied and stuff like that,’ he said. ‘You get to learn about how to cope and how to recognize your emotions.’”
There’s another picture with an inmate, Jose, working on a mural between two cells. He’s painting a beautiful scene of trees and hills dotted with flowers on the wall in three panels between cell 63 and cell 64.
“Soliwoda said he hopes to bring more programming to the unit as it continues to evolve. For now, though, corrections department officials don’t have plans to expand the model to other prisons. Critics say that’s a mistake, that with more than 36,000 people incarcerated in Pennsylvania state prisons, there are likely many more prisoners with these disabilities.
‘I don’t think there are enough accommodations provided in our jails and prisons for all kinds of disabilities,’ said Leigh Anne McKingsley, senior director of Disability and Justice Initiatives at The Arc, a nonprofit organization serving people with intellectual and developmental limitations. For prisoners with these challenges, she said, ‘the accommodations are even less.’
‘Those disabilities seem to get lost,’ McKingsley said.”
There’s another picture showing prison psychological specialist Christine Ransom leading a group session for inmates. There’s a whiteboard behind her on an easel with a bunch of Post-Its with writing on them, and she’s holding up a poster handwritten in different colors of marker showing a list of rules she’s written out for trading information.
“Because prisons are often closed from public view, it’s unclear what accommodations they provide or how many have specialized units. The Arc has been working to gather that information while offering training to everyone from police to prison staff on better ways to identify and interact with prisoners with disabilities.
The unit at Albion requires corrections officers to undergo regular training on de-escalation and crisis intervention to maintain a secure environment while offering accommodations. In Indiana, where there isn’t a specialized developmental disability unit, Nick Stellema, the state’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, has helped corrections staff with tools to communicate with nonverbal autistic prisoners.
Stellema and other advocates are wary of segregating prisoners with disabilities, noting that the ADA is meant to ensure people can integrate with others, even in detention.
‘In the free world, these individuals have to interact with everyone, not just with other people with disabilities,’ he said. ‘I think the whole system would benefit from a better understanding of what an accommodation can be.’
But other advocates say separating prisoners with these disabilities is the best option.
‘One of the biggest things we hear is they are acting up and getting themselves put in solitary, and that is even more devastating for them,’ said Brian Kelmar, president and founder of the nonprofit organization Decriminalize Developmental Disabilities. ‘What we’ve seen is, after solitary, the ways they have learned to interact all reverse. They regress from all gains they’ve made.’”
There’s another picture in the article of prison counselor Taylor Tharp, with Christine Ransom and Randy Kulesa leading a group session for inmates from December 14th, 2023. A small handful of inmates, mostly wearing sweatshirts with DOC on them, are sitting at the dining benches in a big, wide open area. And then along the walls on two levels are doors to the cells, and a lot of the areas between the doors have been painted. There’s garlands hanging from the railing. One of the paintings has a rainbow-colored infinity symbol, which is a symbol for neurodiversity. It’s very colorful, while the floor is white, and the cell doors and the tabletops are plain silvery metal. It’s a very colorful space with all the paintings and decorations.
“At Albion, staff use so-called transitional cells as an intervention when they see certain behaviors. The stripped-down cells, equipped with safety features, are a place where the prisoners can go to regain control over their emotions while they work on completing goals set by the psychiatric staff before they are allowed to return to the rest of the unit.
‘You get time to cool off and reflect for however long the staff feels you need to have that time with yourself,’ said Colin, a prisoner diagnosed with autism and schizophrenia. ‘And instead of resulting in an infraction right away, you’re resulting in more growth.’
Randy Kulesza, a psychological services specialist in the unit, says the cells are a huge help to the prisoners and don’t threaten their chance at parole.
‘It absolutely cuts down on misconducts that these guys have received. I think this is a way we’re able to address those things before they escalate and still keep these guys having some hope for the future,’ he said.”
For anybody who’s interested in learning more about this stuff, there’s a few resources I wanna point people to. The first is The Marshall Project, a non-profit journalism about criminal justice: TheMarshallProject.org. They’ve put together a lot of investigative reporting around disabilities and disabled people who are incarcerated. And there’s an article from 2020 called Prison Is Even Worse When You Have a Disability Like Autism.
And in terms of advocacy and activism, you should check out HEARD at BEHEARDDC.org. That’s BEHEARDDC.org. HEARD is a cross-disability abolitionist organization that’s very much coming from disability justice and self-determination and collective liberation perspectives. HEARD does a lot of incredibly powerful work. The organization is run and led by Deaf and disabled people, and they have advocacy for incarcerated people, reentry support, and community education. And you’ll find all their materials in written English as well as American Sign Language. And I recommend folks check out HEARD: BEHEARDDC.org is their URL.
And the last resource I’ll throw out there is my one singular attempt at journalism! Tried it once. It’s not really my cup of tea. But I produced an episode for the podcast called 70 Million, which is a prison reform podcast. In Season 2, I did an episode that focused on a young autistic man and a middle-aged woman who had disabilities from brain injury, and the focus really was on the ways that they avoided having to go to prison through the help and support of people who understood their disabilities, whether that was through what Oregon has called a brokerage system to support people with developmental disabilities, or it was family and lawyers who just really understood. In putting together that piece, so much of what didn’t make it into the episode was my interviews and conversations with Department of Corrections people, psychologists, people with disabilities, people who work with people with disabilities. There were so many people who I interviewed and collected information from. I heard a lot of very startling stories. Thank you for sending that story my way so that I could read it for the show, AJ! [news theme music fades out]
Clinics and institutions
SHAWNSY: So like, we’ve practically covered everything. But really, one more thing to discuss about is how so many moments in his life could have thrown him in a totally different direction, just starting with right off the bat of the father, when the boy was born and told that he wasn’t going to be walking or was going to be different, that he was flat out, “I’m not sending any of my boys to a clinic.”
AJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SHAWNSY: And in the 1930s, what that clinic could’ve been, I can’t even imagine.
ADRIANA: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to imagine what was going on in that place.
AJ: Yeah, if it was anything like we saw with the famous exposé about Willowbrook and Geraldo, if it’s anything like that, like, just thank goodness. But a lot of people were in that situation where they thought, and at the time, they were just thinking that they were doing their best, so I don’t wanna judge the parents, but—
ADRIANA: I think, AJ, [chuckles] they knew what they were doing. You stick up for people a lot that don’t deserve sticking up for.
AJ: I’m speaking from the parent perspective.
ADRIANA: Oh, okay. I thought you meant people that work there.
AJ: No, no. Hell, no!
ADRIANA: [laughs]
AJ: No, no.
ADRIANA: I’m like, wait a minute!
AJ: I just wanna clarify. I am not defending the people—
ADRIANA: Okay. That’s what it sounded like.
AJ: —in the institution.
ADRIANA: I just wanted to quickly interject in that. But we had one here that was notorious, and it was called Fernald. And it’s still up, obviously, a bit abandoned, but they never knocked it down. When I had my full-time job, I was a manager at a day camp for individuals or adults with disabilities, varying disabilities, and quite a few people that attended our program were from Fernald. They lived there.
SHAWNSY: Wow.
ADRIANA: And the stories were horrific.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: And you could still tell, even after so many years of not being and living that way in the institution, when there were those individuals, like when it was lunch time or meal time, they would eat so fast.
AJ: Yeah.
ADRIANA: Because they—
SHAWNSY: ‘Cause they’re starved.
ADRIANA: Well, also because it could be taken away, right, by someone else that wanted food or whatever. And so, they still have that, like, that trauma is still there, and it’s really apparent. And it’s horrible to see that these people went through this.
SHAWNSY: Well, it really shows you the nurture side of development and that years of systemic routine and punishment really just comparing that to having got, how many children did she have?
ADRIANA: So, she actually—I did a little research for this—she actually had 22 children total.
AJ: Whoa!
ADRIANA: I can’t even imagine, like, the body, your body, the toll on your body.
SHAWNSY: Right.
ADRIANA: But nine of those children died during infancy. So in total that were living were 13.
SHAWNSY: Thirteen brothers and sisters.
ADRIANA: Yeah, I just can’t even imagine. And that scene where they’re all like the boys are sharing a bed, and they’re head to toe, head to toe.
SHAWNSY: Now, comparing that to being sent to a clinic in the 1930s, though, the amount of love and support that was there for him, because it was, again, a family situation that a brother would help, or the mother would help, or the sisters would help in different ways. And that being said, it seemed like he was pretty stubborn, too, about getting around on his own and just pushing himself around to get where he needed to be. But and then to have, I don’t know how Dr. Eileen got into this picture, ‘cause that was another turning point for his public side. Like, he was very much a recluse for a long period.
AJ: It seems like, I don’t really know because the movie probably doesn’t fill it in because of time, but it seems like I bet you the mom found her.
ADRIANA: That’s what I was going to say. Because there is a scene right before she comes to visit where the mom takes a bus or something to somewhere and talks to someone. And I think that that was where she found out about this or inquired about this clinic that they had just developed right there in Dublin for, she said for CP. They were learning about CP, so this had to be what, in the late ‘40s at that point, mid-to-late ‘40s. So, after World War II. And they were just really trying to learn about CP.
SHAWNSY: Right. Now, I wonder if you had that, a similar experience of first time going to a clinic where it was all children much younger than he was all being serviced in some way, and it was completely overwhelming for him.
AJ: Oh yeah.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: Well, would you like to go first, ‘cause I, you know, we both have CP.
ADRIANA: I think for me it was more children my age. So, I was a child among other children, so. But I totally, when that scene, when I was watching that scene, I was like, oh, I would be the same way. I would be like, “Hell, no.”
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: Like, I’m not getting in there. They’re all little kids. I’m, you know, he was almost a man at that point.
AJ: Yeah.
ADRIANA: His voice had already changed at that point. And it’s like, I would’ve said the same thing. Like, “I’m not going there! Why am I going there? They’re all little kids.”
SHAWNSY: Do you think it was more of the fact that it was an age gap between these kids, or the fact— ‘Cause I don’t think he’d ever, Christy had ever experienced anybody with CP before arriving there.
ADRIANA: It was the age gap.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: It was the age. I, for me, it definitely would’ve been like, I don’t belong with children. I’m much more old, you know, I’m much older. I’m much more mature than them. What am I gonna do then? I’m gonna learn what they’re learning?
SHAWNSY: Right.
AJ: So, for me, I have the experience. Now this is on a much lighter side. This is a different scale. But for example, even though I was a child, I was a teenager, and I was an older teenager and being a junior and senior and stuff, when we would play adaptive sports—now I’ve heard it’s not like this anymore—but when we would play adaptive sports, sometimes I was competing, and I would feel very bad and very— Sometimes I was competing with children that were like five and six, four and five and six. And one time, we had a game. I’d play indoor wheelchair soccer, and I’m not gonna call from a long story, but basically, we won, and I felt great because we won. But the thing that crushed me was there was a six-year-old girl, five or six years old, and she was crushed, you know? And I felt bad ‘cause I’m like, here I am 18 years old, and I just beat a six-year-old. That’s very— But that goes to sometimes being disabled, you’re just, now, years later, I heard it’s changed, but sometimes being disabled, you just get kind of clumped together because of the disability, like—
SHAWNSY: Yeah, you’d met my friend at the afterschool program. She’s ten now, and she’s gotten completely frustrated with the fact that she’s playing soccer with kindergartners and 1st graders.
AJ: Yes!
SHAWNSY: And she just wants to play with the kids that are her age ‘cause her friends are on those teams and that she wants to do the social aspect of it. It’s not about playing the game; it’s about socializing with your friends.
AJ: Imagine doing that—like, it’s bad for her, and I feel bad for that—imagine doing that in 9th grade. Imagine playing a 1st grader in 9th grade, so, you know. But I had other experiences. I went to, like what you were saying, Adriana, when I went to the Shriners Hospital to get some therapies, but I was with other children with other disabilities. But those are my two experiences. But it was probably because it was a little bit scary. I don’t think he’d ever been away from home, but like you said, he would be with children and like. And I kind of noticed that they just got, again, they just kind of lumped them together too. It’s like, I know this was like the ‘40s or whatever, but there were no, like they were just lumped in at the end.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: I guess were no tie downs or whatever yet.
ADRIANA: And I think for the doctor, this was a great opportunity because he was a more mature person that they could get answers from.
SHAWNSY: Mmhmm. Right.
ADRIANA: Right. Like, the kids don’t really know. You know what’s going on, but you don’t know, where here’s someone much older who can express more than a child could.
SHAWNSY: And we’ll get into that for sure with Dr. Eileen on our second part of his interactions with the adult life.
Experiences with wheelchairs
AJ: Yeah. And then also, I wanna just go back, too, because I know, Shawn, and I was kind of interested in talking about our first wheelchair experience, like, what our first chairs were.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
AJ: I was telling Shawn last night that my first chair technically was, my first chair technically was a stroller. I had a stroller that kind of like with a foot rest, you know? We have a friend at camp, and basically that was my stroller back in the day, so mine was blue. And then I had this, I think I got a chair when I was like five or six years old. I stayed in there from like seven to eight or something. And I was, I don’t know if this ever happened to you, but by the time I got my first power chair, when I had my first manual chair, I stayed in it till I was overgrown. Like, [laughs] I stayed until I was way too big for it!
SHAWNSY: And you’re like a crustacean shedding the shell to get a bigger chair.
AJ: Yeah!
SHAWNSY: A bigger chair.
ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.
AJ: I just remember I stayed in that chair. I was way too big for it. And then I got my first chair in 1992. And this is a brand that’s probably not even around, but it was literally, I don’t know if you had this brand. My first brand power chair was Hot Wheels.
ADRIANA: Hot Wheels?
AJ: It was a Hot…. That was a, I don’t know if they merged together with the real one, but that was the brand. It was Hot Wheels!
ADRIANA: Hot Wheels? Wow, no.
AJ: And remember those, like, and those were the original power chairs with the fat wheels. [laughing] Remember the fat-ass wheels?
ADRIANA: Well, they used to put kids in adult chairs. Now they actually make chairs that are a size for children.
SHAWNSY: Right.
ADRIANA: Whereas you filled up an adult chair with seating and cushioning and all that stuff. So my first chair was much sooner than that. I was about eight years old when I got my first power chair. So, like you, I had the stroller and the manual chair, but my first power chair was when I was about eight years old. And it, again, it was an adult chair, and so here I was engulfed in a seat because it had to fill up the whole chair.
SHAWNSY and AJ: [laugh]
ADRIANA: And here’s tiny, tiny little eight-year-old me in this ginormous thing and hunk of metal that I was driving around. And I remember the first time I drove the chair. We did it in the hallway of my elementary school, and I don’t know what happened. So, I always, I’ve always driven since that first chair with my mouth. So, with my chin or my lip, you know, it’s a joystick that’s at my mouth, and I use whatever. But I don’t know if I couldn’t reach it or lost control. Something happened, and I made this giant scratch on one of the classroom doors.
SHAWNSY: [chuckles]
ADRIANA: And I’ll never forget it ‘cause it was like a runaway chair. Giant scratch on the classroom. And that was I left my mark.
SHAWNSY: I mean, that’s like a staple now—
ADRIANA: Yeah, I left, I mean—
SHAWNSY: —the scratch marks. [laughs]
ADRIANA: It stayed there for a good long time, at least the whole time I went to elementary school.
AJ: I mean, I consider myself a better driver when I got older, but I, when I was younger, [laughs] my apartment was full of holes, not just scratches.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: There were little holes, like you could see sheetrock!
ADRIANA: Yeah. No, mine was more if something happened, it wouldn’t stop. Or if the mount that holds the joystick in front of my face, the old ones especially, sometimes they would swing out!
AJ: Oh, yeah.
ADRIANA: And so, then obviously, I was just like, “Aaaah!” I was like—
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
Content Roundup
[chill music]
AJ: And now, it’s time for your Content Roundup. And guys, I’m very excited about today’s Content Roundup. This is a special edition of Content Roundup. It’s an all-Ghostbusters edition of Content Roundup. Let’s get to our first item.
The first thing that I wanna tell you about is there is a direct follow-up for those of you that may not know, ‘cause to be honest, I was very late to this party, and I was like, how come I didn’t know about this? ‘Cause I was around. There was a direct sequel follow-up to The Real Ghostbusters, and that was called Extreme Ghostbusters. And for those of you jonesing for some mid-‘90s nostalgia, this DVD set is for you. And also, if you’re a collector, it’s nine discs, 40 episodes, the complete first season, and closed captioning and audio description are available. Now, the reason why I bring it up in particular is because there was a member of the actual ghostbusting team that was a chair user. His name was Gary. He was a young college student working with the team. And this is awesome, and this is why I bring it up today. Maybe you’re excited because you are a fan. Maybe you heard of the series, or never before, but it’s out there, and it’s ready to go. Your access needs are accommodated.
Now, the next thing Frozen Empire’s out. That’s the latest Ghostbusters movie in this franchise. But did you know that there is a theater chain that is dedicated to particular programming for access needs? Regal Cinema has a particular set program called My Way Matinee. It is for those of us with sensory issues or maybe on the spectrum. Now, what they will do is they will raise the lights up so it won’t be dark. They’ll raise the lights up, and they will turn the volume down for those of us with sensory issues. I’m glad this is out there because we want every accommodation to be met. Now, if you wanna check this out, just go to RegalMovie.com and click on My Way Matinee. And they show the cities that has this particular programming available.
Well, that’s Content Roundup for today. Go see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. You won’t regret it. You’ll have an awesome time. Now, let’s get back to more My Left Foot. You’re listening to Acting Up With AJ and Crew. Happy International Women’s Month and International CP Awareness Month, or cerebral palsy. Now back to the show. [chill music fades out]
Breaking down the movie and Christy’s personhood
SHAWNSY: Adriana, I don’t know if you noticed this. AJ, we didn’t have audio description for this film. Amazon didn’t have it on their website. But I was particularly kind of put off by the doctor’s stare down of Christy this whole movie. Like, when he first shows up and her pretty much scientific interest in Christy was intense.
ADRIANA: It was almost like a lab rat.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: A person, I mean, sort of like, he was in an experiment or, again, she makes it very clear that this is new. And obviously CP, the knowledge of CP was fairly new at the time. And so, I think this was more like, let’s get as many people as we can that seem to exhibit the symptoms of CP, and let’s study them.
SHAWNSY: Well, also, with the fact that this might be, especially since it’s at the beginning of this field, that to have an adult who can speak on his emotions and be able to respond too, that’s a very tasty test subject.
ADRIANA: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SHAWNSY: But that was kind of the most heartbreaking part of it in that Christy was seeing this as a romantic interest, and she was very objection, object-based. What is that, objectionable?
AJ: Objectifying?
ADRIANA: Objectifying.
SHAWNSY: Well, like—
ADRIANA: Yeah.
SHAWNSY: —treating him as a subject, not as a person.
ADRIANA: Yeah, it’s objectifying, yeah. And I didn’t catch that, actually. I thought she was, so the actress that played the doctor—
SHAWNSY: Fiona?
ADRIANA: Yes. She plays this character very well.
SHAWNSY: Yeah, Fiona Shaw.
ADRIANA: She plays it in other movies, in other films, and she always has that mannerism. And so, for me, it was just who she is.
SHAWNSY: Mmhmm.
ADRIANA: I didn’t take into account that whole dynamic of doctor/subject and him looking at it, oh, she is enamored with me. I saw it more as that is her mannerism in general.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: And I didn’t put the two together at all.
SHAWNSY: That was also the issue with the time jumping. Like, all of a sudden it would just skip ahead without any notification that time had passed, and then about five minutes into it, you realize, oh, he’s like ten years older now. Oh, they have another child that’s now nine years old.
AJ: Yeah, they didn’t really say that.
ADRIANA: Yeah. They don’t put even any text on the screen.
AJ: They could at least be like, “ten years later.”
SHAWNSY: Right.
ADRIANA: Yeah, or even say like, “Dublin, Ireland.” I was like, where are they?
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: And until the doctor came along and said, “Hey, we have a clinic right here in Dublin,” like, oh, so he was born in Dublin.
AJ: Well, I don’t know. Maybe that has something to do with the budget, that it was so small, they’re like, “We can’t even afford.”
ADRIANA: I mean, they could do lower thirds. Come on.
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
ADRIANA: You know?
AJ: That is true.
ADRIANA: That is text on the screen. That’s like the most cheapest part of production.
AJ: [laughs] Yeah. I don’t know. I try to help.
ADRIANA: The cheapest part of production is lower thirds. Come on!
AJ: [laughs] You know, we’re getting into the love, and obviously, Christy was infatuated. I must say that that section, that part of the movie is rough for me because in so many ways, I can relate. Not necessarily, I never, I’ve never fallen in love with my doctor or maybe when I was a kid. I don’t know, maybe in OT or two. I had a crush on all my OTs for some reason. That’s just really rough for me. And we were talking about how the mom was like, you know, he has a different tone in his voice. And she was getting concerned about that. They’re basically like, what’s wrong? He sounds better. You can understand him. But I took it as she knew that her son was falling in love, and she knows what the world is. And for that, she was like, he’s gonna get hurt.
[recorded clip from the film, Christy’s voice from down the hall at the beginning]
CHRISTY: “Perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come….”
MOM: Is that our Christy up there?
DAD: Huh?
MOM: Does that sound like our Christy?
DAD: Sounds a lot better.
MOM: Not to me, it doesn’t.
DAD: Are you a mad woman? When you can understand your child for the first time.
MOM: I always understood him.
DAD: Ah, well, nobody else ever did. At least he can function now.
MOM: There’s something in that voice that disturbs me.
DAD: What do you mean?
MOM: Too much hope in it.
DAD: What?
MOM: There’s too much hope in it.
CHRISTY: “…fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus….”
EILEEN: “And thus the native hue….”
CHRISTY: “And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”
EILEEN: [sighs] Well, what do you think about Hamlet, Christy?
CHRISTY: A cripple can’t act.
EILEEN: He did in the end.
CHRISTY: Too late. Only…I like you very much.
EILEEN: And I like you, Christy. You have the heart of a poet.
CHRISTY: No. Well…. [chuckles] [recorded clip ends]
AJ: You know?
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: That’s how I took it.
ADRIANA: Yeah. No, same here. And then to go back to what, Shawn, you said about the stare. And I don’t think that’s what got him thinking that he, that…or got him into thinking that there was some romantic, it was reciprocated romantic feelings. I don’t think it was the stare. I think it was more the attention, right? She brought him books.
SHAWNSY: Yes.
ADRIANA: She brought him, you know, she encouraged him to learn and to speak better and all these things. And I think that was it. It wasn’t, you know—
SHAWNSY: Just showing kindness.
ADRIANA: Yeah, it wasn’t the staring. The staring was just staring as anyone. [chuckles] And I think it’s more the fact that he felt she took a real interest in him and wanted to better him out of caring for him. And that’s how he saw it. Because why else would you want to better him? And for her, it was more maybe she did grow fond of him, not in a romantic way, as a friend. But it was also, in the beginning, it was more like, how much can I push this person with CP?
SHAWNSY: Individual.
ADRIANA: Let’s see how much he can accomplish. Let’s see what can someone with CP, like, how far can they go?
SHAWNSY: Right.
AJ: Yeah. Yeah, and then also I think to your point, Adriana, perhaps she may’ve been the first person outside of his family to say he’s a human being.
ADRIANA: Mmhmm.
AJ: He’s interesting. Like, even though she was a doctor, and it is the medical side, I believe she also tapped into his humanity.
ADRIANA: Mmhmm.
AJ: And without being like, without going into deep, deep, personal stuff, let’s just say, I’ve had experiences where I felt…. Like, because she probably also made him feel like a man.
ADRIANA and SHAWNSY: Yeah.
AJ: You know?
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: And let’s just say I’ve had those experiences where I felt really good and attractive, but it didn’t go how I thought it was gonna go. But they made me feel awesome and incredible, and I’ve fallen in love.
SHAWNSY: But we were, yeah, it’s like we were discussing, too, last night on the fact of defining what helping someone and what support is. It’s a super intimate encounter between two people in doing these things, but the love that works in the movie, when he finally meets with Mary at the very end, had nothing to do with support at all. That was love through the conversations that they were having in that moment on an equal playing field. And it was a different kind of love.
ADRIANA: Yeah.
AJ: And I say, like, what do you think? And you can completely disagree with me, Adriana. But I say it’s a combination of both, like, obviously more the conversation than the care. But for me, you can’t, obviously you have to separate. And they fell more in love because of more of the personal conversation, but it was probably because of the care too, you know? Because I do know real-life situations where people have fallen in love with their PCAs or their— You know, I know some, I don’t know them personally, but I know of somebody who married her physical therapist.
ADRIANA: Yeah, I mean, but that wasn’t the case with this. It was more of he would see her. She was there. I don’t think she was ‘cause he didn’t have medical needs. He didn’t have any medical issues. It was more that she was there when they wanted him to be looked at while other things were going on. And the example that’s in the movie was that, you know, that whole ceremony was going on in his honor, and yet he was—
SHAWNSY: Separated.
ADRIANA: —separated from the whole thing, and she was hired to just sit with him in the library of this beautiful mansion or whatever it was. And so, it’s like it wasn’t that she cared for him in that way, in that aspect. She was basically a babysitter.
SHAWNSY: Mmhmm.
AJ: And so, basically, now that, ‘cause I didn’t pick up on that either, probably because of my vision or I couldn’t make the connection. But why do you think, I mean, at this point, they know. They know his cognitive level. They know his intell— So, why would they separate him still? I don’t understand.
ADRIANA: I think he didn’t wanna be there. She even said, “Why aren’t you in there? Don’t you wanna be in there?” And he said, no, he didn’t wanna.
Inspiration, aspiration, and representation
SHAWNSY: Well, this is also the handicapped becoming, “Oh, you’re an inspiration.”
ADRIANA: Oh, yeah. That!
SHAWNSY: “You have such beautiful art. We wanna put you on a pedestal so we can clap.”
ADRIANA: Yeah.
SHAWNSY: The last shot, when he’s rolling through the aisle, and all you see is the hands at their waist, they’re still standing above him and clapping down. And it’s just like, it’s very derogatory towards him.
ADRIANA: Yeah, and they use that whole inspo porn where the speaker when he’s announcing him that he’s about to enter, he’s like, “with such courage and” blah blah blah. And it’s like, ugh. I mean, you know, especially nowadays, you’re like, oh, you know, [laughs] the whole inspo thing is out of control and especially back then was even more so.
AJ: Wait, we’re not just around to…
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
ADRIANA: Inspire you!
AJ: We’re not just around to inspire all of humanity?! [laughs]
ADRIANA: Just by waking up.
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
AJ: I thought my assignment on this Earth was to inspire the able-bodied!
ADRIANA: Hey! I got up and took a pee today. Yay!
ALL: [laugh]
ADRIANA: So inspiring that I got up to take a pee.
AJ: Oh, man.
ADRIANA: I almost said the other thing, but I wasn’t anyways.
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
AJ: And I was brave because Shawn helped me pee.
ADRIANA: [laughs]
AJ: So, not a lot of people—
ADRIANA: Exactly!!
AJ: Not a lot of people do that. Sir, I’m strong.
ADRIANA: Maybe Shawn was brave and strong to help you! [laughs]
SHAWNSY: I was in the firing line, so sure.
ALL: [laugh]
ADRIANA: I’m inspired by you, Shawn.
SHAWNSY: Aw, thank you, thank you. I’m so glad to be here, to be here for you guys.
ALL: [laugh]
SHAWNSY: So, for our last little bit here, we always ask after every episode is the big question, could a disabled person have played this role other than Daniel Day-Lewis?
ADRIANA: Honestly though, we all know now that Daniel Day-Lewis is a method actor.
SHAWNSY: Mmhmm.
ADRIANA: Honestly, if I didn’t know who he was, I would have thought he was a person with CP.
AJ: I said the same thing. If I didn’t know that it was Daniel Day-Lewis, it would’ve been CP. I would’ve thought that this was a person with CP. And so, a lot of time on this podcast specifically we talk about the representation and the need for authentic representation. But the reason why I wanted to bring you on is because me and you had discussed the earlier, sometimes and, you know, as advocates and as me, especially as an actor, I’m definitely advocating for authentic casting.
ADRIANA: Right, right.
AJ: But sometimes—and this is the controversial part, I hope I’m not thrown out of disabled acting community—sometimes, an able-bodied actor that is a skilled clinician in their art, in the craft, does incredible jobs. And for me, I’ll just say, I don’t know, because this is a crip that’s not mad at Daniel Day-Lewis.
ADRIANA: Yeah, neither am I.
AJ: My hat is off to him. Now I’m gonna need help to get the hat off, but my hat is off to Daniel Day-Lewis! He did a—
ADRIANA: No, I agree with that because I think it’s based on your acting skills, A. And while it’s great to have representation, but then we’re doing the opposite of discounting other actors, right? And so, in one hand we’re like, “Oh, it can only be a disabled person that can play a specific role,” but then you’re doing exactly the same thing that you’re complaining about where it’s like not an able-bodied person playing a disabled person. It’s like you’re doing literally the same thing.
SHAWNSY: Yeah. We had spoken on the fact that the character is so specific in such creative traits that to have someone like Daniel Day-Lewis be able to mimic that and transform his body to do it. Whereas when we were talking about Scent of a Woman with generic blindness, that’s a much more easier role to have a disabled play that role, whereas this is a biopic about a very specific person.
ADRIANA: And yeah.
AJ: Now for me, as much praise as I gave, and the praise still remains hands down. It was a great acting job, and he deserves all the, he deserves all the accolades that he got. But on the other side of it, this is where I come down to like, as an advocate—I’m taking the actor hat off—as an advocate, my issue with non-authentic casting is the large sheer number of it. Like 95% of the roles go to non-disabled actors, and—
SHAWNSY: Right, that’s the question of if 26% of the population is disabled, then in generic role just description of a character, 26% of those should be disabled features.
ADRIANA: Yeah, oh, yeah. And I agree with that.
AJ: And so, I would say, and me and Shawn kind of not in a serious way, but we kind of disagreed a little bit ‘cause I would say, so if the movie was made today, and if they wanted to try to do or actually do authentic casting, I think it may take a while. But I think you could find someone with exactly Christy Brown’s CP that’s an actor. Because today because of online and because the acting pool for disability is much longer and because it’s much broader and because of the climate of authentic casting, I think you could find someone. Now, it may take a long time, and you may have to do national or international searches, but I think you could find someone.
ADRIANA: And they also have to do the Irish accent. And ‘cause even though he couldn’t speak clearly, you could still hear the Irish accent. Yeah.
AJ: Or in some cases, sometimes a casting director and a director is so, they’re so looking for this specific thing or what they want, sometimes maybe it could be a situation. Now, it does take a lot of work, but maybe it could be a situation where the person that they cast isn’t even an actor, and so they would be learning the acting process as they’re shooting the movie.
ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.
AJ: So, but again, when I say that, I’m not trying to take it away from Daniel Day-Lewis. I just wanted to give the other side, too, the devil’s advocate side.
SHAWNSY: Yeah, I was looking that, like, if this movie was gonna be made today and this, I think there would be a disabled actor that is vying for the role, is speaking out to the public, saying, “I have this disability, and I wanna play Christy Brown.” And then we would write the script for them. Like, it would be written for their character.
ADRIANA: And we keep saying it’s a biopic, but it’s also literally the story he wrote.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: He wrote the book My Left Foot, and they created the screenplay for his book.
SHAWNSY: So, is it autobiographical?
ADRIANA: So it’s basically a memoir up until he was 30-something years old because it was published, I believe, ‘60 or ‘61. ‘60, I think.
SHAWNSY: I think you’re pretty close.
AJ: Adriana, across our inspirational journey, have you ever—
ADRIANA and SHAWNSY: [laugh]
ADRIANA: I love it.
AJ: Because I’ve had people literally cry on my lap, [laughs] and I don’t, you know, I’m not being mean, but I’m just like, come on.
ADRIANA: You’re too nice. You’re a good old Southern boy—
AJ: ‘Cause it’s just like….
ADRIANA: —honestly.
AJ: You know, sometimes the way I look at inspiration, obviously, some of it is like, come on, you know? We’re not doing that much. But for, you know, and I know you don’t feel like this way, but I was at a conference one time, and it was a conference for journalists ‘cause they were talking about disability and to disabled people. And this one, this journalist has a question. It was basically about language. And the one guy, which I don’t agree with, but it was this guy who was like, “Don’t use the word ‘inspirational’ at all.”
[recorded clip plays]
NAME: This film generated sympathy, but it also generated inspiration among so many people. It’s a very particular story. Why do you think it touched so many people? And what in your performance do you think helped do that?
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS: I don’t know if I can answer that part of it…. Well, [sighs] what I hope is true is that people have come to a point where they’re prepared to understand more about the lives of disabled people. That’s not what the film is about, but certainly the fact that people are able to enjoy it must mean that that is true, because there’s been such a huge resistance to acknowledging the lives of disabled people in society. And it seems that we demand of disabled people that they remove themselves from our sight as far as possible, that they offend our sense of order in some way.
The thing about Christy, I think what people love about him, what I loved about him is his fury, is the fact that he insisted on confronting things, confronting people’s inability to deal with him every day of his life. And he did it sometimes with a terrifying rage and sometimes with the most incisive humor. And I think people respond to that. I think it’s also, I think people also respond to the incredible sense of family life because Jim Sheridan, who made the film, he understands that domestic life of working-class Dublin very well. It’s a very particular life, and that was the source of Christy’s strength. And I think it is remarkable when you have an insight into a unit like that, a powerful unit like that. I don’t know. [recorded clip fades out]
AJ: And I don’t agree with that, because sometimes it’s like I get inspired by the people.
ADRIANA: So do I.
AJ: I get inspired about disabled people.
ADRIANA: So do I, but here’s something that I learned is the word “aspirational.” And that’s a better word to be used in certain circumstances where someone aspires to be like you.
SHAWNSY: To achieve something.
ADRIANA: Yes.
AJ: Yes. Oh, yes!
ADRIANA: So I like that. Someone, I forget who said that in context of disability and the whole inspiration thing is, it’s good to be aspirational.
SHAWNSY: Yeah.
ADRIANA: And I like, and I loved when they said that. I’m like, yes, that is exactly what it is. It’s good to be aspirational where someone aspires to and has goals to—
SHAWNSY: I mean, with Christy’s point, just like his artwork—
ADRIANA: Yeah.
SHAWNSY: —is beautiful.
ADRIANA: Yeah. And that is, I mean, his artwork is inspiring. You feel, when you look at his artwork, you can feel that, like, I could feel either the pain that he was going through or the emotion, especially when it was his family’s portraits. The various portraits that he did of his family members were just, you can, just looking at them, you can really feel what was going on at that time. And he really, he was so good at showing the facial expressions of his family members, and I was like, wow. You really could just feel by looking at them. And it was just, like, that’s art, and that’s inspiring.
AJ: Yeah, and I, you know, I’m not just saying it because we’re here in this moment, but just an example, people that I get inspired by, people like you because you are a woman with essentially my same disability, but you have, you’re an entrepreneur. I mean, you are the boss. You run your show.
SHAWNSY: [laughs]
AJ: And when I first saw you, I was like, you know, because, and we were meeting online, and you were just like, “I gotta go.” And you were doing everything. And I was just like, damn, you know?
ADRIANA: [delighted laugh]
AJ: And so, that does, that does inspire me. I get inspired by other people all the time, especially, disabled people. But I know what we mean when we say, like, sometimes I just feel bad because I do. Me and Matt talk about this. It’s like for some people that is inspiring because even just by the fact of them not knowing, I know it’s silly to us, but for some people, just them knowing that people with disabilities are societal citizens and we’re actually participating, that is very inspirational for some people because of how they feel or how they thought about disability. I remember one time I was on a plane, and I had to get off to go on another one ‘cause there was an emergency. And the guy that was helping us was asking my mom, like, “Why are you guys here?” And my mom was like, “My son is here. We’re here because my son is at work.” I can’t do his facials, but his face got so big, like, he works?!! You know? He didn’t even concede that I would be working. And after that, he was so surprised that that I worked, you know?
SHAWNSY: Right. That’s where aspirational is like the participation that we choose to do. Like, the art or whatever work that we decide to partake in, we aspire to grow and to really expand our minds. And achieving those goals really makes you inspirational once you achieve those aspirations.
ADRIANA: But I think also, there’s that thing where it’s like low expectations, right?
AJ: Yeah.
ADRIANA: And underestimating people. And so, in that case with the guy on the airplane, I think it was his perceived vision of disability and where it’s often portrayed as not being able to, right?
SHAWNSY: You’re being serviced.
ADRIANA: Right.
SHAWNSY: You’re never contributing.
ADRIANA: Yeah. But not being able to. That’s it. Not being able to whatever, right? And so, for him to hear looking at you and hearing, “Oh, he has a job. My son has a job,” it’s more of that shock because of what society, that whole stigma of disability and underestimating people’s abilities and skills, and that’s what it really was. It was more the, “How could he,” right?
AJ: Yeah, I remember the first time, and I definitely wasn’t in Georgia. I was somewhere I can’t remember. But I was in my, I was all the way in my 30s for somebody, and I was just like, it just made me smile. But it made me sad at the same time because somebody actually asked me. It took a long time, but somebody actually asked me, “So, what do you do for?” Like, first of all, I had to readjust my brain because nobody ever asked me that ever! And I’m like, this person said, what do I do? They actually think or to believe to know that I have a job? So, it took me [laughs]—
ADRIANA: Well, you know, what’s bad?
AJ: —it took me a minute to rebound and actually answer the question ‘cause I was like, wow.
ADRIANA: Yeah. You know what that usually means if that person did that? It means they have experience with disability. They’ve been exposed to people with disabilities, and that’s what that means.
AJ: Let’s just say I forgot where I was, but I know I wasn’t in my state. I’ve never gotten that question in mine. [laughs]
SHAWNSY: Right. This is like the responsibility of disability culture is to get that out there so that it becomes normalized.
ADRIANA: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
AJ: Yeah. And, well, this is part of the reason we have this podcast.
Thank yous
AJ: And I think we’re, [laughs] I think we can, we’re wrapping up the episode. So I just wanna thank everybody out there for listening. Thank you so much. Thank you, Adriana, for being a part of the podcast. You’re a part of the crew, and so you’ll be coming back. You’ll be coming back for another show, I’m sure. Let me just formally invite you. You are invited at any time, and so I hope you had a good time. And so, we’ll have Adriana back. Adriana, before we exit, I wanted to ask you if the people out there wanted to reach you or get in contact with your business, or, you know, how can they hit you up?
ADRIANA: So they could follow puffin as in the bird, p-u-f-f-i-n. And then, inno, i-n-n-o. So, any of the socials @PuffinInno is my company. And then I’m just my name, Adriana Mallozzi, on all socials: double L, double Z. So yeah, and thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun. I feel like we could’ve been talking for hours on these topics, ‘cause there’s so much to say! [laughs]
SHAWNSY: Oh, each episode has gotten a little bit longer, [laughs] and it’s only a matter of time!
ADRIANA: There’s so much to say.
AJ: With that said, thank you again, and I know you’ll be back. I already know what episode I want you on, but I’m gonna say that off air. So, I’m giving you guys out there a teaser. She’ll be back. In the meantime, thanks for joining us. We hope you join us again. Peace!
Disability spotlight
[chill music]
AJ: And now he’s the man with the plan, the main producer, Shawnsy Billops, with Disability Spotlight. Shawnsy, Happy International Women’s Month.
SHAWNSY: On today’s episode of Disability Spotlight, we’re going over the 20-year acting career of Diana Elizabeth Jordan, an award-nominated and winning actor and director with cerebral palsy. Her previous works consist of 28 short films and TV shows since 2004, including the shows 7th Heaven and S.W.A.T. Her IMDb page has a mini bio which I will read for you. “Diana Elizabeth Jordan is a rare person and actor. Her courage and heart fills every role she takes on, and she finds a specific truth that makes her version of the role memorable, impacting, and truly unique. She not only makes non-traditional casting easy, she redefines the potentials of traditional casting. She is usually cast in roles where her disability is incidental to the character or storyline. She has committed her career to entertaining and ensuring disability is an inclusive part of the American scene.” In the words of Diana herself, “I see my disability not as a limitation, but as a wonderful opportunity to add another dimension to the cultural diversity of the American scene.”
On the website SeeJane.org, there are statistics in a report called Representations of Black Women in Hollywood. This study examines representations of Black women and girls in entertainment media in 2019. Now, this report gives a great deal of statistics for all women of color, i.e. how their hair is shown, percentages of skin tones, etc. But what stands out to us is in 2019, 0.0% of Black women were shown with a disability in these higher grossing TV shows and movies. This, and many others, is a statistic that doesn’t match the population of the country itself. Last year, in 2023, Diana presented a TED Talk called Moving Beyond Boundaries, which discusses the prejudices we bestow when we first see someone. How they walk, how they talk can give wrong impressions and limitations to the potential of what that person can become in both life and in our personal relationships.
You can see her many acting reels on YouTube with one of her latest roles in the 2023 Easterseals Disability Film Festival entry of Smash or Pass. Just type in “Easterseals Smash or Pass” to enjoy the wonderful five-minute short film about dating with a disability. Diana continues to push both equal representation and proper representation, not giving roles because a disability is required, but because the opportunity an actor can bring to the screen who has unique traits. Thank you, Diana. I can’t wait to see more of your work in the near future. [music fades out]
Wrap-up
[epic theme music]
AJ: Thanks for joining us. We hope you enjoyed the show. We really enjoyed making it for you as always. So, for Shawnsy Billops, Cheryl Green, technical producer, and myself, Ajani AJ Murray, come and join the crew next time for another episode of Acting Up With AJ and Crew. On our next episode, we’re talking with co-founder of Zeno Mountain Farm, my friend and fellow ‘80s baby Ila Halby, and we’re gonna be talking about the movie Best Summer Ever. [music ends] My Left Foot is available on Amazon Prime Video. Closed captioning and audio description are available for your access needs.
