{"id":3753,"date":"2016-05-08T09:47:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T04:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753"},"modified":"2016-05-08T09:47:54","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T04:17:54","slug":"disabled-protagonists-bollywood-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3753","title":{"rendered":"What Bollywood Always Gets Wrong About the Differently Abled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"container page-content\"><p><span class=\"dropcap\">I<\/span><\/p><\/div><p>n John Krasinski\u2019s 2018 post-apocalyptic masterpiece<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/a-quiet-place-john-krasinski-emily-blunt-horror\/\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Quiet Place<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the world is ravaged by monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing, forcing a family of four to go into semi-permanent hiding. While three members of the family are able-bodied, the fourth member, Regan, the teenage daughter is actually deaf. What\u2019s surprising is that viewers don\u2019t realise this until much later when Lee Abbott, Regan\u2019s father uses sign language to communicate with her. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regan\u2019s deafness makes for an efficient survival tactic in the film but her character doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum, written simply to garner sympathy points. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Quiet Place<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> gives Regan an equal footing in the process, never fetishising her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/people\/world-disability-day-cerebral-palsy-india-whatsapp\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">disability<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. What\u2019s even more inspiring is that Krasinski went to great lengths to ensure that the part of Regan went to an actual deaf actor. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yep, Millicent Simmonds is deaf as well as a brilliant actor. How is that for representation and diversity? And when can we hope to see it in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/gender\/tanushree-dutta-nana-patekar-sexual-harassment-denial\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bollywood<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? \u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Remember Thakur in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sholay<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where every viewer was called upon to ignore what was staring them in the face \u2013 that Sanjeev Kumar\u2019s arms were tucked under his kurta? Exactly 30 years later, we had <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/satire\/sanjay-leela-bhansali-padmavati-deepika-shahid-karni-sena-ranveer\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s<\/span><\/a> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Black<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a story of a Helen Keller-like protagonist who is \u201csaved\u201d by her teacher. This is disability in Bollywood, an obstacle that needs to be overcome. <\/span>\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>The age we live in right now, misrepresentation and erasure in pop-culture has the capacity to do palpable harm and set back actual work done by activists.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, Bhansali specialises in narratives featuring disability. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Khamoshi: The Musical <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1996) uses the saviour trope for maximum emotional effect, while in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guzaarish<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2010), the disabled character has to resort to euthanasia to free himself of his disability. In all three of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/doodle\/sanjay-leela-bhansalis-2018-birthday-invite\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bhansali\u2019s <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">films, disability is portrayed as an overwhelming \u201cother\u201d, which either needs to be warded off completely, or needs to be overpowered. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why can\u2019t Bollywood filmmakers seem to give disabled protagonists challenges other than overcoming their disability? It isn\u2019t as if we don\u2019t have precedents. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sparsh <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1980)<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.inbollywood\/ishqiya-western-abhishek-chaubey-naseeruddin-shah-vidya-balan\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Naseeruddin Shah <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">plays the blind Anirudh who falls in love with Kavita (Shabana Azmi). During a scene in the film, Anirudh says something along the lines of, \u201cThe blind need help, not pity.\u201d That pretty much describes the fault in how Bollywood portrays disabled protagonists. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sparsh<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Anirudh\u2019s affliction doesn\u2019t dominate his character. It\u2019s the same with Gulzar\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Koshish <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(1972). <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anurag Basu\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barfi <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(2012) and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jagga Jassos<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2018) refused to treat disability as the other; instead getting to understand it. It\u2019s similar to the especially progressive <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Margarita With A Straw <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(2014)<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> where we see <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/series\/uninvited\/jia-aur-jia-kalki-koechlin-richa-chadha\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kalki Koechlin\u2019s <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laila, who is suffering from cerebral palsy, come to terms with her sexuality. These films have steered away from harmful tropes and used effective storytelling to their advantage.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which brings me to the point of representation. Both on-screen portrayals and representation go hand-in-hand; one complements the other. Perhaps Indian filmmakers could take a leaf out of Vince Gilligan\u2019s book. In<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/vice\/college-drug-dealer-marijuana-business-lessons\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Walter White Jr \u2014 or Finn \u2014 is played by RJ Mitte. In the show, Finn suffers from cerebral palsy and has impaired motor control; just like the character, RJ Mitte too has cerebral palsy. And the writers ensure that Finn isn\u2019t just a disabled kid who needs sympathy. He is a regular teenager coming to terms with his drug lord father\u2019s continued absence. His disability isn\u2019t his calling card. It\u2019s just a part of him. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So when will Bollywood filmmakers get this memo?<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s the same argument which has been brought up time and again when it comes to LGBTQIA+ representation. I call this the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Danish Girl<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> syndrome. In 2015\u2019s romantic drama, Eddie Redmayne, a cis-white <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pov\/why-has-metoo-scared-every-man\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">male <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">actor plays a trans-woman. Redmayne is a terrific actor but it\u2019s impossible to ignore that he was woefully miscast. The film itself, although well-received, erased a real-life trans person. But while Hollywood is trying to learn from its mistakes, it looks like the Hindi film industry isn\u2019t even trying. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In only a few days, we\u2019ll get to see all the glitz and colour associated with a Shah Rukh Khan film. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Zero, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he\u2019ll play a person suffering from dwarfism, who is in love with a woman who has cerebral palsy. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/modern-family\/shah-rukh-khan-birthday-fan-mannat-suhana-khan\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SRK <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has been made shorter digitally and warning bells are already ringing in my head. Were there really no dwarf actors in Bollywood?<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Casting disabled actors \u2014 or even actors who have lived with a disability \u2014 for such roles shouldn\u2019t come as an afterthought. In fact, in the age we live in right now, misrepresentation and erasure in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/ranveer-singh-deepika-padukone-padmavati-rani-padmini-alauddin-khilji-sanjay-leela-bhansali-bollywood-movies-cinema-india\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pop-culture <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has the capacity to do palpable harm and set back actual work done by activists. <\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I suppose, because filmmaking is such a visual medium that is easily accessible to a wide audience, the onus falls on the creators to tell better, nuanced stories, and not fall into lazy tropes. Good representation begins with empathy and good creators, even before jotting down a story, writers need to empathise with the characters they create \u2013 abled, disabled, straight, queer, white, black, or brown \u2013 and not treat them as \u201cothers\u201d. Some day, I hope, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/bollywood\/gunda-20-years-kanti-shah\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bollywood <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will listen?<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why can\u2019t Bollywood filmmakers seem to give disabled protagonists challenges other than overcoming their disability? It isn\u2019t as if we don\u2019t have precedents. In films like Sparsh and Jagga Jasoos, the leads\u2019 afflictions don\u2019t dominate their characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":293,"featured_media":3754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[7037,141,288,7038,7039,7040,5093,1931,7041,152,7042,7043,7044,5521],"class_list":["post-3753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-barfi","tag-bollywood","tag-breaking-bad","tag-danish-girl","tag-differently-abled","tag-disabled","tag-filmmakers","tag-jagga-jasoos","tag-protagonists","tag-shah-rukh-khan","tag-sparsh","tag-vince-gilligan","tag-walter-white-jr","tag-zero"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Bollywood Always Gets Wrong About the Differently Abled<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why can\u2019t Bollywood filmmakers seem to give disabled protagonists challenges other than overcoming their disability? 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In films like Sparsh and Jagga Jasoos, the leads\u2019 afflictions don\u2019t dominate their characters.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amal Singh","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753"},"author":{"name":"Amal Singh","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#\/schema\/person\/aaaf71d1b21a55e00303014853d493ea"},"headline":"What Bollywood Always Gets Wrong About the Differently Abled","datePublished":"2016-05-08T04:17:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753"},"wordCount":888,"image":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1543825956.jpg","keywords":["barfi","bollywood","breaking bad","danish girl","differently-abled","disabled","filmmakers","Jagga Jasoos","protagonists","Shah Rukh Khan","sparsh","vince gilligan","walter white jr","zero"],"articleSection":["POV"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753","url":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753","name":"What Bollywood Always Gets Wrong About the Differently Abled","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1543825956.jpg","datePublished":"2016-05-08T04:17:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#\/schema\/person\/aaaf71d1b21a55e00303014853d493ea"},"description":"Why can\u2019t Bollywood filmmakers seem to give disabled protagonists challenges other than overcoming their disability? It isn\u2019t as if we don\u2019t have precedents. In films like Sparsh and Jagga Jasoos, the leads\u2019 afflictions don\u2019t dominate their characters.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1543825956.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1543825956.jpg","width":1520,"height":850},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3753#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Bollywood Always Gets Wrong About the Differently Abled"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#website","url":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/","name":"Arr\u00e9","description":"In every person lies a creator and in every creator, an enterprise.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/#\/schema\/person\/aaaf71d1b21a55e00303014853d493ea","name":"Amal Singh","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ac788d7df35f66fe215a0a02ed079607ce639997a2deaa37b2c518a18b35d85?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ac788d7df35f66fe215a0a02ed079607ce639997a2deaa37b2c518a18b35d85?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ac788d7df35f66fe215a0a02ed079607ce639997a2deaa37b2c518a18b35d85?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Amal Singh"},"url":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?author=293"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1543825956.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/293"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}