Description
This thesis examines and critiques contemporary representations of characters with disabilities in film within three overarching themes: reclamation of masculinity, disability and sexuality and disability in the biopic. The thesis examines nine total films: Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit, The Hammer, 3 Days to Kill, The Sessions, Rust and Bone, Morgan, The King's Speech, The Iron Lady and Camille Claudel, 1915. One chapter delves into hegemonic masculinity as it is used to reclaim disabled masculinity on screen. Another chapter examines the depiction of the male and abled gazes onto characters with disabilities and the prominence of normative beauty idealization. Another chapter examines the character with a disability based upon a person with a disability within the biopic genre with a critique of the use of dramatizing strategies and the gendered differences between the representations.
