Center for Disability Rights Creates PSA on Assisted Suicide in Response to Me Before You

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[Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of a Press Release issued by the Center for Disability Rights, NDY’s close partner in Rochester, NY.]

The Center for Disability Rights has created a PSA to address disability and assisted suicide, one of the primary topics highlighted in the new romantic comedy, Me Before You. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Jojo Moyes, who also penned the screenplay. Me Before You tells the story of a cheerful underachiever, Louisa, who is hired as the Personal Care Attendant for a wealthy quadriplegic named Will Traynor. Louisa soon realizes her job is to convince Will to live, as he has an appointment at an assisted suicide facility in Switzerland in six months. Despite the two falling in love Will tells Louisa that love is not enough, and goes through with killing himself because of his disability.

The murder and killing of disabled people in Hollywood films is a common theme. Assisted suicide, in particular, can be seen in a number of films beyond Me Before You including Million Dollar Baby, The Sea Inside, and Whose Life is it Anyway? Assisted suicide is often presented as a logical ending to disabled lives. In these films, disabled people are seen as a burden, and are presented as suffering, so assisted suicide is seen as a reasonable and rational outcome.

In response to the controversy, disabled people around the world have been protesting the movie, both at the London and New York premieres, and during the June 3 opening weekend. As the film heads into its second week in over 2000 theaters across the U.S., activists have continued to try to counter the film through a series of informational events that are being held offline, as well as through social media.

The PSA, which has already garnered over 150,000 views on Facebook, was developed by the Center for Disability Rights with filmmaker Clark Matthews. It features real individuals with disabilities, as they counter the message presented in these harmful films. The PSA highlights that disabled lives are worth living, and that assisted suicide is harmful to the disability community. The idea behind the PSA is to flip the script, and change the story when it comes to disability. Since there are not many films that counter the message that disabled lives are not worth living, the PSA and worldwide protests of the film are attempting to educate the public about the truth about disability. Everyone, whether they have a disability or not, is encouraged to stop accepting such harmful portrayals of disability, by avoiding these movies. Instead, the message is to promote content by disabled creators, and encourage Hollywood to make films that show disabled people living life, something the over 1 billion people with disabilities around the world do, every single day.

Carol Cleigh Sutton: What is the function of movies like Me Before You?

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[Editor’s Note: This is a guest blog by Carol Cleigh Sutton, an original Board member of NDY when we formed in 1996, and a long time disability activist.]

I’ve spent some time thinking about why movies like Me Before You get made. After all, it’s not a bit original. From Whose Life is it, Anyway? (1981) to The Sea Inside and Million$Baby (2004), these plot lines are neither new nor particularly interesting. By eliminating other possibilities, though, I may have found an answer.

First, and most obviously, it is not a vehicle for disabled actors since they never employ disabled actors. In some ways, this is what it must have been like watching Shakespeare in his own time when male actors portrayed women. They expect us to willingly suspend disbelief, but I, for one, never get there. The portrayals are so fake that I, a wheelchair user, simply can’t take them seriously.

Secondly, they’re also not telling anything true or real about the lives of disabled people. Though some of those associated with such movies sometimes claim to have ‘researched’ disability, I find such claims as sadly comic as the non-disabled actors trying to portray us. They don’t want input from such groups as Not Dead Yet, Direct Action Network or ADAPT and get defensive when we provide unsolicited input. Those associated with Me Before You are saying we just don’t understand. Not exactly respectful to our community.

One article in The Guardian claimed that makers of Me Before You had gone to hospitals to research the lives of disabled people (Me Before You director defends film against disability campaigners). Isn’t that a bit like going to a gynecologist to research women’s lives? It might be funny if it weren’t so sad. Um, do I actually have to explain that disabled people *don’t live in hospitals*?

We also, by and large, don’t live in castles, either. The ‘hero’ of this movie has way too much money to be in any way ‘typical’ of disabled people. According to the US Census bureau, people with severe disabilities are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as their non-disabled peers. While there is, of course, vast variation in the economic status of individual disabled people, it seems that movies in this category often represent their protagonist as well off. Why? Could it be that they want us to ignore the other factors in disabled lives that may lead to suicide?

The third possible reason for telling such a story would to make a classic star-crossed lovers story in the tradition of Tristan and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. Oh, but those don’t use disability as reason for the lover’s separation, so obviously even if the author was trying to write a love story in the tradition of the masters, she failed miserably. Since she’s adequately demonstrated a lack of care about real disabled people, and complete lack of knowledge about our lives, this can only indicate a sad use of disability as an unsupported plot device. Hackneyed at best.

The only possible explanation for the function of such movies is to oppose the disability rights movement. This is very like the Backlash described by Susan Faludi regarding the women’s movement.

The function of such movies is to remind us how tragic and terrible life with disability must be against evidence of real disabled people.

In Me Before You, film makers have carefully made sure that the primary, disabled character, Will, has *no* reason to commit suicide other than disability. They’ve made him young, extremely wealthy, good looking, with plenty of family support, in love with the love of his life who also loves him. So, the only possible function of this movie is a *very* direct attack, targeting the disability rights movement and making money off our oppression as a minority group. Yet they seem surprised that we don’t like it.

Wheelchairs seen in public, gasp! Time to put those uppity gimps in their place – again. Time to reinforce the non-disabled horror of disability.

The disability rights movement is wise to how such movies function. Those who make such claptrap can expect vocal opposition, each and every time.

NDY Press Release: Advocates Protest Disability Snuff Film “Me Before You”

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Not Dead Yet, the Resistance

Contacts:
John Kelly 617-536-5140
Diane Coleman 708-420-0539

Advocates Protest Disability Snuff Film “Me Before You”

Disability rights advocates in cities across the United States and around the world are protesting the latest Hollywood movie to end with the assisted suicide or euthanasia of the lead disabled character. Protests have already been held in New York City, Boston and Denver, with more planned throughout opening weekend in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities.

Me Before You is scheduled for general audience release on Friday, June 3rd. Some cities are also providing advance screenings. Members of Not Dead Yet UK protested at the London premier on May 24th, and garnered significant mainstream media coverage (Guardian, Buzzfeed) during the protest and in the days following.

“The last big example of this tired theme was Million Dollar Baby, which came out before the major growth of social media but still resulted in protests covered in the New York Times,” said Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet (USA). “We can’t begin to keep track of the people and cities involved this time.”

Disability rights writers and bloggers have also been blasting the film for its oppressive portrayal of living with significant disabilities like quadriplegia. Examples include articles by disability studies scholar Bill Peace and activist and filmmaker Dominick Evans. Some have been featured in mainstream outlets like Emily Ladau’s article in Salon, Lauren West’s in Huffington Post and Ben Mattlin’s in the Chicago Tribune.

Not Dead Yet’s New England regional director John Kelly has the same level of spinal cord injury as Will Traynor, the lead male character in Me Before You. “Book and screenplay author JoJo Moyes admits she knows nothing about quadriplegics,” said Kelly, “yet her ignorance is allowed to promote the idea that people like me are better off dead. We are not ‘burdens’ whose best option is to commit suicide. No one’s suicide should be treated noble and inspirational. We reject this discrimination. Our suicides should be viewed as tragedies like anyone else’s.”

One of the biggest concerns of the disability community is the message this movie sends to the 12,000 individuals who have new spinal cord injuries each year in the U.S. alone. Kelly Buckland, executive director of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), is a spinal cord injured husband and father. “Our society places a high value on physical appearance and ability and at the same time really stigmatizes significant disability,” says Buckland. “We understand what it means to deal with issues like the loss of one’s former dreams as well as the loss of physical abilities. When someone is first hit with this, they may spend time feeling that they’d be better off dead. If assisted suicide had been legal in the past, many of us would not be here today.” NCIL and all major national disability organizations that have taken a position on assisted suicide oppose legalizing it.

UPDATED ACTION ALERT: PROTEST DISABILITY SNUFF FILM “ME BEFORE YOU”!

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[The Action Alert below now includes embedded links to “Me Before You” protest leaflets, downloadable in color or black&white, a banner that can be produced at a local print shop, and a template press release for local disability activists to use for media outreach. For additional information and links to the many articles by disability writers about the book and film, please check out the incredible “resource hub” compiled by DisBeat.]

Not Dead Yet, the Resistance

ACTION ALERT:

PROTEST DISABILITY SNUFF FILM ME BEFORE YOU!

WHEN:      JUNE 3 (2,4 or 5), 2016, 0NE HOUR BEFORE A SHOWING OF ME BEFORE YOU

WHERE:    YOUR LOCAL MOVIE THEATER, MANY CITIES, USA & WORLDWIDE

WHAT:      PEACEFULLY DISTRIBUTE A LEAFLET

WHY:        TO OPPOSE ABLEISM & THE FILM’S MESSAGE THAT DISABLED PEOPLE ARE

BETTER OFF DEAD (AND OTHERS ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT US)

“Me Before You” is the latest Hollywood film to grossly misrepresent the lived experience of the majority of disabled people. In the film, a young man becomes disabled, falls in love with his ‘carer’ and they have an incredible 6 months together. Despite her opposition, however, the hero does the “honorable” thing by killing himself at a Swiss euthanasia clinic – leaving his fortune to her so she can move on and he is no longer a “burden” to her. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, “Me Before You” is little more than a disability snuff film, giving audiences the message that if you’re a disabled person, you’re better off dead.

WAYS YOU CAN PROTEST:

  • Two or more people can peacefully hand out a LEAFLET (National: Black & White or Color; for California protesters, version with an added sentence about the assisted suicide law going into effect on June 9th: California flyer)
  • Display a “Me Before You” protest banner which can be made at local print shops
  • Send a press release ( you can use NDY’s template release, including local contacts) to send to your local media.
  • Join the worldwide social media Thunderclap.
  • Twitter using #MeBeforeYou #LiveBoldly #MeBeforeEuthanasia #MeBeforeAbleism
  • Share the articles linked below with friends and colleagues.

For more information, see the following articles:

For More Information or to discuss your plans, contact John Kelly (jkelly@notdeadyet.org) or Diane Coleman (dcoleman@notdeadyet.org).

ACTION ALERT: PROTEST DISABILITY SNUFF FILM “ME BEFORE YOU”!

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Not Dead Yet, the Resistance

ACTION ALERT:

PROTEST DISABILITY SNUFF FILM ME BEFORE YOU!

WHEN:      JUNE 3, 2016, 0NE HOUR BEFORE A SHOWING OF ME BEFORE YOU

WHERE:    YOUR LOCAL MOVIE THEATER, MANY CITIES, USA & WORLDWIDE

WHAT:      PEACEFULLY DISTRIBUTE A LEAFLET

WHY:        TO OPPOSE ABLEISM & THE FILM’S MESSAGE THAT DISABLED PEOPLE ARE

BETTER OFF DEAD (AND OTHERS ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT US)

“Me Before You” is the latest Hollywood film to grossly misrepresent the lived experience of the majority of disabled people. In the film, a young man becomes disabled, falls in love with his ‘carer’ and they have an incredible 6 months together. Despite her opposition, however, the hero does the “honorable” thing by killing himself at the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas – leaving his fortune to her so she can move on and he is no longer a “burden” to her. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, “Me Before You” is little more than a disability snuff film, giving audiences the message that if you’re a disabled person, you’re better off dead.

WAYS YOU CAN PROTEST:

  • Two or more people can peacefully hand out a LEAFLET (National: Black & White or Color; for California protesters, version with an added sentence about the assisted suicide law going into effect on June 9th: California flyer)
  • Display a “Me Before You” protest banner which can be made at local print shops
  • Send a press release ( you can use NDY’s template release, including local contacts) to send to your local media.
  • Join the worldwide social media Thunderclap.
  • Twitter using #MeBeforeYou #LiveBoldly #MeBeforeEuthanasia #MeBeforeAbleism
  • Share the articles linked below with friends and colleagues.

For more information, see the following articles:

For More Information or to discuss your plans, contact John Kelly (jkelly@notdeadyet.org) or Diane Coleman (dcoleman@notdeadyet.org).