Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies

Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies - Hardcover

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Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies
  • Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies
Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies - Hardcover

Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies - Hardcover

by Kristen Lopez
$34.95
$34.95

Book Overview

You can learn a lot from the movies-about sex and relationships, about business, about history. Sure, there's a fair amount of fantasy, wish fulfillment, and glorious hair to exaggerate everything, but for better or for worse, films remain one of the most important ways that viewers around the world learn about other people and cultures. And almost since the dawn of the medium, movies have shaped the public's understanding of and assumptions about disability.

As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented-and too often misrepresented-in movies. Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned but nonetheless fun and engaging survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century. As she reveals, even when they're not just narrative props to help out an able-bodied protagonist, disabled movie characters are overwhelmingly white, affluent, and conventionally attractive, obscuring the variety of disabilities and the experiences of those who deal with them. But she also explains where films have gotten it right and how the power of the medium can continue to be used to enlighten and educate in the future. From little-remembered gems like Tod Browning's Freaks-one of the earliest well-intentioned attempts to show disabled characters as complex, three-dimensional human beings-to contemporary films like Coda, My Left Foot, A Different Man, and many others, it challenges popular assumptions about disability while never losing sight of movies' unique power, influence, and potential as a tool for social good.
ISBN9781493086337
Author Kristen Lopez
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
GenreArts
FormatHardcover
PublishedNovember 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages240
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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About Kristen Lopez

Kristen Lopez is an author, entertainment journalist, and disability expert. She has worked as an entertainment journalist for over 15 years, with her articles appearing at Variety, MTV, TCM, and Roger Ebert. A California native, Kristen was raised in a small suburb near Sacramento and graduated with a Masters in English from California State University, Sacramento. She is the creator of the classic film podcast, Ticklish Business. Based in Los Angeles, she enjoys reading and finding Old Hollywood connections in her neighborhood in her free time. She is the author of But Have You Read the Book? and Popcorn Disability.

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