“These contestants inspire us not to take things for granted. So please, enjoy the show!”
“The Invalids” is a short film written, directed, and edited by Chrissy Marshall (2023 Disability Belongs™ Entertainment Lab alum) which threads the needle in depicting the exploitation of people with disabilities for a non-disabled audience while also centering disabled characters. Set in a dystopian future that combines the coercive game show elements of “Squid Game” with the unflinching contrast between the haves and have-nots of “The Hunger Games,” we follow Erin and Mira as they try to survive clinical trials.
Before we ever see the “contestants” of these games, we start in an opulent room full of affluent young people gathered in front of a television in excitement for the show to begin. This puts us as the viewer in the same voyeuristic position as the enthusiastic audience of the show, not allowing us distance from our participation in the exploitation media like this requires. When Erin and Mira are forced to complete physical trials set up to be impossible while using a wheelchair, it’s hard to watch their struggle without feeling the eyes of the others in our watch party prickling the back of our necks.
We are typically exposed to the spectacle of disabled people’s stories for the benefit of a non-disabled audience through tropes like “Inspiration Porn” (which former Disability Belongs™ Communications Fellow Lydia Moro did a great job explaining in her article here). “The Invalids” strips away the facade of uplifting people with disabilities and leaves the audience unable to turn to a happy ending to justify dehumanizing the disabled experience. The visual contrast between the location where the contestants compete in clinical trials and the posh room the TV audience lounges in underlines the difference in privilege each of these groups have.
Another highlight of this short was how the team prioritized authentic casting both in front and behind the camera, from Assistant Director Jayla Hodge (2023 Disability Belongs™ Entertainment Lab alum) to Actor Harold Foxx (2021 Lab alum). It can be difficult to demonstrate the abuse of a group of people without also creating a piece of art that falls under the same critique. Ensuring the presence of people in the room who are part of the community the creative team is trying to uplift is doubly important in making a nuanced story like this successful.
“The Invalids” was produced as part of this year’s Easterseals Disability Film Challenge (EDFC), an annual five-day competition, founded by Nic Novicki, in which filmmakers must create original three-to-five minute films based on a different theme each year, with this year’s theme being “thriller.”
This review was written by Disability Belongs™ Philanthropy and Development Fellow Allen Martsch and edited by Disability Belongs™ Entertainment and Media Fellow Olivia Hall.
