Entertainment and Media

Promoting Authentic, Diverse, and Inclusive Portrayals Across Entertainment & Media

TV, Film, Streaming, Gaming, and News
Since producing the Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit in 2018, Disability Belongs™ has become a trusted resource within the entertainment industry. Our Entertainment and Media Team has conducted dozens of trainings on the why and how to be more inclusive and accessible for entertainment executives throughout the industry. In addition, we have worked on more than 500 TV episodes and films by partnering with studios and production companies from development all the way through production and promotion/publicity. By partnering with studios, production companies, writers’ rooms, news rooms, and independent filmmakers, we increase authentic off-screen and on-screen disability representation, effecting systemic change in how society views people with disabilities.

Disability Belongs™’ Entertainment and Media team members have conducted trainings for and worked on projects with A&E, Bunim-Murray Productions, CAA, DreamWorks Animation, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros. Discovery, among others.

This is accomplished by Disability Belongs™’ six full-time programmatic Entertainment and Media staff and a team of more than 30 trained alumni of Disability Belongs™ pipeline programming who now serve as project consultants. 100% are disabled entertainment industry professionals while 70% are women or nonbinary and 52% are people of color.

In addition, Disability Belongs™ Entertainment and Media team members have served on the CAA Full Story Initiative Advisory Council, Disney+ Content Advisory Council, MTV Entertainment Group Culture Code and Sundance Institute’s Allied Organization Initiative, among others. These collaborations allow us to ensure the disability lens is added to larger existing DEIA conversations.

Entertainment Lab

diverse group of summer lab participants with disabilities posing for photo on Walt Disney lot

2019 Summer Lab Participants visiting The Walt Disney Company Lot in Burbank, California

Since 2019, our award-winning Entertainment Lab elevates disabled creatives, focusing on building community, networking, and career advancement. We help develop the talent pipeline of disabled writers, directors, and others behind-the-camera, while introducing them to executives who advise Lab Fellows on various aspects of the industry and their craft, and in turn, enabling studios and production companies to learn about the talents and benefits of hiring disabled people.

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Entertainment Media Consultancy and Partnership Team

Ensure All Stages of Your Production are Disability-Inclusive and Accessible: From Development to the Writer’s Room to Physical Production to Marketing

We connect the industry to experts with lived disability experience to advise on all things disability inclusion, equity, and access throughout the overall storytelling process. Since 2015, Disability Belongs™ team members have worked on more than 500 TV episodes and films across all aspects of the production from development to marketing.

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The Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit

With Hollywood striving to boost diversity and inclusion, opening the inclusion umbrella for America’s largest minority – the one-in-five Americans with a disability – is the right thing to do as well as economically smart given that the disability market is valued at more than $1 trillion. According to Nielsen Research, consumers with disabilities represent a $1 billion market segment. When you include their families, friends and associates, that total expands to more than $1 trillion. Americans with disabilities represent the third largest market behind Baby Boomers and the mature market. 1.2 billion people on earth have a disability.

However, storytellers often make glaring, yet easy to avoid, errors when covering our community. The purpose of the toolkit is to help entertainment professionals who wish to ensure they are as inclusive of people with disabilities as possible. The creation of this toolkit would not have been possible without the financial support of California Endowment.

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National Disability Employment Awareness Month Entertainment Media Summit

Throughout the month of October, Disability Belongs™ showcased entertainment industry leaders and supporters of disability inclusion for advancement as well as community building. Through a combination of forward-facing panels and breakout networking rooms, participants learned about writing, directing, producing, self-advocacy, and more.

Examples of Best Practices

With one-in-five people (one-in-four adults) having a disability, the lack of representation – just 2.8% of onscreen characters and less than one percent in children’s television – means that millions of people are unable to see themselves in popular media today. Furthermore, when representation does exist, it is often white, cisgender males with apparent disabilities. Disability Belongs™’ Entertainment and Media team has partnered with numerous studios and production companies to change these statistics and ensure authentic, intersectional representation, highlighting the full diversity of the disability community.

Scripted Episodic Content:

NBC’s New Amsterdam overwhelmingly has been an example of best practices through the hiring of actors with disabilities, working with consultants to ensure accurate storylines and including conversations about diverse topics within the disability community. An important episode in season 2 featured Gigi Cunningham, a young Black actress with Down syndrome. Disability Belongs™ team members provided insight on the episode’s script, which touched on so many hot-button topics, from abortion to conservatorship, conservative Christianity to inadequate health care in rural areas, and so much more. In addition, they helped ensure that Gigi Cunningham was properly accommodated while on set.

Feature Films:

Cha Cha Real Smooth: Disability Belongs™ was involved from pre-production through distribution to advise on representation, casting, and accessibility for the Apple TV+ original coming-of-age film. The love interest’s daughter is autistic and was played by newcomer Vanessa Burghardt, an actress with autism. This film found success at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where Apple purchased the film for $15 million.
Eternals: The 26th installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featured a diverse ensemble cast that included deaf Mexican- and African-American actress Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, a character who was originally portrayed as a hearing, white man in the comics. Deafness was represented on-screen but also off-screen in the form of consumer products, with Disability Belongs™ Board Member Delbert Whetter even advising on the official Makkari action figure, which is signing, “I love you.” Working on Eternals also allowed our team to push for accessibility for viewers of the film. As reported by The Walt Disney Company, “Marvel Studios consulted RespectAbility, a disability-led nonprofit, to create accessible marketing materials and host an inclusive premiere to debut Eternals. This Hollywood event featured an open caption screening with onsite ASL interpreters at the El Capitan Theatre and was live-streamed with ASL interpreters in a Picture-In-Picture box for viewers at home.” In addition, discussions between Disability Belongs™ and studios led to AMC Theaters’ decision to expand open-captioned screenings, which can dramatically transform the moviegoing experience for Deaf/hard of hearing audiences, as well as hearing people who benefit from captions, for the better. The 430 million Deaf and hard-of-hearing people around the world represent a global consumer market that is well worth their attention. There is more work to do, but we are so excited with this new direction, and humbled to have played a role in it.

Preschool and Children’s Episodic Content:

Disability Belongs™ team members helped ensure the authentic representation of multiple disabled characters in the Disney Channel series Firebuds, which is set in a fantastical world where talking vehicles live, work, and play with the humans who drive them. The episode “Cleft Hood” (2023) introduced Castor, a vehicle character born with a cleft hood. “Wrong Way Rescue” (2023) highlights a learning disability not commonly known called Dyscalculia. “Sleepover Stakeout” (2022) introduced Jazzy, a wheelchair user who was also authentically voiced by disabled actress Lauren “Lolo” Spencer. Jazzy is a recurring character who is highlighted in a variety of episodes. For example, “All That Jazzy” (2023) follows the eponymous character, a young Black girl with spina bifida, whose “vroom-mate” is wheelchair car Piper (Sammi Haney). After watching a dance performance starring Ayanna (Tatiana Lee) and Gliderbella (Ali Stroker), Jazzy is inspired to become a lead dancer too. This episode features four disabled female characters and voice actors.
Disability Belongs™ team members worked on the second season of the Disney Channel series The Ghost and Molly McGee, which introduces new neighbors, the Chens – Ruben, Esther, Ollie, and June (an autistic character). June Chen is AAPI and authentically voiced by Sue Pien. June being quickly accepted by the McGees is great modeling for children and their families watching this series.
In April 2021, PBS KIDS added a new character to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: Max, who offered an authentic representation of Autism for children and adult audiences alike. Rachel Kalban, Vice President of Research and Curriculum at 9 Story Media Group, credited the Disability Belongs™ team for elevating the intersection of race and disability, ultimately making Max a Black autistic child instead of a white child, noting the systemic barriers and prejudice that lead to children of color being less likely to be diagnosed than their white peers. Since the launch of this character, 9 Story Media Group has engaged Disability Belongs™ in several additional upcoming shows.
Jazzy, June, and Max also represent the diversity missing from disability representation, allowing millions of children who previously could not see themselves on screen to be represented.

Family Episodic Content:

Disability Belongs™ began working on Netflix’s Mech Cadets in 2020 and the show premiered in August 2023. The series features a disabled character that was scripted by a disabled writer and voices by a disabled actor – and both of those folks were connected to the team by Disability Belongs™. Shortly after being brought on, we recommended the hiring a of a disabled writer to the writers’ room. We then submitted seven writers, sharing their resumes and writing samples. Ultimately, Disability Belongs™ Entertainment Lab alumna Ashley Eakin was hired, and she helped develop the character and scripted two episodes. Throughout our work, we also recommended Josh Sundquist to voice the character of Frank Olivetti, an above-knee amputee. One storyline we worked on involved the rare nuance of wearing a prosthetic via choice, and not just assumed. In addition, we worked closely with the animators to ensure Frank – and his prosthetic – was animated correctly. The production company, Boom Studios, enlisted our help with marketing and promotion.
During the summer of 2022, Disability Belongs™ advised the producers on accessibility and disability inclusion behind the camera for Apple TV+’s Best Foot Forward, which centers on a 12-year-old boy who is the only child at his school with a limb difference. We recommended crew prior to production that fall. As covered by the New York Times, five members of the crew are Disability Belongs™ Entertainment Lab alumni including Sam Zapiain, Marissa Erickson, Kiah Amara, Ashley Eakin, and Tyler Hoog. What makes Best Foot Forward unique is the intentionality behind bringing in disabled crew across all levels, from production assistant to director. The Disability Belongs™ team also connected Kiah Amara, a Production Accessibility Coordinator to the team. This allowed the disabled writers and crew to not also be tasked with educating non-disabled colleagues and advocating for accessibility, as Amara’s job covered all of this. Ashley Eakin, who directed two episodes, became eligible to join the Directors Guild of America following this work. This has made it easier for Eakin to find future directorial work.
Our team members worked on Netflix’s family show The Healing Powers of Dude (2020) on the role of Amara (Sophie Kim), a middle schooler succeeding in both her academic and theatrical career. Kim is an actress with muscular dystrophy who uses a power wheelchair, authentically portraying a character who uses a wheelchair. We became partners with the writers’ room, providing consultants with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. In one episode, the lead character’s parents build a ramp so Amara can get in, becoming a good “teaching moment” for audience viewers since most houses would not be accessible for wheelchair users. We worked closely with the production team as they found accessible housing for the actress, built sets with universal design in mind, and ensured the character of Sophie was fully included. We also worked with the marketing team, being fully involved from the development stage through promotion.

Unscripted Content:

In September 2021, Born For Business launched on Peacock. Created by former Disability Belongs™ board member Jonathan Murray, our team members worked with the crew to ensure authentic representation and accessibility for the four disabled cast members who have lupus, Down syndrome, spinal muscular atrophy, and anxiety. This powerful docuseries shined the spotlight on the untold stories of four entrepreneurs with disabilities. Born For Business gives viewers an insider’s look at what it takes to launch and run a thriving small business. This dynamic unscripted series uniquely highlighted disabled people for their innovation and resilience, as disabled individuals are more likely than their non-disabled counterparts to be entrepreneurs.
From 2015-2019, A&E’s Born This Way (Bunim-Murray Productions), an internationally syndicated TV series, chronicled the lives of seven men and women with Down syndrome who are defying society’s expectations by striking out on their own and pursuing dreams including jobs, housing, health and marriage. The widely popular show has earned 3 Emmy Awards and a Critics’ Choice Award. In addition to providing consulting advice, Disability Belongs™ staff also organized a Hollywood-style premiere on Capitol Hill, showing the pilot episode with members of Congress, cast members, and an A&E executive speaking. We galvanized national disability organizations and created social media campaigns to motivate their members to watch and share. Most impressively, the show’s audience grew to one-million viewers in the first season, with 40 percent of those viewers being new to the A&E Network, showing that including disability is profitable.

Video Games:

In May 2021, PlayStation launched the video game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Our team members served as accessibility consultants. This game not only includes a central character with a prosthetic but also is an industry leader in terms of its accessibility for consumers. “The RespectAbility consultants helped us identify areas of the story where the characters’ disabilities could be perceived negatively and they suggested opportunities to show them as being resourceful, multi-faceted, and heroic,” said Insomniac Games’ Director of Experience Brian Allgeier. “It’s been amazing to see the outpouring of love for these characters, especially from the disabled community. We’re excited about continuing to create worlds that represent characters from a wide range of backgrounds, and we hope it continues to resonate with our fans.”