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Disability Bitch: We own the Oscars!

3rd March 2011

• Disability Bitch is published every Thursday.
• The rest of the time, you can follow her on and .
The Hollywood hills
Readers, it's been quite a week for disabled people. And, yet again, we've triumphed. At a time when The Crippified(TM) are panicking about their futures, pouring over documents on welfare reform, and worrying about long term job and healthcare prospects, there's one place which will always welcome our kind with open arms - Hollywood.

You should by now know that Britain's Colin Firth at this week's Academy Award ceremony for his portrayal of a stammering monarch in The King's Speech. Mr Darcy Firth, if I may be so bold as to address you directly: I know I'm a bit late to the party, but congratulations on your Oscar win. And yes, I do really mean that, honest. After all, , and neither did many stammering people.

This is something of a miracle because, generally speaking, I do hate all non-disabled actors who try to play us lot. They're just slightly rubbish, in my considered experience, and disabled actors often get upset that abled folk are stealing jobs away from them, despite apparently being born to play certain roles.
Colin Firth with his Oscar and his wife Livia
Colin Firth clutches his Academy Award as he stands next to his wife Livia (in her dry-clean only dress).
Maybe this one was helped by the fact that its writer, David Seidler - now an Oscar winner in his own right - was himself a stammerer in childhood.

Anyhow, after years of hating on the Ableds who parade down the red carpet this time every year, flaunting their perfectly-formed bodies and their dry-clean only fashions, I've decided that I LOVE THE OSCARS, and not just because I want one of those absurd ballgowns for myself.

Course, if I ever did win one of those golden statuettes, I'd need three additional personal assistants to help me squeeze my unfortunately deformed body into it. There's little doubt that I'd fall over on the red carpet whilst trying to look elegant and spill champagne down it within minutes of getting through the door but I'd happily endure that for a swanky evening at the Kodak Theatre.

Does anyone know of a high-end mobility supplier who could furnish me with some wipe-clean haute couture?
A smiling Geoffrey Rush
Back to my point. Colin, the floppy-haired wonder, is just the latest in a long line of actors to win an Oscar for playing Abnormal. Heck, I can hardly even keep up with all the inability-centric films which have dominated the Oscars lists over the last few decades: Avatar, Forrest Gump, Million Dollar Baby, The English Patient, Rain Man, The Piano, My Left Foot, A Beautiful Mind, The Usual Suspects ... and that's just for starters. I'm only stopping because my computer would run out of memory if I carried on.

Disableds may be personae non gratae in every other part of society at the moment but, readers, we OWN the Oscars!
Tom Hanks
In Real Life, the people who balance the books of every Western nation are wishing disabled people would stop absorbing resources and disappear into their own tax hole, but, over in Los Angeles, A-List actors are virtually begging to get hold of a script with one of us sewn into it.

Sure, we don't get to play the parts ourselves - that would be too, too much - but these superstar actors, when they want an incy wincy bit of credibility, it's us, The Disabled, they turn to for help. Our lives are just too fascinating. Let's lap it up, readers. It's possibly the only bit of sunshine we'll get for a while.

Facebook / Twitter

Twitter has been eventful this week. Logging on one morning, I wondered why the term 'sciatica' was trending. It didn't take much research to discover that Stephen Fry had a pain in his leg and had asked the Twitterverse what it might be. Overwhelmed by Mr Fry's power, I suggested to my followers that we should tweet him the names of our favourite impairments, in the hope that we could get one of those to trend next.

If, unlike Stephen Fry, you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm . If you're old school, you can become my fan on too.

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