Saturday, April 07, 2007
Look Out for Bad Guys with Inhalers
Everyone's got problems. In The Lookout, former high-school hockey star Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) has cognitive disabilities stemming from a youthful indiscretion involving a fast car, fireflies and farm equipment. His roommate Lewis (Jeff Bridges) was blinded while cooking up a batch of crystal meth. Bad guy Gary Spago (Matthew Goode) frequently uses an inhaler, and "Bone," the No. 1 Henchman, wears sunglasses throughout the film, indicating extreme sensitivity to bright light. And as for the love interest and pole-dancer Luvlee (Isla Fisher), she's disablingly hot.
This portrayal of disabled people as both protagonists and antagonists seems to depart from the James Bond formula in which physical disability represents moral impairment. Almost all of the Bond villains have something wrong with them, including Casino Royale's "Bloody-Eye" Le Chiffre, sporting a platinum inhaler for dramatic effect.
When the good guys and the bad guys all have disabilities, how can the audience tell them apart? In "The Lookout," that's simple. The bad guys with disabilities are the ones planning to do something wrong in the future (i.e. rob a bank), while the good guys with disabilities have already done something wrong (i.e. reckless driving, making drugs) and they now suffer their disabilities as a punishment for past sins.
It would be refreshing to see disabled people portrayed as heroes without a moralistic reason for why they're disabled, but "The Lookout" isn't that film. Because of Hollywood's pernicious influence, whenever I see someone using an inhaler, such as at a housewarming party last night with Scooter's friends from work, I nudge Scooter to indicate, "Hey, look, there's someone using an inhaler who's probably up to no good."
This portrayal of disabled people as both protagonists and antagonists seems to depart from the James Bond formula in which physical disability represents moral impairment. Almost all of the Bond villains have something wrong with them, including Casino Royale's "Bloody-Eye" Le Chiffre, sporting a platinum inhaler for dramatic effect.
When the good guys and the bad guys all have disabilities, how can the audience tell them apart? In "The Lookout," that's simple. The bad guys with disabilities are the ones planning to do something wrong in the future (i.e. rob a bank), while the good guys with disabilities have already done something wrong (i.e. reckless driving, making drugs) and they now suffer their disabilities as a punishment for past sins.
It would be refreshing to see disabled people portrayed as heroes without a moralistic reason for why they're disabled, but "The Lookout" isn't that film. Because of Hollywood's pernicious influence, whenever I see someone using an inhaler, such as at a housewarming party last night with Scooter's friends from work, I nudge Scooter to indicate, "Hey, look, there's someone using an inhaler who's probably up to no good."
Labels: movies
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