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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Email: bhaller@towson.edu December
3, 2021
Website: https://www.gadim.org/
GADIM partners with
FilmDis; revamps website
FilmDis study shows
that almost 90% of disabled characters on TV are played by nondisabled actors
December 3, 2021 - The Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (GADIM) is pleased to announce its new partnership with FilmDis, a media monitoring organization created by screenwriting and directing duo, Dominick Evans & Ashtyn Law. GADIM, which was founded in 2016 by journalist Patricia Almeida in Brazil, lawyer Cátia Malaquias of Australia, and professor Beth Haller of the USA, was created to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities in mass media. GADIM also announces its website redesign.
GADIM sponsored the second FilmDis study, which examined disability representation on scripted entertainment television in 2019/2020. The study found 1,198 disabled characters across 30 TV networks & streaming services, but it was rarely authentic representation. Only 128 characters, about 11 percent, were played by disabled actors, which is defined as the actor having at least one of the disabilities they portrayed.
Other significant findings were that almost 43 percent of the disabled characters were cisgender white males. For more information about the study, visit GADIM’s Media Analysis Study web page, https://gadim.org/project/media-analysis-study/.
Evans and Law explain that “there is much more to disabled lives than what we see (on TV), and with Hollywood in desperate need of fresh stories and voices, disabled creators and their ideas for television are ripe for the picking. Hollywood just needs to let the stories bloom.”
GADIM’s revised website has several significant new features such as pages for media Best Practices in advertising, news, and entertainment media and a page about how mass media can make their content more accessible.
“The partnership with FilmDis and the revamped website allows GADIM to better reach its goal of helping mass media globally to improve their portrayals of disability,” said co-director Beth Haller. “GADIM believes that people with disabilities must be involved in all aspects of mass media content to convey their authentic stories.”
GADIM’s mission is informed by Article 8 (Awareness-raising) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). A summary of Article 8 states: “As a change of perceptions is essential to improve the situation of persons with disabilities, ratifying countries are to combat stereotypes and prejudices and promote awareness of the capabilities of persons with disabilities.”
GADIM activities include being judges for the MIPCOM Diversify TV Excellence Awards for the international television industry, providing feedback on disability representation for Lionsgate Films, and co-hosting a conference on Disability, Media, and Human Rights in 2018 in Perth, Australia.
GADIM will become a registered non-profit in 2022.
December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and on this day, GADIM joins the international #WeThe15 campaign in an effort to promote accessibility and inclusion globally for the 15% of the world’s population who live with a disability (1.2 billion people).
For more information about the FilmDis study, contact
Dominick Evans at info@filmdis.com.
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