‘I’m not a thing to be pitied:' the disability backlash against Me Before You

From The Guardian in the UK:

When the marketing team behind Me Before You came up with the hashtag #LiveBoldly to promote this story of a young disabled man considering assisted dying, they could scarcely have predicted that it would be used to expose the movie’s problematic message. “Do you really want us to #LiveBoldly or do you just want us to #diequickly?” asked one commenter during a Twitter Q&A session last week with the film’s star, Sam Claflin. He plays Will, a wealthy former playboy who becomes involved with Lou (Emilia Clarke), a kooky misfit in thrift-shop chic. It’s rather as if Thomas Crown had fallen for Amélie. 

The film, adapted by Jojo Moyes from her own best-selling novel, portrays the burgeoning romance between these two apparently mismatched souls. But their differences are not simply sartorial. Lou has full use of her body. Will has been quadriplegic since a road accident several years earlier. Before Lou became his carer, Will decided he wanted to kill himself. Now the Dignitas paperwork is in the post and it seems that Lou’s chipper disposition can do nothing to change his mind. A spoiler alert will be necessary for anyone who hasn’t read the book and so won’t know that he goes ahead with his plan.

The full meaning of the name “Will” becomes clear only after he dies and leaves Lou more money than she has ever seen. It will be enough cash, he says, for her to swap her timid life for adventure. The problem, according to activists who picketed the film’s premiere last week, is this motto applies in this context only to the able-bodied – and comes at the cost of a disabled man’s life. Many of those same activists also used Twitter to take issue with the film. 

The full meaning of the name “Will” becomes clear only after he dies and leaves Lou more money than she has ever seen. It will be enough cash, he says, for her to swap her timid life for adventure. The problem, according to activists who picketed the film’s premiere last week, is this motto applies in this context only to the able-bodied – and comes at the cost of a disabled man’s life. Many of those same activists also used Twitter to take issue with the film. The hashtag#MeBeforeEuthanasia was used by @grindmastrgrant, who tweeted: “I’m not your inspiration porn and I’m not a thing to be pitied or killed off to make the audience cry,” while @JohnBrianKelly wrote: “I have Will’s disability. Stop killing me on film! #liveboldly, fight cripple snuff films.” 

The idea that it is better to be dead than disabled has been seen many times before. In Million Dollar Baby, it is expressed in a mercy killing. In Whose Life Is It Anyway? and The Sea Inside, it takes the form of a quadriplegic man fighting the medical establishment for his right to die. The familiar spectre of the worthless disabled body is hidden behind the apparently valiant struggle of an individual against the state. 

Of course, it would be wrong to pretend that suicide and disability are mutually exclusive. The Sea Inside is based on Ramón Sampedro’s life, while Me Before You is partly inspired by the 23-year-old rugby player Daniel James, who chose to kill himself after a severe spinal injury. (His parents said he was “not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence”.) But the screen-time granted to these stories, to the exclusion of more diverse representations of disability, has helped plant in the public consciousness the notion that life is worth less when it resides in a disabled body. 

 

“We have so few opportunities in the media to explore disability,” says the actor and activist Liz Carr, who participated in the protest. “But there is a disproportionate number of stories which relate to the ‘problem’ of disability being solved by death. Television and film seem to love those individuals who want to die. They’re less keen to cover the rest of us who might want to live but are struggling to get the health and social care resources to do so.” 

“We have so few opportunities in the media to explore disability,” says the actor and activist Liz Carr, who participated in the protest. “But there is a disproportionate number of stories which relate to the ‘problem’ of disability being solved by death. Television and film seem to love those individuals who want to die. They’re less keen to cover the rest of us who might want to live but are struggling to get the health and social care resources to do so.” 

The screenplay offers one pre-emptive riposte to the charge that it is speaking for all disabled people. “I get that this could be a good life,” says Will. “But it’s not my life. I can’t be the sort of man who accepts this.” Since Will is shown to be strong, determined and uncompromising, it seems clear that the “sort of man” who would put up with a paralysed body and its demands could only be inferior to him. This problem could be tempered, if not solved, by the presence of just one disabled character to provide some contrast and show that suicide isn’t the only option. But there isn’t one. The film isolates Will entirely, stacking the odds so that the choice to take his own life is made to seem like the logical one. 

“When non-disabled people talk of suicide, they’re discouraged and offered prevention,” she says. “Even though it’s legal, it’s not seen as desirable. When a disabled person talks of it, though, suddenly the conversation is overtaken with words like ‘choice’ and ‘autonomy’ and people are rushing to uphold these prized principles whilst talk of prevention and mental health support are rare. Will is not offered any psychiatric support. What kind of message is this that we’re giving disabled people and the non-disabled audiences?” 

Only in its acknowledgement of economic disparity does Me Before You come close to being honest. Accompanying Will to a glitzy wedding, Lou puts it to him that he would not even be talking to her were she not his carer. In fact, she would most likely be serving the drinks at such a function. A working-class woman like her would be as invisible socially to him and his friends as the disabled are to the rest of society. 

Disability in popular culture often exists to allow the able-bodied to unlock their potential. Lou is a beneficiary of Will’s death, not unlike the struggling novelist inBetty Blue, who is inspired to write his next book only once he has smothered his hospitalised girlfriend. But Lou’s story also plays like a chaste, romantic ideal dreamed up by the abstinence lobby. Will won’t be making any sexual demands on Lou. And, like the perfect terminally ill boyfriend in The Fault in Our Stars, he won’t stick around to get old and wrinkly: Lou can treasure the image of her handsome billionaire forever. As love stories go, it’s every bit as creepy as Ghost, which suggested that the perfect relationship was exclusively spiritual, or Pretty Woman, which proposed the idea of prostitution as a short-cut to true love. 

One of the improvements that Will makes in Lou’s life is to open her eyes to foreign-language films. This he does by showing her Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois’s 2010 drama inspired by the French Cistercian monks in Tibhirine, Algeria, who refused to flee in 1996 despite violence from Islamic extremists. The monks made themselves martyrs rather than forsake the area and its people. Will’s choice is entirely symbolic: it prepares Lou, and the audience, for the idea of self-sacrifice. Somehow this manages to feel like an insult both to disabled people in general and those monks in particular. If their murder is analogous to Will’s choice to kill himself so that Lou can have a buffer of wealth, then the stock-price of martyrdom has plummeted since the days of Joan of Arc. 

It’s typical of the soft-pedalling tendency found in Me Before You that it borrows the most evasive element of Beauvois’s film. When the monks trudge off to meet their terrible fate, it is in a blizzard; they fade from view prettily, in contrast to other characters seen having their throats slit. They get a send-off every bit as euphemistic as Thelma and Louise, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Me Before You does the same for Will. One minute he’s lying fetchingly in his bed at Dignitas, the next we dissolve to Lou receiving news of her windfall in a Parisian cafe. This movie which has stood proudly behind Will’s decision to die seems in an awful hurry to conceal what that might entail. Death, like disabled people who choose to live boldly, is nowhere to be seen. 

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

Toyota teams with Segway inventor to revive innovative iBot wheelchair

From Mashable:

Dean Kamen, the man who gave us the Segway, has teamed up with Toyota to bring back another one of his most fascinating transportation devices: the iBot.

The iBot debuted back in the late '90s as an innovative multi-wheel chair that gave wheelchair-bound users the ability to travel up steep stairways, elevate themselves to the height of a standing person and even traverse rough, outside terrain. However, with a cost of about $25,000 per unit, the device simply didn't find enough users to stick around, as the device was officially discontinued in 2009. 

Now, in an announcement posted on its website on Saturday, Toyota has pledged to work with Kamen's Deka Research to launch a next generation version of the iBot.Kamen even appears in a new video (see below) riding the iBot, detailing the vision and reasoning behind bringing the device back into the market. 

"Our company is very focused on mobility solutions for all people," Osamu 'Simon' Nagata, chief administrative officer at Toyota Motor North America, said in a statement on Toyota's website. "We realize that it is important to help older adults and people with special needs live well and continue to contribute their talents and experience to the world." 

Toyota will also license Deka's balancing technology for the development of other medical rehabilitative therapeutic solutions.  

No price or release date for the next iteration of the iBot has been announced, but given the history of the first, potential users can at least hope for a lower price in the future. 

Nyle DiMarco makes history to become first Deaf contestant to win 'Dancing With the Stars'

From Out magazine:

As the weeks passed, the producers should have really just changed the name of Dancing With the Stars to Nyle DiMarco Slays Everyone and No One Complains. 

The 27-year-old deaf model and actor took home the Mirrorball trophy with dancing partner Peta Murgatroyd during the competition’s finale May 24. 

This is DiMarco's second TV competition win, after gaining national fame for dominating the 22nd and final cycle of America’s Next Top Model. 

DiMarco has turned his reality-show fame and created a platform for advocating for deaf and hearing-impaired people everywhere. Several of his most memorable performances—including his freelance dance to Disturbed’s cover of “The Sound of Silence"—were inspired by his life as a deaf man. 

He dedicated his win to the deaf community on Facebook. 

“This is for 70 million of deaf people in the world!” he wrote. “Winning this is a HUGE step to ending LANGUAGE DEPRIVATION of millions.

Why Siri won't listen to millions of people with disabilities

From Scientific American:

Emma Mattes has given up on Siri. No matter how clearly or slowly Mattes speaks, the Apple iPhone’s iconic voice-recognition technology has been no help to the 69-year-old woman from Seminole, Fla. She struggles with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological voice disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the vocal cords, producing shaky and unstable speech. Her car’s Bluetooth voice system does not understand her either.  

Voice interfaces like Siri have now been sold in millions of products ranging from smartphones and Ford vehicles to smart TVs and the Amazon Echo. These systems promise to let people check the weather, lock their house doors, place a hands-free call while driving, record a TV show and buy the latest Beyoncé album with simple voice commands. They tout freedom from buttons and keyboards and promise nearly endless possibilities. 

But the glittering new technology cannot be used by more than nine million people in the U.S. with voice disabilities like Mattes nor by stutterers or those afflicted with cerebral palsy and other disorders. “Speech recognizers are targeted at the vast majority of people at that center point on a bell curve. Everyone else is on the edges,” explained Todd Mozer, CEO of the Silicon Valley–based company Sensory, which has voice-recognition chips in a variety of consumer products like Samsung Galaxy phones and Bluetooth headsets. 

Worse, help for people like Mattes may be a long way off. Although voice recognition is getting more accurate, experts say it is still not very good at recognizing many atypical voices or speech patterns. 

Researchers are trying to develop more inclusive voice recognizers, but that technology has serious hurdles to overcome. 

People on Mozer’s “edges” include approximately 4 percent of the U.S. population that had trouble using their voices for one week or longer during the past 12 months because of a speech, language or vocal problem, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Dysarthria, which is slow or slurred speech that can be caused by cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, stroke and a variety of other medical conditions, are part of this spectrum of problems. And the trouble extends worldwide. Cerebral palsy, for instance, affects the speech of Mike Hamill, of Invercargill, New Zealand, who was born with the disease and developed swallowing and throat control difficulties in his 30s. As a result, his speech is often strained and erratic. 

People who stutter also have trouble using voice-recognition technology, like automated phone menus, because these systems do not recognize their disjointed speech, says Jane Fraser, president of The Stuttering Foundation of America. 

There are other problems, such as vocal cord paralysis or vocal cysts, which tend to be less severe and are usually temporary. But these disorders can still reduce accuracy in speech recognition. For example, in a 2011 study that appeared in Biomedical Engineering Online researchers used a conventional automatic speech-recognition system to compare the accuracy of normal voices and those with six different vocal disorders. The technology was 100 percent correct at recognizing the speech of normal subjects but accuracy varied between 56 and 82.5 percent for patients with different types of voice ailments. 

For individuals with severe speech disorders like dysarthria, this technology’s word-recognition rates can be between 26.2 percent and 81.8 percent lower than for the general population, according to researchpublished in Speech Communication by Frank Rudzicz, a computer scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “There’s a lot of variation among people with these disorders, so it’s hard to narrow down one model that would work for all of them,” Rudzicz says. 

This vocal variation is exactly why systems like Siri and Bluetooth have such a hard time understanding people with speech and voice disorders. Around 2012 companies started using neural networks to power voice-recognition products. Neural networks learn from a variety of speech samples and predictable patterns. Intelligent personal assistants like Siri and Google Now were not that robust when they first came out in 2011 and 2012, respectively. But they got better as they acquired more data from many different speakers, Mozer says. Now, these systems can do a lot more. Many companies boast an 8 percent or less word error rate, says Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research at the Consumer Technology Association. 

Amazon Echo, which became widely available in June 2015, has a voice recognizer called Alexa that is targeted to perform specific functions such as fetching news from local radio stations, accessing music streaming services and ordering merchandise on Amazon. The device also has voice controls for alarms and timers as well as shopping and to-do lists. Over time Amazon has been adding more functions. 

But the nature of speech and vocal disabilities is that they produce random and unpredictable voices, and voice-recognition systems cannot identify patterns to train on. Apple and Amazon declined to address this problem directly when asked to comment, but said via email that, in general, they intend to improve their technology. Microsoft, which developed the speech-recognition personal assistant Cortana, said via a spokesperson that the company strives to be “intentionally inclusive of everyone from the beginning” when designing and building products and services. 

To find solutions, companies and researchers have looked to lip-reading, which has been used by some deaf and hard of hearing people for years. Lip-reading technology could provide additional data to make voice recognizers more accurate, but these systems are still in their early stages. At the University of East Anglia in England, computer scientist Richard Harvey and his colleagues are working on lip-reading technology that spells out speech when voice recognition is not enough to determine what a person is saying. “Lip-reading alone will not make you able to deal with speech disability any better. But it helps because you get more information,” Harvey says. 

Some products and systems might be more amenable to learning unusual voices, researchers say. A bank’s voice-automated customer service phone system or a car’s hands-free phone system have limited vocabularies—so hypothetically, Harvey says it would be easier to build a set of algorithms that recognize different versions and pronunciations for a fixed set of words. But these systems still use some unique words like the user’s name, which have to be learned. 

Another possibility is that devices could have the ability to ask clarifying questions to users when their voice-recognition systems do not immediately understand them, DuBravac says. 

Better-designed neural networks could eventually be part of the solution for people with speech disabilities—it is just a matter of having enough data. “The more data that becomes available, the better this technology is going to get,” Mozer says. That is starting to happen already with different languages and accented speech. According to Apple, Siri has so far learned 39 languages and language variants. 

But as this technology in its current state becomes more embedded in our daily lives, researchers such as Rudzicz warn that multitudes of people with speech and vocal problems will be excluded from connected “smart” homes with voice-activated security systems, light switches and thermostats, and they might not be able to use driverless cars. “These individuals need to be able to participate in our modern society,” he says. So far, attempts by tech companies to include them are little more than talk.

With new YouTube series, 'Speechless with Carly,' Carly Fleischmann aims to be first non-verbal autistic talk show host

from Huffington Post Canada:

Carly Fleischmann has severe, non-verbal autism, but that didn’t stop her from interviewing one of Hollywood’s biggest (and hunkiest) stars, Channing Tatum. 

Fleischmann, who is from Toronto, was diagnosed with autism and oral-motor apraxia at the age of two. This means that she cannot speak. However, at the age of 10, she had a breakthrough and realized she could communicate through typing on a computer. 

Now the 21-year-old communicates through technology, revealing her witty, honest and hilarious personality. Watch below as the young woman interviews her biggest crush, Tatum. Here she asks him all sort of personal questions, ranging from his childhood to his marriage to his baby girl Everly. 

In the amusing seven-minute clip, Fleischmann makes her love for Tatum clear. When introducing him, she casually jokes, “Soon [Tatum] will dump his wife to be with me.” Later, she then reveals that sitting beside the 36-year-old actor is one of thescariest moments of her life. 

Fleischmann’s interview is part of her new YouTube series, “Speechless with Carly Fleischmann,” which launched on April 29. Through her series, the 21-year-old hopes to become the “world’s first autistic and non-verbal talk show host.” 

On Saturday, Fleischmann shared her video on her Facebook page where it quickly racked up over 13,000 likes and received hundreds of positive comments. 

“OmG that interview was GREAT! You are so funny!” one fan wrote. “How about the first non verbal comedian? Think it over. Love you Carly!” 

Another said: “Who cares about autism after seeing this... There is nothing about autism getting in your way here!!!! Well done Carly ...well done!!!!!!” 

Since finding her voice, Fleischmann has made it her duty to spread autism awareness. In 2012, the young woman made headlines after she co-wrote a book called “Carly’s Voice” with her father, Arthur, based on her struggles and experience with autism. 

That same year, a video revealing what autism is really like from Fleischmann's perspective went viral. Today it has over 2.5 million views. 

Earlier this year, Fleischmann was also credited for bringing awareness to Toronto’s “dancing barista,” Sam. In January, Fleischmann posted a video of the Canadian teen with autism to Facebook and YouTube in an attempt to combat misconceptions about the condition.

Groundbreaking settlement to end discrimination against blind Uber riders who use guide dogs

From Disability Rights Advocates:

April 30, 2016 – Berkeley, CA – In an unprecedented settlement announced today, Uber has agreed to take affirmative steps to prevent discrimination against blind riders who use guide dogs in its transportation network across the United States.

The settlement resolves a lawsuit—National Federation of the Blind of California, et al. v. Uber Technologies, Inc.—brought by the National Federation of the Blind, its California affiliate, and individuals who use guide dogs, to ensure that guide dog users have full and equal access to vehicles in the Uber network. This is the first nationwide class-action settlement of its kind against an app-based transportation network company.

While the growth of Uber’s on-demand transportation services has the potential to be a boon to blind people, drivers using the Uber platform have denied rides to blind people who use guide dogs. Any such discrimination violates federal and state laws that protect the rights of people with disabilities. Under the settlement, Uber will work to end this discrimination and blind individuals will be able to use Uber without the threat of discrimination.

Uber has agreed to take affirmative steps to tell drivers about their obligations to transport riders who are disabled and use service animals. Uber will require that existing and new drivers expressly confirm that they understand their legal obligations to transport riders with guide dogs or other service animals. Uber will also implement stricter enforcement policies—Uber will remove a driver from the platform upon a single complaint if Uber finds that the driver knowingly denied a person with a disability a ride because the person was traveling with a service animal. In addition, if Uber receives complaints that a driver denied a person a ride because of a service animal on more than one occasion, the driver will permanently be removed from the Uber platform regardless of the driver’s intent.

Uber will also enhance its response system for complaints related to discrimination against guide-dog users, and will track detailed data on all allegations of such discrimination. Additionally, the National Federation of the Blind and its California affiliate will deploy testers over a multi-year period to evaluate Uber’s compliance with the settlement.

Mark A. Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Access to reliable and effective transportation is critical to the ability of blind people to live the lives we want. Uber and similar services can be a great asset to the blind when they are fully and equally available to us. The National Federation of the Blind is therefore pleased with Uber’s commitment to effectively enforce a nondiscrimination policy with respect to blind people who use guide dogs. We look forward to working with Uber to ensure that all blind passengers can take advantage of the innovative transportation service it offers.”

Plaintiff Michael Hingson commented: “This settlement is a great step forward for all blind people. Uber can be such a convenient transportation option. I’m looking forward to being able to use the Uber services when Uber makes the changes needed to fix its discrimination problem and bring true access to guide dog users.”

Attorney Larry Paradis of Disability Rights Advocates said: “This settlement sets important precedent and shows that companies cannot ignore the rights of people with disabilities just because they use a new technology or a novel business model. We are pleased we could come to an agreement with Uber and look forward to working with the company to ensure a more accessible system.”

Attorney Michael Bien of Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP observed: “Technology-enabled services such as Uber have tremendous potential to empower people with disabilities to live more independent lives. By ensuring reliable equal access for blind riders with service animals to Uber’s services, this agreement harnesses that potential.”

Plaintiffs and defendant submitted the proposed settlement to the court on April 29, 2016, and seek approval from the court to settle as a nationwide class action. Copies of the settlement and other documents can be found athttp://dralegal.org.

Plaintiffs are represented by Larry Paradis and Julia Marks of Disability Rights Advocates, Timothy Elder of TRE Legal, and Michael Bien and Michael Nunez of Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP.

Thai university creates cheap, touchable ink for blind people

From CNET:

Researchers at Thammasat University in Thailand have created something that will potentially make it a lot cheaper for the blind to read. 

Called Touchable Ink, this new ink has the ability to rise when heated, turning what would normally be a flat row of printed Braille letters to an embossed version readable by fingers, according to a media release.
Developed in conjunction with Samsung, who supplied the printers, and advertising agency J Walter Thompson (JWT), the university expects that the ink will eventually be able to be used in normal printers. 

Touchable Ink promises to lower the cost of printing Braille text for blind users from the current cost of $1.1 (£0.75, AU$1.50) per embossed A4-sized page to just a mere 3 cents per page using a standard printer. Furthermore, there won't be a need to pay around $2,850 for a Braille embosser." 

We are quite certain that the cost of touchable ink would be a lot cheaper than Braille printing, considering that the material ingredient that we use is a lot cheaper compared by volume to the average toner quantity in cartridges available on the market," said a JWT spokesperson to CNET. 

It's not the only recent instance of technology being used to help to visually impaired. Facebook recently rolled out a new feature that describes what's in a picture for blind or visually impaired users with screen readers (a program that provides audio descriptions of the text on screen). 

Similarly, Apple's iPhones and their VoiceOver function help the visually impaired with navigating around town, surf the internet and even snap some great pictures.

Applications now being accepted for NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship

From AAPD:

Thanks to a generous contribution from NBCUniversal, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is proud to offer the NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship.

In 2016 the NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship will offer eight (8) scholarships to 2nd year associate students; undergraduate sophomores, juniors, and seniors; and graduate students with disabilities who are interested in pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. Each recipient will receive $5,625 to help cover the cost of education at their current college or university. The scholarship will be available for the 2016 fall semester. The 2016 application is due July 1, 2016 by 5pm ET.

This scholarship has been named in honor of Tony Coelho, a former United States Representative from California and the primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Coelho was elected to Congress in 1978 and served for six terms until 1989. During his terms, Coelho authored the original ADA, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. By 1994, the U.S. Census Bureau reported 800,000 more people with severe disabilities were employed than when the ADA was first enacted, in large part thanks to the work of Coelho, his successors, and predecessors.

From 1994 to 2001, after being appointed by President Bill Clinton, Coelho served as Chairman of the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. He also worked as the Vice Chair of the National Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities. In 1998, Clinton appointed Coelho as the United States Commissioner General at the 1998 World Expo in Portugal. Clinton also appointed Coelho as Co-Chair to the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, a position he held until his appointment as general chairman of the Gore Presidential Campaign.

From June 2009 to June 2010, Coelho served as the Chairman of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the country’s largest cross-disability membership organization.

2016 Scholarship Application Process

Eligibility

Any 2nd year associate’s degree student; undergraduate sophomore, junior, or senior; or graduate student who self-identifies as an individual with any type of disability. Students must be interested in pursuing a career in the entertainment industry – all majors are welcome to apply.

Please note: You will not be required to disclose your specific disability; however, your application for this scholarship will signify that you consider yourself a person with a disability. This scholarship is run specifically for students with disabilities by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

Applicants chosen to receive an NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship release all information contained in their application for use on the AAPD website and in public press releases, including releases to the program funders and potential employees.

How to Apply

Due to an overwhelming interest in the NBCUniversal Tony Coelho Media Scholarship in 2015, AAPD is proud to announce that eight (8) scholarships will be available to students with disabilities pursuing communications or media-related degrees in 2016. AAPD would like to thank NBCUniversal for their commitment to the growth of the program and increasing their support in 2016!

Apply Online!

Applications can be completed online (through the link above) and must be submitted by 5pm ET on July 1, 2016. Incomplete or late applications will not be considered.

Applications can also be submitted to scholarship@aapd.com. To do so, please send one email containing the completed application form (download the Word application form here) as well as your a) resume, b) unofficial transcript, and c) letter of recommendation. All applications must be submitted with all required attachments in one email. Any candidate who submits an incomplete application will be automatically disqualified.

Burger King's king finally speaks, by signing, for American Sign Language day

From Adweek:

From the days when he would pop up, unannounced, in your bed in the morning, Burger King's King character has never actually spoken a single word, preferring to let his creepily silent visage speak for him. But now, to celebrate National American Sign Language Day this Friday, the King is speaking up—by signing.

And he's asking BK fans to come up with an official sign for the Whopper sandwich.

Check out the announcement of the project in the video below, from David in Miami and Bullitt director Josh Greenbaum. It's creatively noteworthy in part because the entire 2:27 video is completely silent, which lends it a certain poignance that it wouldn't have otherwise.



"The Burger King brand is built not only on including everyone, but celebrating everyone," Fernando Machado, the fast-food chain's svp of global brand management, said in a statement. "National ASL Day felt like a perfect opportunity for the King to extend our brand mantra and engage with the ASL community on such a great day."

BK has also created an ASL version of its logo, and is making a scholarship donation benefiting students who are dedicating their studies to ASL language and interpretations.

It also has the King interpreting a recent TV spot in ASL, as you can see below.

Beyoncé casts model with muscular dystrophy to promote new products

From The Guardian:

Jillian Mercado, a blogger and model with muscular dystrophy, has been cast as a new face of Beyoncé’s online store, where she can be seen modelling the T-shirts, hats and sweaters that comprise the pop star’s latest line of merchandise. 

Mercado announced the news through her social media channels: “OK LADIES now let’s get in FORMATION!” she wrote on Instagram. “So BEYond excited to finally announce that I’m on the official @beyonce website!!!” 

The image she posted features her in a wheelchair alongside two other models. Mercado is wearing a “hot sauce” cap and a sweater emblazoned with the line “I twirl on them haters”. 

The words have been pulled from the lyrics of Formation, the surprise singleBeyoncé released in February. The song and clip represent Beyoncé’s most brazenly political work, commenting on the failure of race relations in the United States – both past and present – and their intersection with class, sexuality and gender. 

The Guardian columnist Syreeta McFadden celebrated the clip as an “inherently political and a deeply personal look at the black and queer bodies who have most often borne the brunt of our politics”, saying: “It compels us to reclaim the black American narrative from its margin and make it centre.” Beyoncé’s performance of the song at this year’s Super Bowl paid homage to the Black Panthers, Malcolm X and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Mercado has been represented by IMG Models since last year and has worked oncampaigns for Diesel Jeans and Nordstrom. But the 28-year-old began in the industry much earlier, working as an intern at a variety of fashion magazines while studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, where her classmates compelled her to start blogging. 

“At first I was very hesitant,” she told Vogue in August. “I wasn’t sure about showing everyone my world because I didn’t know if there would be an audience. We’ve been brainwashed [as a society] not to care about someone who has a disability, or their world.” 

Her blog, Manufactured 1987, is equally weighted with posts about new fashion lines and her career as a model. She uses the blog, along with social media, as a platform to champion diversity in her industry. 

“I was shocked that I didn’t see anyone in the industry who was like me,” Mercado told Vogue. “So when people — girls especially — tell me that I’m their role model, I am taken aback. I love it and it is flattering but it affects me on a very personal level because I remember growing up without having a person I could look to.” 

Mercado wrote on Twitter that since the Beyoncé merchandise images had gone live, the feedback from the press had been “truly surreal” – and she used the moment to start another conversation. 

Referring to the term “wheelchair-bound”, which many in the disability community find offensive, she tweeted: “Now how about we fix that word bound...”

UK award-winning film stars disabled actress in lead role

From Pos'ability magazine in the UK:

With the lack of black actors causing boycotts at this year’s Oscars; criticism of leading men like Eddie Redmayne ‘cribbing up’ to play disabled characters (The Theory of Everything) and now Joseph Fines in the firing line for playing a bleached up Michael Jackson in a one-off Sky 1 comedy, a new British indie film promises to put diversity in the front row by casting a disabled actress in the lead role to reflect her real condition on screen. 

Little Devil is a multiple award-winning British indie film that picked up gongs including ‘Best Lead Actress’ for its disabled star at the 2014 Los Angeles Diversity Film Festival. And now, taking advantage of the growing ‘on-the-go’ viewing habits of audiences, the movie gets its global release exclusively on-line via Distrify this February 2016.   

Little Devil is saucy, character-driven feature film about a mischievous, sexually frustrated disabled girl who forms an unorthodox relationship with a troubled, gay male escort. But rather than being a victim of her condition, she uses her disability, Osteogenesis Imperfecta (Brittle Bones), as a cunning advantage in achieving her hidden agenda. 

The film stars newcomer, Sam Renke (pictured), from Leyland in Lancashire, who has Brittle Bones, and – to our knowledge – will be the first disabled actress to take on a debut lead role in a British independent movie – and win awards! Sam worked closely with the film’s writer and its director, Max Barber, to base some of the plot on her real-life experiences of dating and sexual exploration from the perspective of someone with an abnormal condition, but with very normal sexual desires. The film is a radical vehicle for Sam in raising disability awareness as she is currently campaigning with Channel 4, as well as SCOPE, and still works to support The Brittle Bones Society where she was trustee, 2009 – 2015. 

Sam comments: “I’m not a ‘sit at home’ type of girl, I’m very pro-active in raising awareness in what to me, is still a blinkered world at times. The shameful lack of diversity at the Oscars, again, means that all of us in a perceived ‘minority’ must make a noise and demand change. The world’s population is amazingly varied – something not reflected by The Academy and its white, wealthy, ageing heterosexual male members.” 

Playing alongside her in the supporting role is black, British actor, DeObia Oparei who is currently making it big in Hollywood. Better known for his action movies: Doom, Thunderbirds & Dredd; more recently he appeared as Areo Hotach in Game of Thrones and he also features in this summer’s blockbuster sequel Independence Day: Resurgence. 

Rust & Bone, The Sessions, Marnie’s Story, The Finishers are just a few of the notable movies putting disability in the forefront of cinema in the last few years. Little Devil is leading the way in raising awareness of Brittle Bones in a frank and entertaining way. It portrays the condition as anything but a disability – and it doesn’t need an able-bodied actress pretending to use a wheelchair to do it. Little Devil revolves around the theme of unconventional families and sets out to turn the notion of what constitutes sex and body-diversity on its head. The film is designed to be a poignant, but ultimately, uplifting tale and deliberately sets out to court controversy and debate with its frank scenes and radical casting. 

The movie is directed and co-written by London based, first-time feature director, Max Barber, originally from Grays in Essex, who has a string of award-winning short films to his name released through Peccadillo Pictures in the UK and TLA Releasing in the USA. He’s best known for some of the TV shows he’s directed which include Geordie Shore, A Girls Guide to 21^st Century Sex & Don’t Tell the Bride, so expect a fair sprinkle of outrageous behaviour and drunken shenanigans! However, Max promises the movie will certainly be a step away from his roots in television and will not skirt around the more weighty issues the film raises, choosing instead to bend convention, lay his characters bare, and apply his bold and colourful film-making style. 

Max comments: “Understandably big star names attract film finance and audiences, but unless you start giving bigger parts to actors who don’t fit the convention, then you won’t get new and diverse talent into the system. I deliberately cast a disabled, up-and-coming actress, Sam, in the lead role, to get people talking, and gave her a powerful and positive character, rather than the stereotype, freak, villain or victim.” 

The trailer and film Little Devil is available to be seen and for rental or download on Distrify.