Gareth Davies (Education Studies and Special and Inclusive Needs, School of Education)
For my part of the Dis/Ability on Screen project I chose the film Wonder, with particular consideration of the question: ‘Is disability a relationship?’. The intention here was to explore the impacts that disability has on interactions among individuals within the family and the wider community.
Wonder is a 2017 comedy drama based on the 2012 novel by R.J. [Raquel Jaramillo] Palacio, starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as parents to Auggie Pullman, who is played by Jacob Tremblay. The film, directed by Stephen Chbosky, follows Auggie and his family on his first-time enrolment into mainstream schooling, while also showing the perspectives of multiple familial characters throughout. Auggie has a genetic disorder called Treacher Collins syndrome that affects an individual’s vision, hearing and breathing and can require multiple surgeries adding to congenital facial disfigurement (NHS, 2019). The film shares Auggie’s difficulties adjusting to school, partly from the perspective of family members and close friends, and explores how they too are affected. ‘Is disability a relationship?’ was very much a question left to the audience to interpret in their own ways. Yet, it connects at least partly with the notion that disability affects more than the disabled individual and that being (or being viewed and ‘effected’ as) disabled requires social context with interaction imminent in the everyday life-world; a view that is aligned with the ‘social model’ of disability (Kelly, 2001).
The film has been met with positive reviews from movie critic Mark Hadley with regard to the acknowledgment and awareness of the greater impacts that a child with a disability has on family life and the wider community. Hadley who has a son with a disability said in an interview with Hope 103.2, “when one person in the family has disability we are embracing that disability in one way or another in our lives”(Hope 103.2, 2017). It was this that inspired my decision to choose this film. Family films that have disabled characters, often make said characters the focal point with the story structured around their struggles in day-to-day situations, highlighting barriers they are often to overcome. While this may be the case, as is suggested in Wonder, this film addresses above all the effects a child with a disability may have on a sibling, with parts of the film being told through the perspective of Via, Auggie’s elder sister, played by Izabela Vidovic. The issue of disability affecting sibling and family relationships is an area that has been researched in great depth (Bingham et al., 2012; Gibbons and Gibbons, 2016; Meltzer and Kramer, 2016), with Harris (2008) having found that the change in routine and additional required support in caring for a child with a disability can cost up to three times more than a typical child, putting pressure on family members to cope. This theme emerges even from the Wonder film poster, as Auggie is seen to walk in between his parents, hand-in-hand, while Via is pictured in the background, behind the three of them. On many occasions, Via explains through narrations how she has accepted her role in the family, coming in second place behind Auggie in terms of attention received from their parents. She initiates a relationship with Justin, a black fellow student and only child, leading him to believe that she too is an only child, possibly to escape from being the ‘forgotten’ child. The film stresses that each character’s diversity is the catalyst of the development or break down of a relationship, but never so that a ‘disabled’ relationship cannot be rebuilt.
One side to the question of whether disability is a relationship can be explored particularly through the decision by Auggie’s classmate Jack Will to accept the role of mentoring Auggie only under pressure from his mother, as she explains to him who Auggie is by evoking the reaction he provoked in Jack’s younger brother when they accidentally met in an ice cream parlour. While the relationship between the two classmates is seen to blossom, Jack ends up mocking and deeply upsetting Auggie behind his back in an effort to gain acceptance and status among his peers as a student enrolled on a scholarship. Jack’s decision to give into peer pressure is interesting, as regardless of his actual views and thoughts of Auggie as a person, he feels he has to conform to the beliefs of his longer-term able-bodied friends. The latter, at that point in the film, have yet to take the time to get to know Auggie beyond his appearance. Another relationship that is seen to positively attribute to the film is that of Via and Justin. The film shows Via’s relationship with her long-term friend Miranda break down for reasons unbeknownst to her, involving strains put on Miranda’s home life by her parents’ separation and ensuing alcoholism on the part of her mother. Via herself experiences growing constraints in terms of lack of attention from her parents as a result of Auggie’s journey of enrolment into school. Despite her relationship with Justin being initiated with her lying to him, as mentioned, it evidently grows as a result of Via being the recipient of some much-needed attention.
As a part of my introduction I asked the audience, when watching the film, to consider how Auggie’s condition affects those around him directly and indirectly, as well as his parents’ relationship with each other and any potential sacrifices they make to support Auggie. Barnes (1992) has stated that within media, disabled people are often represented as in need of assistance of a non-disabled family member or carer to pursue what is considered a ‘normal life’. Film director Steven Chbosky follows this trend, with emphasis on Julia Roberts’s character home-schooling Auggie until she feels it is the right time for him to enter mainstream education. It has been broadcasted in the United Kingdom with the Children’s Commissioner stating that the number of disabled children choosing to be home-schooled has increased with their needs not being met and schools failing to be inclusive (Children’s Commissioner, 2019). Barnes (1992) has also argued this can greatly impact the livelihood or personal growth of the primary carer, something that is very evident again through the character played by Julia Roberts, who is seen to have put her studies on hold in order to support Auggie’s development. This decision on the part of Auggie’s mother can be said to mark the shift from the ‘medical model’ of disability to the ‘social model of disability’, the former seeing disability as the individual’s problem and as requiring treatment or cure, while the social model sees society to be the issue in regards of the acceptance of disability (Bolt, 2014). Mr Tuschman, Auggie’s school principal, highlights in a meeting with the parents of Auggie’s main school bully, Julian, when addressing the bullying that has come to light: “Auggie can’t change the way he looks; maybe we can change the way we see”. Interestingly, during my discussion, I asked the audience ‘in what way does the film embody the common message do not judge a book by its cover?’, with responses recognising that other characters have their own issues, evidently with Julian and his actions at school being a result of his stringent and strict upbringing, with his parents disregarding disability in the same meeting.
To conclude, the film Wonder is a success story based on the 2012 novel by R.J. Palacio, following Auggie’s journey of enrolment into mainstream schooling, with particular insight into the impacts that this adjustment has on each family member and in particular the effects the disability of child can have on siblings. The film addresses these issues well, with much of the audience’s discussion after the film highlighting a sense of relatedness to key events in the movie and relationships Auggie encounters, suggesting that inclusion in some cases may be difficult but is nonetheless realistic and ultimately imperative with a view to social justice. An interesting note on which to finish in relation to the key question engaged with by Nathaniel Eker, namely: ‘Should able-bodied actors play disabled characters’?, is that Wonder was nominated for best makeup and hairstyling in recognition of the efforts of Jacob Tremblay, who does not have Treacher Collins syndrome or any other disability, in playing Auggie’s character realistically. Wonder, then, is yet another example of a huge Hollywood movie on disability in which the lead is played by an able-bodied actor, making one wonder whether a deeper understanding of disability as a relationship has the potential of changing mind-sets.
References
Barnes, C. (1992) Disabling Imagery and the Media: An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People. Halifax: British Council of Organizations of Disabled People.
Bingham, A., Correa, V. and Huber, J. (2012) Mothers’ Voices: Coping with their Children’s Initial Disability Diagnosis. Infant Mental Health Journal, 33(4): 372-385.
Bolt, D. (2014) Changing Social Attitudes toward Disability: Perspectives from Historical, Cultural, and Educational Studies. London: Routledge.
Children’s Commissioner (2019) Skipping School: Invisible Children – How Children disappear from England’s schools. [online] Available at: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/cco-skipping-school-invisible-children-feb-2019.pdf [Accessed 5 June 2019].
Gibbons, H. and Gibbons, C. (2016) Siblings with Disabilities: a Duoethnography on the Intersections between a Sibling Relationship and Disability. Disability & Society, 31(6): 820-837.
Harris, H. (2008) Meeting the Needs of Disabled Children and their Families: Some Messages from the Literature. Child Care in Practice, 14(4): 355-369.
Hope 103.2 (2017) Uplifting Film About Disability From a Whole Family’s Perspective: ‘Wonder’. [online] Available at: https://hope1032.com.au/stories/culture/movie-reviews/2017/disability-from-the-whole-familys-perspective-a-review-of-wonder/ [Accessed 5 June 2019].
Kelly, M. (2001) Disability and Community: A Sociological Approach. In G.L. Albrecht, K. Seelman and M. Bury (Eds.). Handbook of Disability Studies, pp. 396-411. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Meltzer, A. and Kramer, J. (2016) Siblinghood through Disability Studies Perspectives: Diversifying Discourse and Knowledge about Siblings With and Without Disabilities. Disability & Society, 31(1): 17-32.
NHS (2019) Treacher-Collins syndrome. [online] Available at: https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-and-treatments/conditions-we-treat/treacher-collins-syndrome [Accessed 5 June 2019].
Dis/Ability on Screen 