How Star Wars Reinforces Harmful Stereotypes About the Disabled Community
Star Wars is an iconic movie franchise, staple in American pop culture, and bridge between generations. However, it plays into and perpetuates the destructive stereotypes of disabled people as villains or liabilities.
In 2020, there was a 10-year record high of 3.1% disabled actors on television, but that is far from the benchmark of 1 in 4 adults with a disability in the United States. The media often employs stereotypes when portraying the disabled community, either romanticizing or demonizing them but rarely accurately portraying them.
Across history, literature and film associate disabilities with evil, violence, corruption, and crime. The portrayal of movie characters we grew up watching like Peter Pan’s Captain Hook and The Lion King’s Scar paint physical disabilities, such as missing a hand in the pirate’s case, in a negative light. Star Wars’ Darth Vader is an amputee and a burn survivor, and he has prosthetic limbs, an oxygen mask, and a suit with a complex life-support system. Anakin Skywalker’s level of disability directly correlates to his gradual loss in his inner battle and eventually succumbing to the dark side. Now known as Darth Vader, he is viewed as more machine than man and lost a piece of his humanity with each disability.
In that vein, Lord Palpatine and Supreme Lord Snoke both have disfigured faces and are equated to the dark side of The Force, once again linking disability to evil and immorality.
In Rogue One, Cassian Andor meets a contact, Tivik, who has an injured arm. Tivik shoots a stormtrooper, drawing attention to the pair, so Cassian urges him to hide in an alley. When Tivik cannot climb to safety with his wound, Cassians shoots Tivik, leaves him behind, and escapes.
Similarly, Saw Gerrera, a guerrilla leader and rebel, has a bionic leg and awkward gait, walking with a cane and sometimes using an oxygen mask, similar to Darth Vader’s. When the Death Star nears destroying his base, he stops running and calls for the others to “save the Rebellion” and “save the dream,” a stark contrast to what we would expect from the cunning, stubborn, and passionate leader.
Disabled characters like Tivik and Gerrera‘s lives are quickly discarded when they cannot fight like their able-bodied counterparts.
We must take the representation of the disabled community in the media, like in Star Wars, with a grain of salt. Stereotypes show disabilities and disabled people in both positive and negative lights, but rarely is either representation accurate. It is vital to amplify disabled voices and increase the number of disabled creators in the media industry for true representation.
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