There is some representation, especially in marvel and star wars. However, the blind or VI person usually has some kind of super power to help him essentially eliminate his disability. That's what I have an issue with. It's never just a regular person who is blind and has to deal with it. There's always a way around thier disability. Movies where the person doesn't have a super power would be seven pounds, blindness, Robin hood men in tights (he has less than believable super hearing tho). Not saying all of those movies are good, just what comes to mind.

I think this is mainly a disability problem rather than a blind problem, and mainly I think it's because groups that claim to speak for us get outraged when someone portrays a blind character in a way they have decided isn't representative of blind people or is somehow offensive. What these people fail to understand is that media corporations don't have an obligation to include disabled characters, and it's easier to just not include them rather than deal with the outrage if they do it wrong or do research so they can get it right. I'd much rather people included disabled characters and got it a bit wrong rather than being scared of including them and the shitstorm that's created when they get it a bit wrong.

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No idea why either, but wouldn't mind seeing it change as well.

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After being blind for a good while, a guy gets tired of all the stupid questions / comments / sterotypes. Yes, I can cook, no I'm not unemployed, yes I can use a computer, yes I dream, yes I can cut my own food, yes I can walk downtown myself, no being blind doesn't mean you need to speak to me louder, no going blind doesn't mean I also lost a bunch of IQ points, yes I' still a very capable individual filled with dreams and ambitions, etc.

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And just the whole subconcious sterotype people have that blind people are less than a full human, type of thing. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to it, but even when people are trying to be nice I sometimes find it insulting. Things like, "that's so cool you can still develop software and cooker dinner blind, you're amazing!". What are you talking about I'm amazing? No I'm not, I'm just some guy living his life like everyone else out there. Or sometimes a lively conversation / debate will break out amonsgt a group fo friends / family, and you can tell you're somewhat getting ignored because you're just the blind guy, so what would you know type of thing.

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If blind folks had more media exposure, I think alot of that type of thing would be out the window.

Speaking of blind people as superheroes, I don't know how to feel.

On the one hand it is great to see blind superheroes like daredevil in his series, but on the other ... well, he is practically better than many people with 20/20 vision in many respects. It's a human lie detector, balance and all that.

I agree with what has been said here. You need more representations of blind people in your day to day.

I'd even settle for typical high school dramas that include us.

The thing is that there is no lack of material for genres of all kinds, the ones that I can imagine right now are:

Action:

Fairly realistic action?

Sure, I train bjj myself and I'm about to start capoeira. There are blind judokas, and I heard that there are also olympic wrestling and sambo practitioners somewhere.

Romance?

Well, it could explore a lot of topics that your typical romantic series or movie doesn't explore.

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Personally I feel that it is a bit exhausting to see only 3 types of blind people in series and movies: The mystical teacher, the defenseless girl who waits for her beloved and the superhero.

I mean, we can do everything right?

From learning martial arts, cooking, learning to program, learning to sew or to work with wood, but we are also normal people. We make mistakes of all kinds (I myself a little while ago accidentally stained my nose with ice cream), from things as vain as the one I mentioned before to things like hurting other people with our attitude and words ...

Maybe I'm not mentioning anything new, but I think that if more representations of blind people are needed than the ones that already exist. I'm going to strangle myself if I ever see another blind elder wise teacher.

Sorry for the length of my post!

By the way, I don't know how much it affects, but I'm not from the United States. My point of view is someone from Argentina, who does not speak English very well so sorry for my mistakes haha.

I’d argue part of the issue is it’s hella expensive living in California and trying to be an actor. Most actors work in the food industry to pay their day-to-day bills with no health insurance until they hit it big/qualify for the union. Anyone with a disability will not be able to succeed in that environment as so much accommodations require a doctor’s letter.

Without greater social nets for everyone, only the most able (or born rich) will be able to attempt such a field.

Now gaming, Twitch, etc. where it’s all remote and the content creator decides what to do and controls the set up: there’s an abundance of blind people there with success.

I think also hiring blind actors can be hard

I've worked in the theatre/music industry for a while and I've only met one other blind/VI person as health and safety can be hard for a lot of theatres :(

The movie "Ray" had him using typical blind skills like putting a finger in the cup to know when its full, echolocation with his shoes, etc.

But they just happened; they are not explained to the viewer.

I honestly think the big issue is education; people don't know what the life of the blind is like.

It's a great point, have thought this myself. I can't speculate on the reasons why this is the case. I can only say that I would love to see a blind character where there's a lot more to the character than just the blindness. Also, can't think of an example outside of Mr. McGoo of a character with low vision. Think we can do better than that.

Yes and when there is, there are usually stupid stereotypes like that we feel faces. Arg nooo!

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I think it’s because blindness, compared to the other disabilities you mentioned, is by far the scariest to the average able-bodied person with no/little knowledge of the blind/VI community or of any disabled community. People perceive blindness as more limiting and therefore worse than the other disabilities so having blind characters is less likely because show creators are worried that it’ll be uncomfortable to the viewers. People can imagine becoming disabled in some way but not becoming blind. That’s always the one thing that people simply can’t imagine or, if they can, it terrifies them the most. Thus, to make the blind character more palatable, they give them super powers or make them super in some other way (super wise/smart, super moral, etc.). The other option, to just reinforce negative stereotypes also makes the blind character more palatable because they behave as expected so the viewer isn’t surprised in any way. They expect the blind character to be overall pretty helpless so when they are portrayed that way, it makes sense to them. I think on top of this there’s also a lack of awareness regarding how the blind community does everyday things too so creators don’t really know how to portray them accurately.

Even if a creator spends time learning about the blind community, they may still portray the blind character as super in some way because the creator is genuinely amazed themselves by the fact that blind people can do everyday things like everyone else. So the biases against blind people run pretty deep.

Overall though, I think it mostly comes down to the fact that going/being blind is utterly terrifying to most sighted people so comprehending daily life as a normal blind person is just too difficult of a mental exercise. Out of sight, out of mind.

I can think of a few examples, but for the most part you're right. I personally think it is likely because of multiple factors like the low number of blind or visually impaired people who really consume media, especially visual media like movies or television and the low number of blind or visually impaired in general. It's only anecdotal, but I personally have only met two people other than myself with visual impairments severe enough to label as legally blind. One, like myself, who has had the misfortune of being born with a combination of conditions making us pretty much equivalent to blind, and the other actually had near perfect vision until an unfortunate accident with a fish hook that left him without eyes.

I think we would probably have just as much representation if there were more of us.
I’ll work on converting a few of my friends

Here's my two cents for what it's worth, (which is probably around two cents!)

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In an ideal world, people would want to see people with disabilities as equals. I know this is not the case but at some point, society is going to have to move on from this idea that the disability defines the person because that is not true. The media could certainly help with this but in most cases, they don't. This seems to be especially true when it comes to the blind.

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Let's move away from movies and sitcoms for a moment... To the people who watch the big 24 hour cable news networks, be it left or right leaning, or the ABC nightly news, PBS, local news, or who listen to NPR...you get the idea. Now, they will have all sorts of guests come on to explain things or sit for an interview. When is the last time that a blind person was on one of these networks in a professional capacity that was not related to blindness? Can you think of any? I am racking my brain and I cannot come up with a single person.

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Many people are deathly afraid of losing their sight. They have no idea how they'd cope. Of course a lot of that is the fear of the unknown. Still there have been surveys that have found that blindness is the disability people would choose to have last out of a list of many. I've also come across things like "I'd rather kill myself than go blind". If people were exposed to more factual information and were shown that many blind people lead normal lives, perhaps this fear might be abated somewhat.

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I think there is an assumption by producers and directors etc that people don't want to see blind people in a movie or on a tv show for example unless it's in a context that isn't realistic, e.g they need to have a super power or two to make up for their blindness. Or, they are cast in such a way that they are helpless, socially awkward, prudish, religious etc and an amazing selfless sighted person swoops in to save them somehow. (Okay, yes, that is not always the case but more often than not, it is.)

I think my favourite representation of a blind character in a TV show was Alan in the Behind Blank Eyes episode of Strangers With Candy. Its the least PC show in the world but it was a fairly accurate display of what being visually impaired can be like, and more importantly a super accurate portrayal of how ignorantly blind people get treated sometimes.

In general though I would prefer media companies focus on things like providing audio description than including VI characters.

Please remember that some of us in the community could care less.

Yeah it's cool if there was a visually impaired character in some favorite show of mine, but I probably wouldn't care either way.

Why should I care?

Same thing with inspiration porn, who am I to say what is, or isn't, profound to someone else. Not my problem, not my concern.

One of the problems with this is that no matter who you depict and how you depict them, someone will be screaming at you that it doesn't represent them specifically. Oh, I can't do that, and the character can, it's wrong! Oh, I can do that, and the character can't! It's wrong!

There are three I like.

Murphy Mason from In the Dark, played by Perry Mattfeld, is capable of crazy acts of independent travel when the story needs her to, and she does the face feeling thing in a way they were clearly aware was bad and they could have written around it. Still, she has a realistic attitude. I have personally met at least two Murphy Masons.

Also, Madeleine Stowe's character Emma from the 1993 movie Blink. The story is about her getting what seems like cornea transplants and getting at least some sight back but it's decently handled and again she has the right attitude when she's blind. When asked to count sheep before going under for an operation, she says "I don't remember sheep, I just keep picturing Wile E. Coyote."

Elizabeth Hartman plays a character called Selina in A Patch Of Blue. It's a 1965 movie so moderate your expectations but for the time she's got a decent amount of attitude. It's also a realistic depiction of her pretty limited opportunities at the time. It's really about the civil rights movement more than Selina, so she has a character purpose other than just being the token broken.

It may not represent any real person's exact state of mind but it's a plausible attitude and that's all it has to be.

I think it's cause the thought of losing vision is probably really scary to most people, so they wouldn't even want to try writing that.

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I felt Dare Devil was pretty good for a while before they went totally off the rails with blindness as a superpower thing.

It’s part of why I like Toph so much because her blindness informs the narrative and has practical limitations, such as not being able to sense lightly thrown object or not being able to see while flying. Her story also has a lot of real world touchstones with trauma and abuse.

Yes but stereotypes exist for a reason there’s a large sheltered majority or good chunk mostly totally blind and this is where the perception comes from.

Yeah, it may be interesting for sure to have such a character. It would be interesting if they were pretty physical and independent and such. But yeah.

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