El cine como recurso para el conocimiento de las personas con discapacidad: Veinticinco películas de la última década

Abstract

There is little doubt about the power of cinema to convey information in order to trigger emotions and to stimulate empathy with the various characters and their situations. Accordingly, the use of films with disabled characters as protagonists can be proposed to favour “visibility”, normalization, and a closer view of the reality and circumstances of people with disabilities. Here, twenty-five films from the last decade, whose main characters have intellectual disability, physical disability, motor disability, visual impairment, hearing impairment or disorders within the spectrum of autism have been selected to approach the issue. The most relevant results of the analysis carried out show that problems related to physical limitations, autism, and intellectual disability are those most widely addressed; that the main characters with disability are to a large extent young adult males; that a broad variety of topics are presented (personal, interpersonal and sexual-affective, family related, medical…), aspects related to family being those that are most relevant, and that there is an evident presence of actors with disabilities. Likewise, it should be noted that the image of people with disabilities in these films is much closer to reality and more positive than it used to be in the filmography of previous decades.