Guest Open Question: What is the first movie you saw with a disabled character?

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You can find film critic Kristen Lopez’s bylines in a variety of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Variety, Backstage, and, most frequently, The Film Maven, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Lopez recently published Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies, an exploration of the history of representation of disabled persons on screen. The first question she thought of asking Reveal readers: What is the first movie you saw with a disabled character? Here’s her answer to get the discussion started:

I answer this question several different ways, but if we're talking about the first actual disabled character I ever saw on a movie screen, it was Lieutenant Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump. I can remember being absolutely stunned seeing a wheelchair (albeit a janky hospital one) where, up until then, I'd only known mine. For me, it was a moment of realizing, "Hey, there are other disabled people like me out in the world." The character is definitely flawed—he's a bitter disabled Vietnam vet—but there are moments where his anger feels justified. He rails against a society that doesn’t understand him and finds community with Forrest, a man similarly underestimated. Lieutenant Dan is also smart enough to invest in Apple stock!

The earliest depiction I can remember is the 1981 Disney film Amy, in which Jenny Agutter plays a teacher in early 20th century Appalachia who attempts to teach deaf and hearing impaired students to speak. I don’t know what this film’s reputation is these days, or if the practices depicted in the film have fallen out of favor. But I do recall finding it moving as a child, and humanizing in the way it depicted its characters as, above all, regular kids.