For the record while I am writing this I have not yet seen the movie Me Before You, it is being released today on the 16th of June and I plan to go see it after I have written this article.

There is a little controversy in some circles about the movie Me Before You which is adapted from Jojo Moyes’s 2012 novel of the same name (and for those of you who are wondering yes I am reading the book I am up to chapter 7). Now before I get to much further into things anybody who has commented about Me Before You’s message about the quality of the lives of people with a disability who doesn’t actually have a disability themselves please leave the conversation.
Now for the record, yes I have thought about suicide but unlike the character of Will Traynor I have not acted on them because it was explained to me by my Mother exactly what would happen if I ever acted on them. Also there was a mentor that I had in the first couple of years after my accident who killed himself. I actually fill kind of guilty writing about because I can’t remember his name. This is probably the first time that I have thought about him in nearly twenty years.
Now the real problem with Me Before You isn’t with the perceived message that all disabled people are better off dead. I mean able bodied people commit suicide to and for those of you who think that there just might be something to killing off everyone with a disability. Firstly you should be ashamed of yourself and also you’ll also be denying the world the Paralympics and Drunks the people they tell how brave and inspiring they think they are for being out on a Friday and Saturday nights.
Now I’m not an medically qualified expert on the reasons why people commit suicide but I’m lead to believe that it is a combination of mental problems and the belief that there is no other way to deal with your problems.
Now the real problem with Me Before You, are the lack of employment opportunities for actors with a disability. One of the biggest recent offenders was the Snow White and the Huntsman Franchise where Danny Woodburn who played Mickey Abott in Seinfeld commented to the New York Post that the casting of average-sized actors for the role of dwarfs was akin to black face. An interview Warwick Davis gave E! Online which has been quoted by at least two different websites * ** where he said:

“Considering the vast experience of many short actors working in the film industry today, I think it inexcusable that in casting for Snow White & the Huntsman, producers did not utilize this pool of talent. My colleague Peter Dinklage won an Emmy for his performance in Game of Thrones, proving that short actors need roles that will not only challenge them, but allow them to express themselves as actors in their own right. It is not acceptable to ‘black up’ as a white actor, so why should it be acceptable to ‘shrink’ an actor to play a dwarf?”

So if there is this kind of high profile outrage about actors shrinking to play dwarfs, so where is the outrage of about able bodied actors playing roles meant for somebody in a wheelchair? So you can trust me when I say that people in wheelchairs just like everybody else have wants, desires and dreams. I have to ask where are the roles for people in wheelchairs? Where are the actors in wheelchairs? Well here is what I know since my accident in 1995 to my knowledge there has only been two movies that have achieved any degree of mainstream marketability was the 1998 remake of Rear Window starring Christopher Reeve and the 2005 Documentary Murderball. I also know that Sam Claflin who was cast in the role of Will Traynor sure as hell doesn’t have a spinal cord injury.