Survey Finds Broad Dissatisfaction With Disability Representation In Movies, TV

By Shaun Heasley

Picture of an Inevitable Foundation billboard that reads: "Hire Disabled Writers Not Just a Disability Consultant.” Inevitable Foundation.

Hollywood could get a major boost if film and television shows paid more attention to depictions of disabilities, new data suggests.

A survey of more than 1,000 people, half with disabilities and half without, finds that 66% of audiences are displeased with current representations of disabilities and mental health on screen. And, those feelings are affecting decisions about what people watch and the streaming services they choose to subscribe to.

The findings were released this week in a report from the Inevitable Foundation, a nonprofit that works to promote writers and filmmakers with disabilities.

More than a quarter of those polled said that they consider nearly all of the disability representations they had seen in the previous year to be inauthentic. A similar number indicated that these types of harmful depictions would drive them to cancel a streaming service.

Conversely, 20% of survey respondents said they would subscribe to a streaming service and go to more movies if they featured authentic representations. Likewise, 40% of audiences said that they are very likely to recommend movies and shows with accurate portrayals of disabilities or mental health conditions to friends.

The report notes that some 20 million U.S. households include at least one family member with a disability. And, the survey found that people with disabilities are already bigger consumers of media, with 35% reporting that they watch 20 or more hours of television a week compared to just 25% of those without disabilities.

“Disabled people are an incredibly loyal and engaged audience that Hollywood has failed to invest in at scale to date,” said Richie Siegel, co-founder of the Inevitable Foundation. “But the audience and opportunity is too big to ignore given how much competition there is for people’s attention and entertainment spending. We hope the report sheds a light on this opportunity so disabled people get the entertainment choices that they deserve.”