Reply to paraplegics: "Yeah, whatever."

There has been a drought on the news front, at least on CNN, so I was forced to look under the entertainment section to find something juicy to read. I came up with this little bit. I saw the trailer for this a couple of months ago when I went to see Howl's Moving Castle, and instantly I was turned off.

"The only explanation is that people don't want to see something about handicapped people. There is some resistance," said Mark Urman, head of the theatrical division at the New York-based THINKFilm.

Yeah, Mark's right. I don't want to see Murderball because it's about handicapped people (I also don't like extreme sports because they're trying way too hard to be cool). It's not that I don't like paraplegics. I know a paraplegic. He's amazing. Some people are afraid of him because of how much power he yields with his presence. If lab work were gambling, he'd be a high roller. I just don't want to see a movie about them being "real people."

I'm sorry if I come off un-PC, but I don't care for films like that. The reason is, I don't think we need to have movies tell us that handicapped people are people, too. This sort of attention is further instilling in us, perhaps subconsciously, the idea that most people should and do think of paraplegics differently. In fact, we think of them so differently that we need an MTV movie to tell us that they're cool and they're just like "real human beings."

That's just a little ridiculous. I know paraplegics are ordinary people that have ordinary personalities. So why would I want to see a movie about regular people playing some sport I have no regard for?

And the fact that MTV is cool-ifying them makes it even more pathetic. Paraplegics are not cool. They're everyday people who suffered something horrible. There is nothing cool about losing your limbs. They've been through all sorts of horrible things. I'm aware that paraplegics can be cool if they so choose to be, so why do we have to cool-ify it? It cheapens them to some marketing scheme playing on people's guilt that they have legs and some people don't.

I don't know. Maybe some paraplegics think it's a good thing. If I were in a wheelchair, I'd probably be pretty pissed. Just because someone's in a wheelchair doesn't make him either a freak or a cool guy. When we finally truly reach the goal of the film, which is to show "people as people," then we will have no need for such films.

And that is why I don't want to see it.