'Me Before You' Criticized For Its Portrayal Of Disability

The film adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ romance novel “Me Before You,” starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, is set to hit theaters next month. While the trailers are certainly heart-wrenching and enough to leave viewers in tears, some have had a different sort of response due to the movie’s representation of the disabled main character.

Claflin plays William Traynor, a man who is left in a wheelchair following an accident. He falls in love with Clarke’s Louisa Clark, who is his caregiver. The story is supposed to be inspiration for living life to the fullest and is being promoted with the hashtag #LiveBoldly. However (spoiler) at the end of the movie, Will ends his own life via assisted suicide.  

Ellen Clifford, an activist with the group Not Dead Yet, said the story is actually guilty of “grossly misrepresenting the lives of the vast majority of disabled people.” 

“The message of the film is that disability is tragedy and disabled people are better off dead,” she told BuzzFeed. “It comes from a dominant narrative carried by society and the mainstream media that says it is a terrible thing to be disabled.”

Kim Sauder, a disability rights blogger and PhD student in Critical Disability Studies, wrote more about what she says are “deeply troubling” issues with “Me Before You” in a blog for The Huffington Post. She says the story features a majority of “people who reinforce the idea that it is better to be dead than disabled,” a lack of “real disabled voices” beyond Will and a warped portrayal of physical disability and sex. 

This kind of media is harmful in ways that giving genuine legitimacy to the voices of disabled people isn’t because if you listen to actual disabled people rather than using them as hypotheticals to defend stories like this, you get nuance even if they want to die, you hear about why. You might also hear from people who love their lives. However, while the existence of people “who really do feel like Will Traynor” are held up a red herrings, far too much of the media representation of those feelings is fictional but people seem to accept is as real.

Some have been responding to the film with the hashtag #MeBeforeAbleism. 

In a 2013 interview with Goodreads, Moyes explained that her intention was, in part, to highlight some of the very things critics are now pointing out. 

“Although, [Me Before You] discusses the right to die, what it also does in much greater depth — I hope — is lay bare the way we treat disabled people as different, when actually they are not. They’re just the same as us, but with different physical limitations.” 

“I have a child who was born deaf, so as a mother of a disabled child myself, one of the things I found most frustrating when he was small was not his disability, to which we adapted very quickly,” she continued. “Very quickly it becomes the least interesting thing about someone you love. It was other people’s attitudes. I have gotten thousands of emails about this book and a lot of them have come from quadriplegics or caretakers of quadriplegics, who have said, ‘Thank you for reflecting our lives and also for making a quadriplegic male a romantic hero who is sexy!'” 

Director Thea Sharrock was aware of both kinds of responses to the story before filming, according to The Guardian

“We did not want to be dismissive of either side,” she said. “There are a few well-known cases where people have made these choices and on the wards people knew patients who had done so. They were able to say that they understood, but that was not their story.”

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The Climate Change Solution to Disasters

2016-05-25-1464212707-111647-Climate_gasflaresNOAA.jpg
Photo: NOAA

By Robert Glasser and Achim Steiner

This year is already on track to be the hottest on record, beating out 2015 for this unfortunate distinction. Every year, if it’s not the mercury rising it’s the tangible impacts of climate change.

More and more people are living in harm’s way. Some of the most powerful hurricanes and cyclones ever recorded have made landfall in recent years, powered by rising and warming seas. Age-old sources of drinking water are dwindling away because of erratic rainfall patterns. Glacial melt and aquifer depletion threaten a world already overwhelmed with population movements. Disaster preparedness on flood plains and exposed coastal belts will be stretched to the limit in the coming years.

There is no sugar coating the consequences of inaction on climate change and environmental degradation. We are currently in the throes of an epochal shift in our relationship with the planet. This change is one that has been foisted upon us by ourselves.

Unfortunately, regardless of how quickly we move from realization to truly turning the tide, we will live with climate change impacts for some time to come.

But fortunately we are becoming better at dealing with climate disasters, in a twisted way because they are becoming more common. Like a firefighter learning on the job, the more emergencies we encounter, the better equipped we become to respond to a crisis.

And steadily, the international community is improving the way we deal with disasters at the global level.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was endorsed a year ago by all UN Member States. It aims to reduce mortality, numbers of people affected, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure from environmental, biological and technological hazards, over the next 15 years.

Early warning systems, tougher regulation for urban planning, enforcement of building codes and environmental protection measures: these are areas where much progress has already been made. And this week at the G7 Summit, Japan has indicated that it will include disaster risk management on the agenda for the first time.

The world cannot do without these efforts. The firefighter will always be necessary. But this tactical response needs to be accompanied by a longer-term strategy to address underlying causes. We have the framework for this in the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Paris Agreement points the way to a world that does not suffer from its own obstinacy. For the benefit of all, there is no time to lose in its implementation. Just as many of the negative effects of climate change and environmental degradation can create a vicious circle, improved equity, green economies, and a healthy environment can create a positive feedback loop.

Evidence of these changes is starting to filter through the headlines of disaster. Last year for the first time, investments in renewable energy infrastructure exceeded those in non-renewable. Over the past 25 years, the global deforestation rate has slowed down by more than 50 percent. Today, more than ever before, you are likely to find institutional investors and financial institutions factoring in sustainability concerns in risk. The mere signing of the Paris Agreement is evidence of the shift in public consciousness. The firefighter would see all of this and be cautiously optimistic. But they would be still be extremely impatient.

We are far from out of the woods. Implementation of the Paris Agreement cannot come soon enough.

Over the last two years, the world has experienced the cyclical El Nino weather phenomenon. While itself not specifically related to climate change, El Nino has caused record-breaking cyclone seasons in the Central Pacific and Australia. The lives and livelihoods of 60 million people across the globe face threats to food security from severe droughts associated with the event. In a year rife with talk about the potential devastation that could be wrought by climate change, El Nino has offered a limited preview of what we could be in for without significant efforts to draw down greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable societies and economies.

Climate change precipitates crises. Crises precipitate change. Our improving disaster management strategies can continue to help put out fires, but they can’t snuff out the match. We need to see that halting climate change is the only way to arrest the ever-increasing global burden of disaster.

__________

Robert Glasser, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme Executive Director

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Judge Denies Gawker New Trial In Hulk Hogan Case

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A Florida judge on Wednesday rejected Gawker’s request for a new trial and to reduce $140 million in damages assessed by a jury that found the media website had violated Hulk Hogan’s privacy by posting a sex tape of the former wrestling star, his attorney said.

The New York-based media outlet, which previously has said it would continue its fight to an appeals court, did not immediately comment on the ruling.

An attorney for Hogan, whose legal name is Terry Bollea, praised the decision of Judge Pamela Campbell, who earlier this year presided over the jury trial in state civil court in St. Petersburg, Florida, near his home.

“Gawker has failed and continues to fail in recognizing their obligation to Bollea for their reprehensible behavior and method of doing what they call journalism,” his attorney, David Houston, said in a statement.

In March, a six-person jury awarded $60 million to Hogan, 62, for emotional distress and $55 million for economic damages. The jury then slapped another $25 million in punitive damages on the company and its publisher and CEO, Nick Denton.

Hogan sued the website for posting a one-minute, 41-second edited video clip in 2012 featuring him having sex with the wife of his then-best friend, the radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. He testified that he did not know that their consensual tryst was being recorded when it occurred nearly a decade ago inside Clem’s home.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Meet The American Missionary Turned Thai Prankster

Pranking has been a huge part of the online video world since its inception. Slapstick humor will always be endearing, but in the age of internet celebrities, pranking, sometimes deemed “social experiments”, has become a point of much controversy recently. A lot of these videos claiming to be pranks are downright mean (read: stupid), blurring the line between what is and isn’t socially acceptable. Take the infamous Sam Pepper whose videos, which often border on assault, came to mainstream attention with his video of grabbing women’s asses.

Luckily, the prank territory isn’t completely ruined online. My Mate Nate is bringing the innocence back to the mischief, showcasing the fun in pranking instead of the cheap shock value. AKA he’s not a jerk. He’s an American ex-Missionary who now calls Thailand home. And instead of being yet another millennial clichely traveling to the beaches of Thailand for a 2 week bender – I mean to find themselves – Nate Bartling really is your mate and overall good guy.

At just 19 Nate Bartling became a Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ, but soon found his passions to lie in filmmaking, eventually evolving into his highly successful YouTube channel. “I was a missionary for two years. After that two year period ended I went back home to Utah and was planning to go to university like everyone else my age,” said Bartling. Fast forward to today, and Nate is a world traveling, multi-lingo pranker taking his unique style of videos to the international table.

And the people of Thailand are taking notice, embracing the expat and his videos. “The reason my videos go viral and big is because I’m something new that most of the Thai people aren’t familiar with. They want to know what foreigners think and feel about their country. Everyone LOVES to hear what other people think about themselves, so when I start rattling off in fluent Thai, the locals just got crazy… especially the younger generation who has grown up with the internet,” Bartling explained.

When you visit My Mate Nate’s channel, you really get the sense that Bartling’s motives are pure. Straight up, they’re fun, they’re happy, and have a thread of wholesomeness woven throughout. And it’s crazy to think that his virtuous reasons for creating content have become something to take note of online, but they have. He isn’t making videos to ‘go viral’ or to make $$$ from endless product placements and sponsorship deals. As Nate tells it, “I think one of the biggest factors about my channel that helps me keep the sense of “wholesomeness” is that I’m not doing YouTube for the money. I do it because I love making videos. Even if I weren’t getting paid, I would still be doing videos like this. I have other sources of income and I don’t rely on YouTube to get by.”

“This helps keep my channel more personal and more of how I want it, rather than just trying to make videos for the big viral hits. People making their living off youtube have to keep coming up with fresh ideas, and new things to keep getting new followers or else they won’t have an income, whereas I just do it for fun and enjoy creating things that inspire people, and make them laugh along the way.”

Nate’s altruistic motives behind his channel come through in each of his videos. Like Sam Pepper, Bartling, surprisingly, has a video about slapping girl’s butts. However, the video turns Pepper’s video on it’s head. Pinning the surprise on the men, and having the ladies be a part of the prank all along. He films the reaction of the unsuspecting bystanders and finds out what they would do if they were in the situation. Consent is key, even for clickbait.

On top of everything, Nate Bartling seems to really embrace and respect the people of Thailand. Pranking may be the core of his channel but by creating these moments of mischief Bartling is helping better the community. Being an expat in a foreign country is daunting at best, but Nate Barling has embraced the culture learning to speak fluent Thai. “Most Thai people love having a foreigner that can speak Thai, it just blows their mind that a white person is speaking their language” Bartling explained. His channel has evolved to not only showcase his epic pranks but also capture his perspective in Thailand, vlogging about his daily encounters and adventures. On top of it all Bartling has some impressive slow-motion videos that meld the prank mentality with the utterly mesmerizing effects of slow-mo.

His respect isn’t the only factor in the integrity of his videos. His religious beliefs and keeping his visa are two factors that Bartling considers when conceptualizing his videos. “I’m a foreigner living in a new country so I have to be careful and not cross the line or else I risk getting my visa denied and kicked out of the country that I’ve spent so long trying to build my life in. The other things that helps keep me “in line” and not going too far over the top is my personal religious beliefs” Bartling explained.

My Mate Nate is proof that you don’t have to be an boundary crossing asshat to get people online to notice you.

Follow Nate on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

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