Mom of child with Down syndrome to Disney: Feature disabled characters
Disney does a great job of depicting right from wrong. It has long providing wonderful moral lessons that teach our children to be good people — but sadly, the company comes up short in one critical area. Its movies have almost no representation of disabled people, those often bullied and looked down upon by their fellow children.
What wonderful lessons of diversity, compassion, and acceptance Disney could teach our kids if they promoted disabled characters as heroes and heroines in their beloved movies!
~ Part of a petition posted by Keston Ott-dahl advocating that Walt Disney films feature heroes and heroines with disabilities, Huffington Post, October 21
Keston Ott-dahl is the mother of a child with Down syndrome.
Signed! They’re very close to their goal and I bet being on JillStanek.com puts it over the edge.
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Jill, Thank you for being an advocate for children of all abilities. Together our voices will be loud and clear.
Keston
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Signed!
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They did in Hunchback of Notre Dame…just sayin. I’d be okay with more heroines or heroes with disabilities. They had a one armed father in a Swiffer commercial and it was very sweet and I told Swiffer I liked that they used him in their ad.
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Hunchback was interesting because the judge almost killed Quasimodo when he was an infant for the “crime” of being deformed. He held the infant Quasimodo over a well, about to drop him in. Notice the person about to commit infanticide was the bad guy. How many caught on to that lesson? People that kill children are BAD GUYS!!!
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The star of “Finding Nemo” (Nemo!) had a deformed fin, which I’ve always found quite touching. (Petition signed, btw!)
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Ariel from the Little Mermaid was mute.
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