Title:
Hollywood, We Need to Talk. ReelAbilities Is Doing It Better.
Subtitle:
Lawrence Carter-Long’s life-journey with cerebral palsy from poster child to shaping community, conversation, and culture in film and media
Transcript:
Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alicia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths.
Let’s go.
Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia. What if the way that we understand disability didn’t start with policy, but with storytelling with the characters that we grew up watching, the narratives that shaped what we believe is possible.
This often happens without us realizing and today’s guest has spent his career at that intersection. He has worked, consulted, been a part of incredible projects i’m just gonna name drop a little bit. He’s worked on projects for Disney Plus a film called Out of My Mind, which I absolutely love.
He has contributed to Code of the Freaks, PBS Change, Not Charity. He’s worked with Sundance, BBC classic movies, the lists go on and on. We’re gonna dive into this amazing resume. Lawrence Carter-Long is helping reshape how disability is seen, understood in media and culture. He is now. The Director of Engagement at ReelAbilities International.
I’m so excited to hear all about this, and he’s pushing all of this work forward through this organization and beyond. Lawrence, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for sharing some space with me today.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Well, thank you for having me on, Alycia. I’m looking forward to the conversation.
Alycia Anderson: So much to talk about here, obviously. So I think if it’s okay with you, I would love to ground us a little bit in your story, how you identify with disability, whatever you’re comfortable sharing there, and how that lived experience has shaped the way that you see stories being told in the media.
Lawrence Carter-Long: I began at an early age. I was drafted at five years old in, Indianapolis, Indiana, where I grew up, where, they sort of came into the rehab facility, the hospital where I was, they were sort of working with me. I hadn’t, I didn’t walk till I was five. I have cerebral palsy and was born, three months premature, weighed two pounds and 12 ounces.
Dropped down to one and a quarter, spent the first three months of my life in an incubator. So it wasn’t, I wasn’t walking at age two and mom was kind of like, Hmm, what’s going on here? And that’s when I got the diagnosis. So then began, the surgeries and, you know, all of those sort of, medical interventions for the CP itself. In my particular case, it affects the way that I walk. And so, there I am. Doing the rehab thing was kind of like a combo of preschool and rehab and, and those sorts of things. The we age four or five years old and, somebody said, there’s a blonde kid who talks a lot. Let’s grab him. And they, drafted me into being, what used to be called a poster child, right?
And so the idea with poster children, and this is, I’m dating myself, but 1972 was to bring us around and we had a catchphrase. My catchphrase in those days was, thanks to you, it’s working. Thanks to you, I’m walking. Although I don’t think those folks had anything to do with it, with the benefit of hindsight looking back, but they would, you know, the idea would, they would break out their checkbooks and, support the effort, for the local United Fund Organization, which is now called the United Way, which does a lot of supports and services around the nation. So, you know, I learned very early on when thinking about that origin story and how it relates to what I’m currently doing, is that if you… Go on TV or you go on the radio and, you kind of, you put out there kind of as an expert, whether you’re five years old and you know what you’re talking about or not, people will listen to you. And so I decided then and there at that very early age, sort of made a mental note. Oh, Media is important. Communication is important. Remember that. And, it’s been sort of a North Star a guiding principle of my entire life. And, the work that I’ve done in it, which is, what are the stories we tell?
Who gets to tell them and how does that work for us, and when does it not, and how do we change it? And, that really relates, it’s a through line throughout all of the work that I’ve done. But it really relates, especially to the work we’re doing at ReelAbilities International now, which is the world’s largest film festival that’s disability forward. It’s 18 years of, of doing the film festival. And we’re now our own independent nonprofit, have been for about a year and a half. And we’ve grown into more than a film festival because we have the film festival every spring, but film is the front door. You go through that door and what you find is community, conversation, culture. You know, that’s a recipe for real change. And so we, try to be the place where artistry and access meet and where disability is treated, not as a sidebar, but really as the main meal and we can get into the details of how we do that. But it’s really about, you know, disability historically has been something we’re trained and that we’re conditioned to sort of distance ourself from.
It’s something that we’re supposed to fix or cure or get rid of in some way. We take a different approach. You know, we say disability has always been here. Will probably conceivably be here, either through age, incident or accident. And so how do we relate to it? And what are the stories that we tell ourselves and each other? That change how we relate to it, or that influence how we relate to it. So it’s really about, authenticity, right? Living your truth. Advocacy, shaking up those things that need to be changed. And then, belonging. Understanding that none of us are in this alone. And if you seek and you find, like you’re doing with the podcast you can find belonging. And you can find community. And so it’s really about how do we find those threads and then, how do we really like glean into it in order to create the kind of world that we want?
Alycia Anderson: I love that so much. I know with the podcast, and I’m assuming at ReelAbilities too, that sense of community and belonging becomes stronger and stronger every year. I know my advocacy in my own space has become so much stronger since I’ve started this podcast and meet other advocates and people doing in the space, doing incredible things, and I love it that you just mentioned 1972 because I’m 1975 and I was a poster child.
My husband’s disabled. He was a poster child and there was this era of poster children kind of like launched back then as the symbol. So I love that you brought that up. I just had a connection to it.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah, as a five -year -old in the 70s, that was pretty much your only career path. You know, that was the only thing you were expected to do if you had a visible disability at least.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah. Will you talk a little bit about the experience at ReelAbilities and what it is like? Let’s paint a little picture of this event that you’re having soon.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah, I mentioned before, you know, the anchor will always be the film festival. I think that’s what we’ve been doing for, 18 years, but film is a vehicle it’s, as I said, it’s sort of the doorway that opens and so, yeah, we celebrate extraordinary films that’s important to do that will be central, but toward what end, right?
The larger mission is, building community and broadening perspectives and, really developing these spaces where disabled people are respected and appreciated not as symbols or tokens, but as storytellers, as artists, as leaders, and as the shapers of culture, you know, so it’s, really about not just screening the stories, but I think shifting the focus of the stories that we tell. It’s, you know, in our work traditionally has historically, anybody has a sense of history. One of my keen interests is the history and evolution of disability in media, especially film and disability generally speaking, been framed in, sort of monochrome ways, right? It’s, you’re either, tragic or heroic, you know, you’re an inspiration or you’re a warning for something.
And there’s almost always a lesson to be taught or learned whenever disability shows up. Most people don’t live at those extremes. Most people are somewhere in the messy middle most of their lives. And so it’s about, I think giving that more space, right? And creating a gathering place. And now that we’re our own nonprofit, we’re a year round platform, you know, we’re showcasing the present at the festival, but we’re also doing work to put the past in perspective with places like Turner Classic Movies and looking at films that are 60, 70 years old and the significance that they might have and work with our industry summit, which is really geared toward people that want to be filmmakers or that are disabled creatives and our partners like AMC Plus. In showcasing those who do disability, maybe a little bit differently and putting, giving people that are making the work additional opportunities, creating those pathways and those pipelines so that you can be a disabled filmmaker. You know that probably 10, 15 years ago. You didn’t see those words in the same sentence. And so it’s about changing the landscape so that more people get to tell more authentic stories. And this is, about, yes, being more reflective of reality, right? If you, look at the stats, you’ll find that the, let’s say, just disabled characters in film and TV in general. The numbers, generally speaking, for the last 10 years, haven’t changed much.
They’ve been between 1 and 3 percent of the characters that you see.
Alycia Anderson: Wild.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Now if you go to the government stats, because I worked for seven years in government. And, you go to the government stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and you’ll see that the number of people who identify as having some sort of disability is 28 .7%, so closer to 30, right?
Closer to almost a third of the U .S. public. So, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to get those numbers closer. to reality.
But not every film is a documentary either. And so, you know, I think it’s about when we’re changing the stories we tell and who gets to tell them and how, you know, what about science fiction? What about action movies? What about romance, right? Disabled people should be central and the focus of the story, not just the sidekick or the best friend or the whatever, right, the moral lesson, but showing those stories, telling those stories that we’re somewhat familiar with, but from a perspective that we really haven’t heard as much as we should before.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah, I think you do that really good on like some of the movies that you’ve worked on, like, Best Summer Ever and Out of My Mind, like those are like coming of age stories that have disability at the center of the story. One is a love story, as simple as I could put it in my own words.
And another one is advocating for finding advocacy and like finding your voice in the way that you want it to be. That’s how I articulate those two films.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah, and when you’re talking about Best Summer Ever, right, which is available on the streamers,
Alycia Anderson: I love it.
Lawrence Carter-Long: A brainchild of Zeno Mountain Farm, where I also serve, on the board of directors, and the, the idea there is Zeno had always made a short film or that they would submit every year.
It’s a camp for adults with disabilities and folks to just hang out, have a grand old time and, in Vermont and and it’s a place where, you know, disabled people, non disabled people can sort of come together and, share that space. And so in making their films, I remember at one point.
I was talking to them about some of the work I’d been doing with Turner Classic Movies. And they said, what haven’t you seen, Lawrence? What hasn’t been made before? And, I said, well, I haven’t seen too many musicals. You know, half joking and lo and behold somewhere it was decided. Let’s do a musical. And,
Alycia Anderson: I love it.
Lawrence Carter-Long: So it’s a high school romance you know, footloose, and grease, and has elements of all those sorts of things that are sort of familiar but told from a perspective and a point of view. That we really haven’t seen before. So, singing and dancing, you know, and 70, 75 percent of the cast and crew so the people you saw on screen and the people making the film, were disabled. But the unique thing, I think the really unique thing about Best Summer Ever, is that I don’t think the word disability was ever used. So you saw disabled people throughout the film, everywhere. Football players, I played the town cop, you know, and, the sports announcers. But disability wasn’t the point of the plot, and the story was somewhat familiar, but the people that were centered.
The people that you focus on happen to be disabled. You just hadn’t seen the story from their point of view or their perspective before.
Alycia Anderson: I’m obsessed and I think that this is such important work. What is the shift in viewers like after somebody sees these types of movies in these types of way, like what’s the result?
Lawrence Carter-Long: Well, and it was interesting cause we, you know, we were all set to premiere at South by Southwest. I think we had Katie Couric who was going to do the Q and A, and then COVID hit, right? So everything changed and we had to figure out, what do we do? How do we launch? How do we premiere? And we, ended up doing that online, but the folks like yourself, that I’ve been able to speak with about it after, and, Best Summer Ever I remember was showcased at ReelAbilities and the virtual festivals that, we had those years too, were the first 10 minutes or so they might be, what’s going on?
I don’t quite get it, right? The disability was present. You saw it everywhere. But it wasn’t the point and it wasn’t the plot. And I think that’s so unfamiliar to people that that monochrome way of framing tragic or heroic is so embedded and so ingrained it’s become normal, whether it’s accurate or not. That I think it maybe takes a few minutes for people to just kind of get into the groove and the rhythm, but probably around that second song or third song, you’re in the story. Right? And, you’re just, you’re along for the ride and you’re enjoying the show and you want to see, okay, how is this thing going to end?
You know, boy meets girl, boy and girl go together, boy break up, are they gonna get, what’s gonna happen? Those kind of, you know, romance, standbys, you know, they’re always seem to be there. Then you’re just along for the ride and then maybe think about it later. And I think good storytelling should, could, be fun, right?
You know, it should be something that you think about, but maybe not necessarily while you’re watching the movie.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah, I love that. And I think also from a disabled person’s perspective. There’s been a few moments in my life where I’ve seen a film like this, or I’ve gone to New York to see Ali Stroker on Broadway, where the same situation. Right. They don’t mention the disability. It’s just in the,
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
And it’s such a powerful moment as a disabled person too, to just for that to not be a thing and for it to be so naturally sewn in. And I think it’s like. It’s so impactful. It’s so powerful for people with disabilities, but also everybody else in the world for it to just be naturally sewn in.
Lawrence Carter-Long: I, speaking for myself, and this is somebody who’s worked in media his entire life in some way, shape or form. I didn’t realize how rare that was. You know, until it sort of happened to me, you know, when I started seeing things, I’ve never seen that before. I’ve never heard that before. That’s new to me, you know?
And so, media is kind of the ecosystem, the water that I swim in, and it was until somebody showed me something different that I went, Oh, this is unique, and I think that’s one of the strengths of, ReelAbilities, is that we provide the opportunity to tell a different story. And, to provide the access there, you know, every film is open captioned, every film has audio description, so it’s, very important to us that access is not an afterthought, it’s not something we add on later, it’s a value.
It’s a practice, and it’s our promise to folks, you know. We’re gonna make sure that as many people can enjoy these films as humanly possible. And that’s, that means embracing the fact that you’re gonna always be evolving. That technology is always going to change. That people’s access needs are always going to change. And that in order to meet those needs, we’ve gotta be willing to evolve as well. And I think that’s something that the greater culture and the greater society would benefit from adopting.
Alycia Anderson: I love that. Do you think that there’s a specific story of disability that tends to be more elevated or I guess depicted in movies or film or, you know, even in theater opposed to another, like, and where do we need to get in our culture to understanding the scope of disability?
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah, I think what the, short answer is that we need, in order, you know, again, I think disability by and large is still framed in those monochrome ways, tragic or heroic.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
Lawrence Carter-Long: I think in order to change that and we’ve seen this time and time again is that we have to change who’s making those movies, right?
Start of Embedded Episode Advertisement
Alycia Anderson: You’ve asked me how I have turned my story into impact and income. That is why we created the Own It Mastery Collective. Where Message meets monetization. It’s a community driven, built for everyone and designed by someone who understands barriers and builds way beyond them. We are launching very soon.
Join our interest list now at alyciaanderson.com. The link is in the show notes.
End of Embedded Episode Advertisement
Lawrence Carter-Long: So it’s not only who you see on screen, but it’s also who’s writing. Who’s producing, who’s directing us in leadership, who greenlights the film, decides that it gets made, that you put a budget behind it in terms of promoting the film, who’s on that PR team, right? All of those, you know, those insights and those experiences that inform the decisions you make about the story that you’re telling, which we did with Out of My Mind.
You know, those nuances that are really important, because if you get it wrong, somebody with that disability is going to know that you got it wrong, and they’re going to call
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
Lawrence Carter-Long: you out on social media, right? So, so it’s about preventing those problems, making sure that the authenticity is there, and, that it’s, you know, coming from a place where, Yeah, that’s real. Yeah, I recognize that. And so even if it’s disabled people in space, right? You’re going, whatever they’re encountering in space, you go, ah, I can relate to that. You may not have ever been on a spaceship. You may not have ever been to Mars, but there’s probably things that deaf people do that are part of the culture that if they’re reflecting that accurately, you’re going to be able to, you know, engross yourself, and get lost in that story in a way that you wouldn’t if they were doing sign language incorrectly, for example.
Yeah.
Alycia Anderson: And the disability depicted authentically and also the action or the lived experience, like falling in love, and I think Out of My Mind just keeps coming up, but like that’s that story. It was, it’s so authentic in those moments too, which is so powerful. And I think those stories need to be told more and more, and again and again to like free us of these biases that are put on us. That we don’t fall in love, that we don’t advocate properly for ourselves, that we don’t this and that and whatever. So it’s just you’ve worked on projects that have done it so beautifully, that it’s incredible. So well done.
Lawrence Carter-Long: It comes back to, well, I’ve had some practice, and I think what I’ve learned in the process is, you know, and this goes back to my time in the federal service and in government, and I was pitching and placing news stories in those days.
Alycia Anderson: Oh wow.
Lawrence Carter-Long: What I understood then, even as a child, as a poster child, was that stories shape public understanding.
Right? And that can be accurate. That can be inaccurate. People can assume things based on the story that you just told and what they just heard or what they just saw. And so what the ripple effect of the stories we tell do a lot of things. They shape policy. They shape possibility. They, get into belonging, right?
Do you see yourself within that? And so when disabled people are included in that process, you get a nuanced view, you get a certain kind of humor, you get, complexity and you get creativity and you, get agency, which I think is really important that ripples far beyond the film. And so the, what the film can do is it can give you that focal point and that frame of reference and then what you do with it is down to you, right? And so what ReelAbilities tries to do is to open up those options for people, to create more space for new possibilities that again are not only more reflective of the realities that we live, but I think also igniting the imagination so that we can be and do more, that we see ourselves in different places, that maybe historically or traditionally have not been the place where there has not been space and then can dream bigger and they can do more right and so but often you’re not able to dream it until you see it and so it’s
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
about opening up those doorways creating on ramps if you will for that to happen more often rather than less. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so you’ve mentioned it twice, policy government. You’ve spoken and been involved in, organizations like the United Nations. I think you spoke at the Library of Congress, like talk.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah, we did a screening on sort of the trends and the tropes of disability in film and how that helped shape society. And this was all done during the time I was the, comms lead for the National Council on Disability. The National Council, on Disability the mandate of the agency, it’s an independent federal agency, still exists, whose mandate is to recommend federal disability policy to the President, to Congress, and to other federal agencies.
And so.
Alycia Anderson: Wow.
Lawrence Carter-Long: The way you get on the council is you’re appointed by somebody in Congress or by the President. Now, I was one of the worker bees. I was one of the guys working in the office and, the mandate was writ large. It could be, education policy. It could be, one of the things we worked on was parenting as a disabled person. Transportation issues, right? Those things that are everyday like housing. Those things that affect everybody, maybe a little bit differently if you’re blind or if you’re deaf or if you’re a wheelchair user, but all those groups, folks with intellectual disabilities, and when I add those as well, or, or psychiatric might have trouble finding housing, what are the through lines?
What are the threads? What are the solutions? Right? And then we would go to disabled people and we’d go to policymakers two or three times a year and write these reports, publish these reports. And, get those out to decision makers and to elected officials. And that really informed the approach to the work that I take, because you have to be efficient when you’re doing that work.
You have to kind of think about what’s going to appeal to the folks on the red side of the fence or the blue side of the fence and, upset the least number of people, right? So you sort of split the middle and find ways to talk to those. And it gave me an understanding of how we view these, the things, the issues that, that shape our lives may be differently, depending on a multitude of factors, right?
It’s the experiences that we’ve had, the opportunities that we’ve had, or that we’ve lacked. Things like income. Influence, the opportunities that you get, right? And, the things that you might be exposed to or not exposed to. And all of these things can influence, the lives we live and the stories that we tell ourselves, I think, and that we tell others.
And so that was really instructive in me sort of diving deeper into, film and storytelling. Because not necessarily everybody’s going to go to a lecture or, you know invite a policy walk into their house to talk about the nuances of those issues, but you can show them a story, you can show them a movie and you can have a scene in that movie that might only be 30 seconds long, but has something to do about maybe access or discrimination, right?
That boom, the light bulb goes off for somebody and they go, oh yeah, that could happen to me. Or that happened to my aunt or that happened to my neighbor. And so you can sort of plant the seeds that then the culture that use those things can sow and, hopefully, you know, make a difference in terms of how that lands, what you do about it, et cetera.
Alycia Anderson: That’s pretty powerful work in itself too. What was some of the experiences or what did you see how global and institutional level policy makers understand disability when you were doing that work? Like how did that, how was that framed? Like how, what did you experience?
Lawrence Carter-Long: I think this is still true today. The thing that I learned, I think the takeaway for me and doing that work was that folks, this elected officials included. It could be their staff members, things like that. Their understanding of disability was largely dependent upon their proximity to it. And so, if they had disability in their own lives, in their own experience, they understood the issues that we were talking about better than somebody who’s maybe, not had those experiences, or had the luxury of not needing to think about access, or opportunity. But everybody knows, if you look at those numbers everybody knows somebody who’s disabled.
You might just not consider them, so you just might think, oh well, your great aunt Tilly has trouble climbing the stairs or that she needs a hearing aid, right? You don’t think about it as a disability, but in their experience, it is, and everybody shapes or frames or thinks about it a little bit differently depending on your background or, the generation that you are, you know, to some people, the word disabled means you’re not able to work or you’re on disability, right?
To other people, it’s history, community, culture, identity. And so it’s about taking all of those. Elements and understanding that the definitions are broad and they’re vast. But they could be narrow depending on where you come from or what your experience is. So we just try to open the door to get people to realize, yes, what happens to your great -aunt Tilly?
What happens to this percentage of the population as an elected official? What can we do about it? How do we work together? You know, it was the Democrats and the Republicans coming together that got laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. That would not have happened without a bipartisan effort.
So, not to get too political here, but I think we know that that can be done and we know that that works and I think that’s a lesson we should probably be considering going forward.
Alycia Anderson: And we not only know that that can be done in a bipartisan way. I had Tony Coelho on the show at the end of last year, who wrote the ADA and he tells the beautiful story about both sides coming together and disability being the thing that is the bridge for our common ground. And it’s a really powerful story and it’s the truth of what you say.
And I love what you just said about, disability being so vast, even if you are, you have experience with it, it still could be unfamiliar. Meaning like I was just, I just did a keynote at a big intellectual disability conference and I tell this story about parking spaces and needing space to put my wheelchair together and, or I’m literally had, have had to crawl into my car with pieces of my wheelchair ’cause I just don’t have enough room.
And this gentleman comes up afterwards and I’m in a space where. There’s advocates and allies of disability. He goes, I had no idea that’s what those lines are for. You know? And I was like, I literally paused. And I was like, what? And but again, to your point, we need to see a story or see it to believe it and understand it, even if we think we’re in this space and do understand it.
’cause it is so vast.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Right, your experience may be different, largely different than somebody with an intellectual disability or a psychiatric disability or sensory disability or whatever, right? And so, in a film context, right, you might only be 15 seconds, 30 seconds, right. Where they pull into the space, but somebody is, overshot the zone, and, then you can’t get out of your car because the ramp can’t go down. Right?
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
Lawrence Carter-Long: You show 10 seconds of that people get it, right? And they might think about it, going forward. So a film can do that in amazing ways that I think, can illustrate and illuminate and sort of expand the lived experience.
Alycia Anderson: I love the word illuminate. It’s such a beautiful word. It’s like growth and also like sparkle.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Right? The light is on.
Alycia Anderson: Okay.
Lawrence Carter-Long: The other thing about disability, which I think is important, and it sort of bears repeating or reminding people if they never thought about it before, is that, You know I’m not going to wake up a different gender tomorrow or a different ethnicity tomorrow.
But the thing, the unique thing, one of the unique things about disability is that if you’re lucky to live long enough, odds are you’re going to join the club at some point in time, right? And we don’t know how, we don’t know when, whatever the,influences there are multitude. But if we build a more accessible world now, it’s just going to be easy for us as time goes on, or the folks who come after us.
So I think it’s important, you know, when you think about why this work is important on a grander scale, if you just want to be selfish about it, it’s probably going to help you someday.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah.
Lawrence Carter-Long: And so it’ll make your life easier as well.
Alycia Anderson: Yeah. So as ReelAbilities continues to grow, especially with the Summit and all of the creators and industry leaders and disability advocates that you bring together, where are you going? What are you most excited about? And I think the last part of that question is how do we get involved and be a part of all of this?
Lawrence Carter-Long: Well, there’s so much to talk about. I think the most important thing is to, your listeners to experience ReelAbilities for themselves in the way that they can. So, as I said, this will be our 18th year, and it takes place in person if you’re lucky enough to be in the New York City area, but we’ve also got, you know, the surrounding areas, even into New Jersey, in person, April 23rd through April 30th this year, and then it’s online April 24th through May 3rd.
So on virtual ticket owners, I believe might have checked the website for, for clarity there, but I think are through even may 5th. So beyond the physical time that the festival is happening in person. and so, you know, whether you’ve never been or whether you’re returning I think it’s a chance to join us in person or from home.
To see these films for yourself, you know, a selection of the films will be available online for a limited period of time. And they run the gamut, you know, they, really, are just dynamic and grounded in access and artistry and, like we said, belonging. I mean, we’ve got, films about, I’ll give you an example.
So the opening night film is a film called Lone Wolves and it’s a sharp, romantic dramedy about autism, mental health, fertility, and reproductive autonomy. And as you might imagine, with all those elements in that stew, it’s funny, and it’s messy, and it’s definitely unsanitized. You might never have thought of autism in the mix of all that, right?
So I’d say surprise yourself. Check it out. And then we have a documentary that’s a centerpiece presentation called Disposable Humanity, which is an investigation into the Nazi, T4 program, which created the systemic killing of disabled people before the Holocaust’s wider machinery was sort of in place.
They tested it out on disabled people first, and, how, that’s been lost to history. And how dangerous that kind of erasure can be because there are lessons to learn from the past. And then we got something, we’re premiering, the first three episodes of a British TV series called We Might Regret This which has been renewed for a second season that’s airing now in the UK and it, resets your expectations about, Disability and intimacy and care. And it’s this chaotic kind of deeply personal dynamic between a disabled woman and her friend who becomes her personal assistant. And so, out of necessity, basically, so it shifts the focus and kind of gets into the nuances of what beyond familiar caregiving, you know, let’s say your mom, your dad, your cousin, you know, or your parents, whatever the thing may be, but the way that disabled people often have to improvise the realities when the systems aren’t in place to support living independently. And so that’s, you know, it’s witty and it’s messy. We talk about that messy middle, and it’s got this real emotional texture, unlike anything that we’ve seen in the United States as of yet. And so I, there’s a real mix.
I think something for everybody at the festival. And we just invite folks to go to ReelAbilities, R -E -E -L Abilities dot O -R – G. You can check out what’s happening at festival. You can go to ReelAbilities stream, which is also available from the site. And, check out films from previous years, that are now available.
For folks to watch from the from the luxury of their own home.
Alycia Anderson: I love this. Congratulations on creating and being a part of something that’s so incredibly, not only cool but is making such a big impact, I’m sure culturally so amazing.
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yeah,
Got the flagship festival and we have over a dozen affiliate festivals throughout the country. And so if that’s something, you know, check out the website, there might be one near you. And if there isn’t, you might want to create one in your local area. Please feel free to get in touch and contact us and see how we can, how we can make that a reality.
Alycia Anderson: I like that. Ooh, you’re motivating me to look, dig a little deeper there too. So did we miss anything that’s like. Absolutely important.
Lawrence Carter-Long: I just think if anything that, we’ve said, anything that we’ve, talked about here, intrigues you, or grabs you, get in touch. My direct email address is Lawrence, L -A -W -R -E -N -C -E at reel, R -E -E -L, like a movie, movie reel, reelabilities .org (lawrence@reelabilities.org). Ask that question. Send it along. See what kind of merry mischief we can come up with and, what kind of collaboration we can do together. That’s what we’re here for.
Alycia Anderson: Merry mischief. I love all these little things. They’re inspiring. I love it. Okay we’re gonna leave all of that in the show notes so it’s clickable, easy to contact, get involved, all the things pushing forward moment time?
Lawrence Carter-Long: Yes, let’s do it.
Alycia Anderson: Do you have a pushing forward moment for our community? A little mantra, something that you live by that motivates you in the morning to get up and go for it.
Lawrence Carter-Long: If I had a motto, it would be go through the doors that open. I’ve been fortunate enough to do many sort of out of left field or outside the margins things, in my life. Everything from, as we have talked about, being in federal service to, being a modern dancer with the Heidi Latsky Dance Company for several years, which gave my life a different direction to working at a place like ReelAbilities and pushing these issues forward and doing news and doing media. There’s no way that five -year -old me could imagine all the amazing things that would happen that, came about as a result of me leaning in to growing up with cerebral palsy and the insights and the experiences that all those things taught me and, that experience taught me. And so I think, for me, it’s about resisting the urge to distance oneself from those things that society tells us we need to be ashamed of or that we need to be, wish were somehow different.
But leaning into the reality that it is, and the life that we have in seeing what doors open as a result and then being willing to go. Yeah, I’m going to go for it. Right. Life is often more exciting outside the margins. And so I would urge people to embrace something, one element of your life that is not linear, that was not planned and seeing where it takes you because the results might literally change your life.
It certainly has mine.
Alycia Anderson: Ugh, just gimme the chills. Go through the doors that are open. I love it.
Lawrence Carter-Long: And that open on their own. You might just be strolling by and bang, this opportunity hits, right? Somebody sends you an email, somebody calls you, somebody introduces you to somebody else. You know, you never know, you never know where those things might lead. And so sometimes it’s about just, I didn’t plan this, but I’m going to say yes. And then see where it takes you.
Alycia Anderson: I love it. Lawrence, thank you so much for your time today. I cannot wait to get involved with ReelAbilities myself, and it’s a pleasure to meet you and hear your amazing story. Thank you for all the impactful work that you’re doing globally for our community and beyond. It’s absolutely awesome.
So it’s great to meet.
Lawrence Carter-Long: I really enjoyed the conversation. It’s been the highlight of
day. Keep pushing forward. And, I look forward to speaking to you again.
Alycia Anderson: Thank you for the pushing forward plug and thank you to our community for showing up. This has been pushing forward with Alycia and Lawrence, and that is how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next week.