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Post by PacMan on Feb 24, 2024 18:54:57 GMT -5
Apologies if this has already been talked about and if it has been please point out and I’ll delete this thread.
I just wanted to ask everyone’s opinion on what they think of the movie ‘Me Before You’ staring Emilia Clarke.
I’m asking you guys this because it really makes my blood boil when I read hundreds of comments by people saying how brilliant it is and how sad it is. For me I find the whole film a disgrace which keep the old stereotype of how life is so bad if you have a disability and that its actually so horrible you’re better of dead.
If you look at the film itself ok the guy has a SCI but he also has more money than he knows what to do with it (not because of his disability only because he was born into wealth) and he has the love of a woman who is completely devoted to him. The amount of people who have amazing happy fulfilling lives who aren’t wealthy and don’t have that other half that loves them unconditionally is a lot more common than the guy in this movie, however although he has all of this he’d rather die via assisted suicide than continue to live his life with everything he has just because he has become disabled because of an accident.
It just makes me so angry when I see Hollywood making these types of films and so many people missing the point, all they see is are the negatives of having a disability, how terrible your life would be and that you’d be better off dead.
I usually see these posts saying how great people they thought this film was on FaceBook or some place. I usually spoil the party by pointing out the disgusting negative and false narrative the film puts forward and how many disabled people (myself included) find this type of portal of life with a disability as deeply offensive.
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tanya
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Post by tanya on Feb 25, 2024 3:41:59 GMT -5
Good points my main concerns is the casting of an able bodied actor to play a disabled character.
Films and TV shows should not do this in my opinion.
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Post by wheelzoffortune on Feb 25, 2024 10:27:23 GMT -5
I mean... it is definitely a thing. A few years ago I was busking and someone stopped to talk with me. He was telling me about how he had to use a wheelchair for 3-4 months after an accident, but he eventually regained the ability to walk and he said "Thank God, I did. It isn't worth living if you can't walk."
Somehow he thought that was appropriate to say to me while I'm sitting in my wheelchair. 🙄
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Post by dutchdev on Feb 25, 2024 11:00:52 GMT -5
I mean... it is definitely a thing. A few years ago I was busking and someone stopped to talk with me. He was telling me about how he had to use a wheelchair for 3-4 months after an accident, but he eventually regained the ability to walk and he said "Thank God, I did. It isn't worth living if you can't walk." Somehow he thought that was appropriate to say to me while I'm sitting in my wheelchair. 🙄 Mind blown. My mistake, but I always thought the most important part of living is the relationships you form with others, something he probably is not that good at. My take, it makes live more bearable to compare your live positively compared to others. My burden might be hard but at least it isn’t as bad as…. Perfect example, my mom once had someone in the hospital whose kid was DYING say at least they didn’t have to live with my brothers (pretty minor) disability. It was so extreme that my mom didn’t respond and thought, well if that keeps you standing.
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Post by dutchdev on Feb 25, 2024 13:15:29 GMT -5
Just realized, I do it a lot right know. Not in the happiest of places in my live, and struggling to get out of it. Constantly admonishing myself, with the “count your blessings, because at least….
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Post by wheelzoffortune on Feb 25, 2024 17:16:43 GMT -5
People are strange and so blissfully (and willfully) ignorant of anything that is outside of their little world.
I second the notion that wheelchairs aren't limiting, they are freeing. They enable people who use them to do so much that they wouldn't be able to do if wheelchairs didn't exist.
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Post by PacMan on Feb 25, 2024 18:10:57 GMT -5
People are strange and so blissfully (and willfully) ignorant of anything that is outside of their little world. I second the notion that wheelchairs aren't limiting, they are freeing. They enable people who use them to do so much that they wouldn't be able to do if wheelchairs didn't exist. That’s exactly how I feel. I remember when I was a child at school some of the other children had conditions like CP which meant they had operation after operation after operation not to mention the physiotherapy. They used to be in so much pain and struggled so much with braces and crutches whereas I was always a wheelchair user, and because of this I was always able to go pretty much wherever I wanted. I had freedom some of these other kids could only dream of. But the funny thing was teachers and other so called “professionals” thought that ending up in a wheelchair was the very worst thing that could happen to you, no matter how much pain and suffering these kids went though they’d never let them decide for themselves what they wanted to do and if all of the pain and suffering was worth it to them in the end? The ironic thing of it all is, most of these kids that endured so much all ended up in a wheelchair when they become adults anyway, they’ve since said that everything they went though as children wasn’t worth it as they’ve ended up in the very thing the so called professionals did everything to try and avoid and they now as adults have freedoms to go wherever they want when they want they never could do as kids.
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Post by wheelzoffortune on Feb 25, 2024 21:53:57 GMT -5
Well (and this is a completely different issue), it is especially frustrating that healthcare insurance companies just don't understand (or care) that braces and crutches IN ADDITION to a wheelchair are very helpful for some people. They mostly think that you either get a wheelchair or braces/crutches and that is that.
My wheelchair is a necessity for mobility, BUT I still do benefit greatly from using braces. A few years ago I broke a bone in my leg just getting out of bed in the morning (well...it wasn't specifically THAT, but that is what broke the camel's... leg). I thought "weird that I could break my leg so easily". Ahhh, but no it actually isn't. I ended up finding out that there is a type of osteoporosis that is very common for wheelchair users. Our bones tend to be more brittle than people who walk because we don't do any weight bearing on them. So now I take a vitamin D supplement to help strengthen my bones, but I also get in my braces much more often than I used to (as an adult) because the weight bearing helps mitigate the potential bone loss.
When I was a kid I could use my braces and crutches to get around quite well. I was younger, I was lighter, more agile, etc, etc. Now, of course, my wheelchair is far more efficient, but the braces are still vitally important.
Good luck getting an insurance company to sign off on braces AND a wheelchair, though.
/rant
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allisonsr
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Post by allisonsr on Feb 25, 2024 23:10:06 GMT -5
CW: suicide
I'll be honest and start by saying that I had no intention of watching the movie and this thread has only validated that decision.
Based on the statements above, it also sounds like the movie may be romanticizing depression. If they didn't examine tackling the mental health side of things, that's another set of stereotypes that can be incredibly harmful. Because situational sadness, while normal, can morph into clinical depression and, if not addressed, become long term non-situational depression. I've lost one loved one to suicide and nursed another back to physical health following multiple attempts. Because while some problems are permanent, attitudes and circumstances tend to temporary and death is a very permanent solution.
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talkingdeafgirl
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Post by talkingdeafgirl on Feb 26, 2024 1:09:23 GMT -5
I mean... it is definitely a thing. A few years ago I was busking and someone stopped to talk with me. He was telling me about how he had to use a wheelchair for 3-4 months after an accident, but he eventually regained the ability to walk and he said "Thank God, I did. It isn't worth living if you can't walk." Somehow he thought that was appropriate to say to me while I'm sitting in my wheelchair. 🙄
It was a very disgusting thing to say. People truly have no filter when talking or conversing to a disabled person. And why do they have to pass such stupid comments or ask insensitive questions at all. 😡 Is it to make themselves superior to us, or to put us down and make us feel very inferior to them all the time and be reminded that we can never be like them? I can understand it, having experienced it even with an invisible disability, it is quite a humiliating situation to find yourself in.
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Post by britishtetra on Feb 26, 2024 15:08:00 GMT -5
I have to be honest, I have listened to Me Before You hundreds of times. It’s my go to book on Alexa and I think the writing is great. One of my friends went to the Swiss clinic, and he never told me he was going which is probably the best way. I admired him for going, because it’s something I don’t think I could do even though I have thought about it. At the moment I am 33 years into a spinal injury and things are beginning to get tough. I have got lumps on my liver, lung and I have a feeling I am closer to the end than the beginning. If, I do take a turn for the worst and I have to go through chemotherapy, I feel I am going knocked on the head. But, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
Pete, 👍
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Post by dutchdev on Feb 27, 2024 1:31:14 GMT -5
I have to be honest, I have listened to Me Before You hundreds of times. It’s my go to book on Alexa and I think the writing is great. One of my friends went to the Swiss clinic, and he never told me he was going which is probably the best way. I admired him for going, because it’s something I don’t think I could do even though I have thought about it. At the moment I am 33 years into a spinal injury and things are beginning to get tough. I have got lumps on my liver, lung and I have a feeling I am closer to the end than the beginning. If, I do take a turn for the worst and I have to go through chemotherapy, I feel I am going knocked on the head. But, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Pete, 👍 Hug for you, and however many there are, I hope you have more happy than sad moments ahead.
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Post by PacMan on Feb 27, 2024 6:24:21 GMT -5
I have to be honest, I have listened to Me Before You hundreds of times. It’s my go to book on Alexa and I think the writing is great. One of my friends went to the Swiss clinic, and he never told me he was going which is probably the best way. I admired him for going, because it’s something I don’t think I could do even though I have thought about it. At the moment I am 33 years into a spinal injury and things are beginning to get tough. I have got lumps on my liver, lung and I have a feeling I am closer to the end than the beginning. If, I do take a turn for the worst and I have to go through chemotherapy, I feel I am going knocked on the head. But, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Pete, 👍 Pete I really don’t know what to say my friend except I’m really sorry to hear you’re going through such a tough time right now. I know its all well and good me sitting here telling you things will get better and all of that but honestly they will my friend, you’re talking to people just like yourself that experiences some of the same very stuff you’re going through just now, not like able bodied people telling you things will get better but people like you who know what you're going through and how hard life can be sometimes if you're a PWD. 😞 I just wanted to really get other people’s opinion of that horrible movie with other PWD’s and Devs to see what they thought of it. It just angers me so much when Hollywood put out crap like this and the vast majority of people watching it don’t really see the deeper portrayal such films put across. The vast majority of people just see a straight forward sad love story, whereas PWD’s and Devs see the deeper meaning and portrayal and the negativity these sort of films put across, they also add to people’s worst fears of what it would be like if themselves became disabled and that is life just isn’t worth living no matter what you’ve still got. Again mate, hang in there I’m sure things will start to look-up for you. 🤞🏻
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