Blindness Gets Bad Review From the National Federation for the Blind

Blindness, a movie starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo that opens in the U.S. October 3, uses lack of sight as a metaphor for all that is weak and evil and amoral in our society, and that makes the National Federation for the Blind fighting mad.

"Blindness is no more an appropriate 'metaphor' than other physical characteristics, like hair color or ethnicity," according to a FAQ on the movie by Marc Maurer, the federation's president. "Movies in which all of the villains have dark skin or a foreign accent are rightly criticized as employing racial stereotypes. If a movie were to be made in which people’s hair suddenly turned blonde and all of the characters with blonde hair were vapid idiots, then people with blonde hair would rightly be outraged. In today’s society, it should likewise be unacceptable for blindness to be used as a stand-in for depravity, incompetence, and lack of understanding."

The movie, closely based on a novel of the same name by Portuguese author José Saramago, imagines a city in which nearly all the occupants suddenly lose their sight. Fearful of an epidemic, the government confines the blinded citizenry to asylums, which quickly sink into depravity -- because many of the newly blind are completely helpless, and the ones who aren't become thieves and brutes to take advantage of them. The only one able to save the day is Moore as the wife of Ruffalo's blinded eye doctor, who feigned blindness to stay with her husband but can, in fact, see. According to the NFB's press release on the film, "she is portrayed as physically, mentally, and morally superior to the others because she still has her sight."

The NFB's press release on the film quotes Maurer as making these objections:

The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do. Blind people are a cross-section of society, and as such we represent the broad range of human capacities and characteristics. We are not helpless children or immoral, degenerate monsters; we are teachers, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, computer programmers, and social workers. We go to church, volunteer our time for worthy causes, raise children, operate businesses, and engage in recreational activities, just like everyone else. Portraying the blind on movie screens across America as little better than animals will reinforce the unfounded fears, misconceptions, and stereotypes in the general public about blindness. It will exacerbate the unemployment rate among the blind, which is already higher than 70 percent because of public misconceptions about the capabilities of blind people. It will reinforce false public notions that blind children are ineducable, that blind adults are unemployable, and that all blind people are socially undesirable. Blindness has been played for laughs in the past on the movie screen, but this film does something worse: it makes the blind objects not of mere ridicule but of fear and loathing. For Miramax and its parent company, the Walt Disney Company, to portray the blind in this manner, even as alleged allegory or so-called social commentary, is outrageous and reprehensible -- and it is a lie.

The federation's FAQ also makes the point that even the newly blind are able to handle themselves better than the characters in the movie, and retain their essential character and moral values.

On the other side of the argument, of course, are those who point out that it's a movie, and a metaphor, and not intended to be a documentary on blindness. In an AP article, Miramax calls the film "a courageous parable about the triumph of the human spirit when civilization breaks down," and director Fernando Meirelles says that "There are different kinds of blindness. There's 2 billion people that are starving in the world. This is happening. It doesn't need a catastrophe. It's happening, and because there isn't an event like Katrina, we don't see."

"I think that failing to understand each other is a significant problem," Maurer says in the AP story. "I think that portraying it as associated with blindness is just incorrect."

To right that wrong, the NFB, which has 50,000 members, is coordinating protests on Friday at theaters across the U.S. From the organization's homepage, you can download a FAQ and flyer for learning more or spreading the word.

Do you agree with the NFB's concerns over the depiction of blindness in Blindness? Share your thoughts in the poll above and the comments below.

Read more: Special Needs News | Site of the Day | Use of the R-Word in "Tropic Thunder" Sparks Controversy