Disabling Diversity: The Social Construction of Disability in 1990s Australian National Cinema

by Katie Ellis

Ellis offers a rich account of Australian cinema from the standpoint of critical disability studies, one of the few full-length accounts of disability and film internationally and a pioneering study that should be widely read.Gerard Goggin, coauthor of Disability in Australia Disabled characters in 1990s Australian national cinema are both invisible and hypervisible. Existing within the landscape of diversity as it emerged in response to multiculturalism and minority group interests, they are most often used to rehabilitate a previously marginalised other. This book critically examines numerous 1990s Australian films with reference to socio-political influences to approach disability as a problem with society rather than as one within a damaged body. This book is directed towards researchers in Communications, Media Studies, and Film and Disability fields. This book is also addressed to those who have an interest in people who exist on the margins of society.

Genres: Disability

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008