Disable The Pity Party

I normally don't write about things like I am setting out for you right now but today my proverbial button was pushed. Today the Today Show decided to share a story they felt was news worthy and inspirational about Shane Burcaw who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (the same neuromuscular disorder I have). And at first you'd think "Great Idea" yet upon reading the article and Shane's blog this is a horrible idea.

The entire story is about how Shane has a "fatal and debilitating" disease and how his college friends are taking him around the country to travel and inspire people. But how can he be inspirational when his story is essentially "feel sorry for me cause I feel sorry for myself and I'm going to die."  And his self pity party is worse then the article shows as he was once part of an online group of individuals with neuromuscular disorders that I am part of and once he realized everyone in the group was more interested in celebrating what we've done with our lives in spite of the disability he left the group as it wasn't a group of people going "so who didn't die today?"

NEWSFLASH Shane, WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE. Healthy and/or disabled.

Now, you might take this as jealousy since he's getting national attention. But it's not the case. I have never deemed my disability, same as Shane's, to be a death sentence. Nor do I let it define me. I am an individual that happens to be disabled not the other way around.

The fact that the media is continuing to hold back the disabled by sharing these pity party stories disgusts me. I am the first in my family to graduate college, have my own Internet radio show, co own Bullspike Radio, co founded Rock Against Dystrophy, gone to countless concerts with friends and family, gone on several vacations with friends and family, and recently began DJing in local rock/metal bars and I'm far from death row or stopping anytime soon. And might I add that none of my friends became so because they took pity on me. They wanted to know me, not my disability, ME. I've even become friends with listeners of my radio show who had no clue I was disabled until they met me in person at a concert nor did it change their thoughts towards me once they knew.

Furthermore, there are countless others with disabilities who are out there busting there ass in spite of their disabilities yet none of us are getting recognized.   They are lawyers, artists, accountants, teachers, and more and NOT letting their disability decide their fate for them.

Please start acknowledging individuals who see themselves first as an individual and disabled second and STOP feeding these self hating, self pitying people because they DO NOT represent the disabled population of the world.

Disabled Gamers Being Shunned

I recently had a few exchanges over Twitter with X-Play suggesting they look into how disabled gamers are being shunned by the industry. The person running the Twitter account suggested I e-mail X-Play. I did and thought I'd share my thoughts with them with all of you:

Dear X-Play,

I recently sent a tweet to your twitter account suggesting that you guys do an in depth look at how gaming is starting to shun disabled gamers.

I'm disabled, I have Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It requires I use a wheelchair to get around and limits my mobility. As a result sports weren't an option as a kid but gaming was. I've been gaming since the NES (even have a working original Game Boy) and have owned almost every system over the years but I recent years I find myself having less gaming options.

Yes my limitations have increased as I get older and the disability limitations increase along with age but the gaming community is changing against the disabled gamer as technology is increasing when it should be helping.

Games used to allow you to customize your controller setup making it easier for disabled gamers to put key buttons within easier reach yet nowadays the only games allowing customization of controls are fighters (like SSF4, UMvC3, etc). But gamers like Call of Duty, Assasin's Creed and others like them say "here's the controls, don't like it then don't play it". My disability has resulted in me not being able to use the left triggers on controls but can work the right yet in games I mentioned I can't alter it because programmers feel its not needed and or wanted. Does the aim and fire buttons. HAVE to be left trigger? Hell, forget disabled, if your right handed wouldn't you prefer the right trigger be key buttons instead of the "useless" buttons like look around or other options?

Plus there's the biggest offender of disabled gamer discrimination in Microsoft. Kinect, you be the controller. Um, hi I'm disabled with limited movement how can I be the controller for something I can't physically do for real? Does Kinect recognize a wheelchair? Crutches? Has Microsoft even made disabled Avatars? No they haven't. I own a 360 and looked, no disabled Avatars.

There are tons if disabled gamers worldwide that are slowly being pushed out of the one thing in this world they could do just as well as healthy gamers. Hell I kicked major ass in a mini Soul Caliber tourney on the GameCube in my home a few years back, and I was drunk. I was top 10 in my Blockbuster Store when they did their gaming competition in the 90s, yet I spend more time looking for games I can play then I do playing them because the industry is forgetting disabled gamers like myself by not putting in customized controls or taking a second to think if what they've made can appeal to ALL gamers.

I hope this might intrigue you to look into it and maybe even put some of the game companies on the hot seat on how they take the disabled community into consideration for their games.

I'm also including my number in case you have questions for me or would like more input from me.

Thanks for your time and keep up the great work on X-Play.

Turbo

Hopefully this will intrigue X-Play or G4TV enough to get gaming companies to remember there are ALL types of gamers out there.

Not Interested In Blue People

I enjoy movies just as much as anyone. Usually I jump to see a high-tech movie that is full of action and at least a half decent storyline. But every so often there is a movie that I will refuse to watch at any point in my life. So while everyone around the world is going ape-shit crazy over James Cameron's latest flick "Avatar", I am avoiding seeing it and trying to get those who haven't flocked to the theaters to see it to also avoid it.

This isn't the first movie of Cameron's that I refuse to watch. His biggest blockbuster to date, "Titanic", was the very first movie I ever said I would refuse to watch. The reason was simple. The fact that there was a movie evolving around a love story that took advantage of one of the worlds biggest catastrophe's disgusted me. The Titanic is a major event that resulted in thousands of innocent lives being taken and a movie about a bogus love story was a slap in the face to those who died.

But the story of "Avatar" is not the reason for my boycott. The story does lack some originality but it's a solid story. And the effects were worth the twelve year wait. The reason for my boycott is because there is a disabled character in it and was a disabled actor cast to play the role? That's a big fat NO! And that my friends is what has got my buttons pushed.

Now I have heard the arguement that "a real disabled person couldn't have done the CGI standing motion capture". Now that is obviously true but they could have hired a person to do the standing CGI stuff. Because when you are just capturing motion that will have a body layered over it the body doesn't matter. So the right thing to have done would have been cast a true disabled individual to play the character and hire a second actor with the required height and weight for the CGI character. And by not taking this step Cameron has added to the mass thought of the disabled not being good enough to do things in regular society.

Those that know me know that I do everything that I can physically do which has included this blog, produce videos for a major broadcast (The MDA Telethon), do an Internet radio show, and graduate from college. As you can see my physical disability hasn't kept my mind from working which makes me no different than anyone else in this world. The fact that Hollywood is tossing in disabled characters into movies and TV shows is helping to make disabled people "acceptable" for society as a whole. But as long as they keep casting non-disabled actors to play disabled characters they are doing just the opposite.

There are more than enough disabled people in this country to fill a role as a disabled character in a movie or TV series yet Hollywood refuses to have it. Why? Because it's not appealing to the public at mass to have it and that is beyond wrong. The only difference between someone disabled and someone who isn't is just the disability. A person is a person no matter how healthy and it's time Hollywood and the rest of the world starts realizing that and stop looking at people with disabilities and defining them by that disability. Let's not have people with disabilities the new minority. After all, you never know when you or a loved one might become disabled?


-- Posted from my iPhone