The novelist José Saramago won the Nobel Prize in 1998 following the publication of his book Blindness, which has just been adapted into a movie starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. It’s a beautifully written but terrifying dystopian allegory about humanity’s tendency towards violence and intolerance and our collective need for deeper compassion, delivered through the story of a worldwide epidemic that leaves millions of people blind and the chaos that ensues. “BULLSHIT, you are a bunch of assholes,” says the blind community. From the AP:
BALTIMORE (AP) — Blind people quarantined in a mental asylum, attacking each other, soiling themselves, trading sex for food. For Marc Maurer, who’s blind, such a scenario — as shown in the movie “Blindness” — is not a clever allegory for a breakdown in society.
Instead, it’s an offensive and chilling depiction that Maurer fears could undermine efforts to integrate blind people into the mainstream.
“The movie portrays blind people as monsters, and I believe it to be a lie,” said Maurer, president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind. “Blindness doesn’t turn decent people into monsters.”
The organization plans to protest the movie, released by Miramax Films, at 75 theaters around the country when it’s released Friday. Blind people and their allies will hand out fliers and carry signs. Among the slogans: “I’m not an actor. But I play a blind person in real life.”
The movie reinforces inaccurate stereotypes, including that the blind cannot care for themselves and are perpetually disoriented, according to the NFB.
One could, of course, ask the blind community why they didn’t bother to protest the book, which was written 11 years ago, and waited for the movie adaptation to channel their outrage. One could, if one was such a pedantic jerk. But one won’t. Still, it’s clear that the blind community didn’t get the memo that you shouldn’t over analyze things. Right you guys? Entertainment is just entertainment, everyone should shut up. Or they did get the memo, but it wasn’t in braille. Ugh. There we go. Perfect. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to work in a reminder about how I am the worst into this post, but I did. Success!