The inspiring documentary film Imperfect receives its North American digital premiere on February 16, 2024. The film sees a professional company of actors with disabilities defy expectations by taking center stage in the musical Chicago. While the past few years have seen an increased presence of disability in entertainment and media, there is still a long way to go to achieve authentic and comprehensive representation of artists with disabilities on stage and screen…without condescension, pity, or stigmatization. In 2017, the Ruderman Family Foundation produced a white paper showing that while 20-25% of the U.S. population has a disability, fewer than 2% of all television characters had a disability, and 95% of top TV show characters with disabilities were played by non-disabled performers (Ruderman 2017).
In 2021, a report from Think Tank for Inclusion & Equity (TTIE), Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Women in Film showed that 93.0% of writers said their most recent writers room had no disabled or Deaf writers. The theatre industry presents a similar story, with no significant data available on the representation of disability.
Director Regan Linton has shared his thoughts and reasons for making such an important film. Unfortunately, disabled communities still fight against shame-based narratives, exhibiting one-dimensional characters. The documentary highlights a fight against such historical trends putting strong, talented artists with disabilities front and center, telling their own stories.
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