Genevieve Clay-Smith: 'Game of Thrones' + 'Me Before You'

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welcome to reframed the podcast about disability and media in this series we shine a light on how people with

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disability are represented on our screens why is this important because authentic representation matters

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media is powerful and more often than not they get it very very wrong my name is jason climo and i'll be your

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host join me my co-host and a wonderful selection of guests as we review analyze

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and score disability representation in tv and film

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welcome back everyone to episode three of reframed today i have my lovely as

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ever co-host steph dauer how are you doing steph i'm good i'm glad to be back

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how are you going really good thank you and i am sad to say that this is the last episode that i have you on for

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season one we will be introducing a new co-host at the end of this yeah i know i know

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but it's been so lovely having you and getting your insight into the industry and everything that you do

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um obviously you're you're kind of like my secret little insider i feel um with your amazing experience working in the

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industry um what have you been up to on that note uh yeah so i've just been working on my own slate of projects over

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the last few weeks a few months and i'm working on developing a feature

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film which is called seeing scout um so we've had a little bit of buzz around that which is really exciting we're

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still in the writing stage of that so pushing forward day by day minute minute um and

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uh you know a few other things that we're doing um i'm i'm also working on a documentary

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series which is called carry on and it is a travel documentary series jason

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knows a little bit about this because he was perhaps chosen to be on the show

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literally i'm still waiting for my ticket to europe i'm like when's this happening uh well when you talk to the covered

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cards and tell them to go away already i know then we can finally get back to making a travel show yeah it was just

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very very bad timing unfortunately yeah we'll just do like virtual reality training or something

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but yeah i mean like i i've seen they've got these like walkthroughs of like different cities around the world so

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maybe we'll just sit you in front of a computer screen and we'll just watch your reaction going through these

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walkthroughs um sorry not as exciting but you know it has to be maybe it's it's gonna be like slow slow tv that's

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what it is now yeah oh my god oh that's a no for me but anyway

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so i'm excited to get stuck into today's episode we've got two really cool pieces of media that we are analyzing kind of

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big budget things as well um this time so we've got game of thrones

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which we'll be doing together and then we've got a really cool special guest which is genevieve clay smith and we'll hear from her a bit later um and then

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last up we've got the movie called me before you which if you haven't seen it

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you are going to hear all about it and all of our opinions because most of us think it's a bit so i'm

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excited to get stuck into it there are some there are some strong feelings about that film

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and i think game of thrones is an interesting one as well so let's get stuck into that and let's take a quick

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look at a bit of the trailer for game of thrones as well and hear a bit about it

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game of thrones is the critically acclaimed and much-hyped hbo series based on the books by george r.r martin

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set in the mythical land of westeros the series follows several powerful families as they fight for control and power over

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the seven kingdoms the series features an array of characters including those with both congenital and acquired

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disabilities bran stark played by able-bodied actor isaac hempstead wright becomes a

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paraplegic in the first season while the character of tyrion lannister lives with a form of dwarfism just as the actor

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portraying him peter dinklage does in australia you can currently stream all eight seasons of game of thrones on

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binge perfect so that's game of thrones if you haven't watched it where the hell have you been go watch it uh and

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probably don't watch this anymore because we're going to have a lot of spoilers for it including who ends up on the throne

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steph did you want to tell us a bit about how you felt about the representation of people with disability in game of thrones game of thrones is is

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such an interesting one to talk about when it comes to like the portrayal of people with disabilities because i think it does a

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really good job but then it also does a maybe not a great job it's a bit all over the shop like i mean you've got

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obviously the first person that comes to mind for me is peter dinklage playing tyrion

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lannister so tyrion lannister you know a short stature in person um but he's also like one of the biggest

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characters on the show he's seen as like this you know strong

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independent you know there are definitely some jokes made about him on the show but it's kind of like reflective of what

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people experience in modern society as well so it's kind of like almost holding a

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mirror mirror up to to the audience i think like this is actually what happens to people a lot of the time

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unfortunately um but then yeah like so i know for me that was one of the

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best like portrayals of disability i've i've seen in a while

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how do you feel about the show well and to have like in such a large like it's a

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massive massive deal i think for something like game of thrones to be inclusive like that

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i was so excited um on the other hand i think it's good also that they have a narrative around bran

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who obviously acquires disability um but what was disappointing with that is that

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they chose to continue with a non-disabled actor beyond that point and i think if you've seen the show as well

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like they obviously very deliberately kept all the stark kids as the same actors actresses

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um throughout the whole series and i think they did that with most characters where they could as well but i think

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with bran probably they could have made the exception because like as a child who was non-disabled and then like

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myself acquired disability um and i think beyond that point they could have definitely introduced a new a

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new actor that just looked enough like the child actor to sort of pull it off and then you

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still have that genuine representation so i don't know though do do you have different thoughts about that casting

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choice no i i agree i mean you know so his injury occurs i think at the end

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of season one and he he starts off as a very young child so yeah you know over the course

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of the eight years on the series he does change in appearance quite dramatically so it wouldn't have been that shocking

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to recast in season two to someone who has lived experience of

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having a spinal cord injury or whatever um yeah i think it definitely could have been done i i understand that would have

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been more effort on the parts of producers and would have complicated

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contracts potentially in that so i i do somewhat understand why they did what

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they did but it also could have could have been done um if they had just put that little bit

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of extra effort or or thought into it so exactly and i can't help but feel that

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like the actor that plays brand now has like quite a good profile and i can't help

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but think that like if they had actually cast a disabled actor in that role they would

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now have a good profile as well like they'd be quite famous and they might actually be being put in more pictures and more

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films and and more tv shows and then getting more and more inclusion so for me it just felt like and the more

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producers could have been more producers couldn't have used the excuse oh but i just can't find anyone's like well

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there's someone right there you could just use them like yeah exactly there were obviously a lot of good

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things and i think we can't ignore the fact that two people with disability and two also two characters with disability

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become two of the most powerful people in westeros at the end um how did you feel about that like seeing that in the

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real world obviously people with disabilities aren't getting those sorts of opportunities i guess in

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general so seeing that do you think that could have like a positive effect on how

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society views disability in people's disability or do you think it's just is what it is in the show it's it's

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it's interesting like i remember when the finale was out

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and there was obviously a lot of talk about you know maybe the finale was

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disappointing or like the final season was a bit disappointing um i i just wonder how much of that

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comes from you know were people disappointed that the king in the end

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was this kid in a wheelchair like did they i mean when i heard that that was

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the ending because i didn't watch it at a time when i heard that that was the ending i was like cool that's like i

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love that that's that's you know you don't see that ever um but yeah it's just interesting that i

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did get um that sort of that backlash unfortunately um

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but you know what i mean it also put the put the image out there it made people

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see that and see that people with disabilities you know can be put into

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those positions and are capable of being you know i mean not that we have you know uh

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middle you know middle-aged kings around anymore but you know people with disabilities can be

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in those powerful positions so you know yes it did get some some backlash um

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from die hard fans and that but it still put the image out there and i like that that image is out there

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in society enough yeah and i think that's so true and you know we don't have dragons but i think

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there is a bit of power in that and it's we can't ignore that when we're analyzing this and giving our score one

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thing that i felt was like really important as well was a moment with um oberyn

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and he is reflecting on when he visited like tyrion when tyrion was an infant

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um and people were calling tyrion and monster and all that kind of stuff and auburn literally just says he's not a

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monster he's just a baby and i feel like it highlights that no matter kind of how

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terrible and like all-consuming ableism can be at times there are also always allies and i

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will touch on this later as well with our special guest but there are also always allies and that like

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the system can actually be changed if people are willing to learn so like oberyn just understood and he either you

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know learnt about disability in westeros um or just kind of stood i

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understood like innately in himself that like it's just wrong to be ableist and so

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it that sort of i think was an encouraging moment as well like trying to you know draw a reflection between westeros and the real

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real world is that like people can learn and change and and understand you know our perspectives of disability

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and our own views of ourselves and our own community so what were there any other kind of redeeming factors or anything else that

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really important that you wanted to say about game of thrones um i mean obviously like you know this

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is such a big cast of characters as well you know it was great that you know these moments

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of uh you know profiling disability it wasn't the main focus of the show like

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this was just one thread in a very big uh fabric of story so you know i did

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appreciate that they they just fit into this world like they weren't

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um the sole focus of the world so yeah exactly it'd be great to have more representation like that across the

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board i think and i think as well if the spin-off is still happening it'll be interesting to see how they represent if they represent

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disability in the spin-off because obviously these characters were written in by the author of the series um and so

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it'll be interesting to see when there's i don't think there's books for the spin-off so be interesting to see if

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that happens anyway let's leave it there what was your score for game of thrones out of five on the

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inclusive disability representation scale for those at home if you don't know what that means it's literally just a scale that we've made up don't try and

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google it because you won't find it anywhere um it's basically just our thoughts our feels about how inclusive

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the representation of people with disability is in a certain piece of media so steph

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out of five i gave game of thrones a three out of five hmm

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interesting i gave it a three and a half so like not too far off i think the main thing for me really yeah yeah and i

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think the main thing for me really was just that i hated that bran was played by a non-disabled actor so

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um that was yeah that's it and you know they were yeah that's it and again going back to

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that whole they they still sort of perpetuated some of those um some of that stigma around disability

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but perhaps tried to be educational with it at the same time it was a little bit so yeah nice nice in the middle kind of

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a little bit better than worse but yeah yeah not totally terrible but not great

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perfect so i think it's time to meet our special guest for today steph did you want to give us a bit of background info

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on our guest yeah sure so our special guest today is genevieve clay smith who

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is a diversity and inclusion champion a creative director social entrepreneur arts and cultural advocate she recently

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received the emerging leader award at the 2019 telstra business women's awards and one of genevieve's many notable

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roles has been as founder and director of bus stop films a not-for-profit organization that uses filmmaking and

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the film industry to raise the profile of people living with disabilities and other marginalized groups both in front

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of and behind the camera so wow that was a lot of information there did i capture it all jen

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oh you did a great job steph i feel very humbled

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and this is exactly why that's exactly why we've got you on because you're an expert in the field um you're an amazing

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ally and obviously like as a non-disabled person working in this field helping to uplift disabled voices

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um is so important and it's very exciting to have you so i think steph did a pretty good job but

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did you just want to tell us a bit about your career today introduce yourself to people um give yourself a bit of a plug

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yeah sure a bit of promo

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i will see how i go um well i i started my journey in the film industry over 10

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years ago um i was studying at university and i got my first filmmaking gig working with down syndrome new south

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wales and i spent 18 months with people with trisomy 21 and their

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families and through that time i really realized how

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exclusive the film industry was and how difficult it is for people with disability to be involved um both in

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front of the camera and behind the scenes and so i went on a bit of a journey to try and um you know break the

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film industry open i made a short film with a with a man with trisomy 21 and we

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also had a crew of people with and without disability working on that film and that film ended up winning trop fest

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in 2009 and jared o'dwyer who was our lead actor with trisomy 21 he won best

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actor and so we made that film inclusively and after that um you know it was really evident to me that this

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type of inclusive filmmaking model needed to continue on and um so i co-founded bus stop films

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and um 10 years later we are running numerous filmmaking workshops for people

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with disability um statewide in australia and interstate now and

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we've done some projects overseas and we're also getting employment opportunities

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for people with disability in the film industry as well so we create films inclusively we provide

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education and we also um advocate for employment and provide employment

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pathways so um yeah that's a bit of a summary i'm very passionate about um

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about you know ensuring that we have authentic representation of disability on screen i believe that storytelling is

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um fundamental to progressing human rights and we need to be able to partner with minority groups in order to ensure

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that authentic representation occurs so that we're not perpetuating stereotypes

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could not have said it better myself really absolutely i was just about to say i could not have

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said that better that's exactly why we're here as well so why is it so important to have this representation on

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screen and behind the screen absolutely well you know

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traditionally the film industry has been you know

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it's been dominated by a certain group of people and those people have had

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a specific lens through which they view minority groups through so um

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you know when we talk specifically about disability the lens through which they're viewing um disability is tainted

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by their own internal internal ableism that our unconscious ableism and so what we end up seeing perpetuated

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on screen because they don't have relationships with people with disability and they certainly have not believed that it is

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possible to work with people with disability because of low expectations so entrenched stigma of low expectations

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that people have of people with disability in society that infiltrates the film industry as well

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and and so we see a versions of people with disability

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portrayed on our screens and we also see actors without disability representing characters with disability and the

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message in that is that well you know we have such low expectations of people with disability we don't even

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think they can play themselves and so it just continues to perpetuate um those stereotypes those low

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expectations and just all all the um i guess the

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derogatory ideas around disability that really stops people from getting equal

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opportunity so what we need to do is ensure that we're actually bringing people into disa bringing people with

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disability into every area of the filmmaking process so they can influence the way

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that their lived experience is represented on screen and so that we can

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have actually a more realistic understanding and diverse understanding of the experience of disability because

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it's not just one cookie-cutter experience people with disability are individuals and they all have uh

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individual experiences and you know what we have seen traditionally

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is uh is a tragedy um kind of narrative or a pity narrative or an inspiration

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narrative and um and that's just simply not um not the the truth behind many people's

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experience who have disabilities so we want to make sure that um that that that we're having people with

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disability involved in every aspect so that we're getting a more accurate representation

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yeah exactly and just really quickly as well like with that i think a big important part is allyship

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and non-disabled people helping to uplift non-disabled disabled people to actually get into those roles and give

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them those opportunities can you just touch on quickly why you think that's so important as well

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absolutely i think allyship specifically when it comes to disability

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is everybody's business because um disability is a human condition

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and in fact it it can um i could acquire a disability any point in my life

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i won't change my sexuality i won't suddenly become um a person from a different um you know cultural

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background but disability um is is real it can affect it it can disability is

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something that um we may all experience in our lives whether it's in our um our

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own personal world or um in our family's world and we need to make sure that we're creating a world that ensures that

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everybody can participate equally and everybody has an empowered view of disability because

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it is part of the human condition and so i feel like um when it comes to

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allyship people often think oh but i have nothing to do with disability i

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don't understand um you know and so they feel removed from it but

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actually um i just believe it's it's everybody's business to want to ensure

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that our world is um is accessible for everybody because it is it is simply

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part of humanity absolutely and people with disability make up around 20 of the population but

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that means non-disabled people make up around 80 so we still need the majority which is non-disabled people to help

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uplift us give us those opportunities to control our own narratives um and put us on the camera as well like you do put us

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on a tv show put us in a film get that real representation that's genuine so

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perfect well thank you so much genevieve for giving us that insight letting us ask you so many questions about uh your

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viewpoints your career and and who you're working with and what you do it's amazing um allyship is so important and

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i think you're a great ally um now i think it's time to dive into our second piece of media for today which is me

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before you my personal opinion is it's a total bin fire but let's get straight into it

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me before you is a romantic drama film adapted from a novel by jojo moyes it

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follows 20 something in louisa clarke as she takes a job as caregiver for will trainer a 35 year old former

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thrill-seeker now living with a spinal cord injury as a romantic relationship builds

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between the two louisa is ultimately left heartbroken when will reveals he will be committing assisted suicide

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believing his life as a quadriplegic is not worth living the role of will is played by

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able-bodied actor sam claflin me before you can now be streamed on stan all right so that's me before you

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and steph what are your thoughts i obviously i think i'm pretty biased my experiences of being a person with

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spinal cord injury quite similar and i think this movie is trash but steph anything else to offer

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look i mean yeah i don't think where i think we all agree that it's a bit of a

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damaging movie um first and foremost um to show that a life

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living as someone who needs a wheelchair or as someone with a disability of any

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sort is not worth living you'd rather die than live that life i think that's

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pretty short-sighted very small-minded and clearly there wasn't a lot of

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deep meaningful consultation or collaboration with people who actually live with a

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disability in their day-to-day lives so ah yeah damaging movie i remember going to see

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this in the cinema and at the end like it was a pretty full simmer as well and at the end i'm

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sitting at the back so everyone sort of has to walk past me to like get out of the cinema and i just feel like everyone

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is looking at me being like oh you poor thing oh you must just want to die or something like that and i just felt like

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saying everyone like trust me guys like i can actually be pretty good like i'm doing okay it's fine um but yeah just

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really really unfortunate i think yeah

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that's horrible as well like and that is exactly what this type of film creates is those moments where

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non-disabled people will view that or like even other disabled people view that and then they see someone who's a

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wheelchair user and just think oh wow that must be so terrible genevieve thoughts

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i think this is a classic example of people without disability um

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[Music] telling a story through um a tragedy

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lens and and and having no true understanding of

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what a the lived experience of somebody might be but what these guys did was

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make it about disability being the reason why he he wanted to die

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and and it's such an insult to people with disability living their lives contributing meaningfully enjoying life

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but they they demonize disability and make it the antagonist and make it something

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that he needs to to ultimately die from um which is which is really problematic because as you say

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audiences go away with those internalized messages so that when they go out into the world interacting with

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people they're holding on to that subconscious message thinking that people with disability are lesser

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they're tragic they wow it must be so bad to be a person with disability which is just so far from the truth

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one thing that stuck out to me was that there were no other people with disability or characters with disability in the film and so it was like there was

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this whole thing where of course we would have felt isolated because one he was completely sheltered and forced

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basically to we're not forced but forced himself essentially to stay at home most of the

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time until his love interest comes in and they go out and do some things but not meeting anyone else with disability

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of course that's going to feel isolating you're going to feel like the only disabled person in the whole wide world and you're going to feel like you're so

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different to everyone where it's like my thing and part of like my journey i guess is that connecting with the disabled

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community was so valuable because i learnt so much about myself through

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doing that and i just feel like that was a missed opportunity but then i also have to think about this

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whole film was based on a book and like the biggest thing probably well not the biggest one of the big things for me is

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also that they chose a non-disabled person to play this role so it's like someone

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yeah who's like trying to represent like the trauma of this experience is like not

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even someone that has experienced it which is pretty if i may say so

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yeah we all just play a little bit devil's advocate though there were some small moments that i

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thought were positive and you might want to disagree i don't know and you might want to add too

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um but i felt like there was a couple of moments and specifically one where they were kind of educating louisa which is a

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love interest about um his injury and his spinal cord injury and his disability and

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she was kind of like with all this physio he like he's obviously going to get better and then the nurse or the

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physio whoever it is is like well well no this is more to do with like you know like general health and like bone

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density and circulation and stuff like that yeah which i think is really important because i think sometimes on social

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media we see people with spinal cord injuries like you know doing stuff at like rehab centers and they're like

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standing assisted um and then people like wow this is amazing they're going to walk again and it's like that's not

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necessarily true and so for me it's someone else's acquired yeah and for me that's

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something that's quite a spinal cord injury that's kind of an important narrative i think to represent but

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that's probably one of the only good parts that i noticed so i i will also say that i did like seeing

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a person in a wheelchair in a leading role

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intimate relationship like that's true as much as it didn't end well um you know we did

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it did give that representation that people with disabilities you know can be capable and and can be seen as desirable

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and um and all of that so um i i think that's the part for me that

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i'm like okay there's something there it just went down the wrong way

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so on that note genevieve out of five on our inclusive disability representation scale what did you score me before you

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negative five amazing steph

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um and based on what i just said i i did give it a one out of five

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yeah i was 1.5 out of five just for those like tiny little moments of for me

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those personal moments where it was kind of educational um and like you said like having a person

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with a disability as a lead character isn't that common but it's still pretty to sum it up

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yeah yeah it's like it's like they took two steps forward one step back

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yeah literally literally this um this film is meant to be a classic romance so when you look at

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the genre that the filmmakers are working in usually in a classic romance the two

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love lovers don't actually um make it in the end they either both die or someone goes away or one

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person dies and i think why did the vehicle of their separation have to be disability you know how much more

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interesting would it be if louisa had um had died you know i i i think

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that um i just think that there's so many there's just so many more interesting ways to tell

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this story other than making it about um a man in in

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with disability as a tragic victim of his circumstance so tragic that he feels he needs to die i just think that the

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overall message of the film is um is so damaging and and it's just so uninteresting how they tell the story

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that um you know it's it's um it would have really benefited from

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somebody with the lived experience injecting some life into this story because it actually probably would have

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been a better story uh it would have just been more interesting more truthful and more surprising um so yeah that's

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kind of my last little bit of rant thank you and look i totally agree and

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every sort of pitcher that has a character with disability could definitely benefit from and and not even

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just benefit it just should it just should be the standard that is the bare minimum of at least having one person with that experience involved so that's

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our thoughts that's our rants and our scores um thank you everyone for following along today and thank you so

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much genevieve and steph for joining me obviously this was such an awesome conversation and i'm so glad that we

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could have someone like yourself with your experience that you've got genevieve um coming on teaching us a bit

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about allyship and telling us your thoughts on the bin fire that is me before you

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everyone following along at home if you have thoughts which i'm sure you do if you disagree if you agree with us if you

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want to give us your scores all you have to do is jump on our social media pages so if you just search reframed podcast

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or you can email us at hello reframed.com we want to hear your thoughts that's the

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whole point of this this is why we're talking about these things and scoring and analyzing these pieces

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of media is so that you guys can learn you're our little reframers at home and we want you to learn we want you to tell

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us your thoughts and also teach your friends and family about representation and inclusion and why it's important

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so next time i'm really excited to we're actually saying goodbye to steph sorry thank you steph for very big

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sad moment saying goodbye but we'll welcome you back again i'm sure uh i've got a new co-host next week uh which is

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robin lambert which is very exciting and our special guest is mingwa who will be

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sharing her experiences as someone with vision impairment so i will see you all then

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thank you bye

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hello [Music]

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bye