Subscribe Sign in

Health

Being Heumann already a big win for disability representation on screen

ABC News
1 min read Rewritten in plain language

FilmPeople With DisabilityBiographical FilmsDisabilities

  • A scene in upcoming film Being Heumann features a woman with mousy brown hair and 70s glasses, driving her wheelchair down the middle of the road, flipping the bird to a bus driver as she goes past.
  • Ms Heumann died in 2023, aged 75, though her legacy lives on, as does the fight for disability rights.
  • The co-author of the screenplay is American disability activist Rebekah Taussig.
  • Some of these performances have even garnered acclaim, such as the Oscar-winning turns of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
  • The comedy, starring Hannah Diviney and Angus Thompson, follows the two characters as they navigate the highs and lows of dating with a disability.

5 sentences from our version of the report, chosen to cover it. Nothing here is written; every line is in the article below. How

How could I not be stirred by events such as the 504 Sit-ins, at which activists occupied a senator's office for weeks until he accepted their petition to amend the US Rehabilitation Act to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability.

Headline check

The one thing this headline claims is in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. One claim in this headline could be checked, so this is a narrow pass and not a thorough one. How this is checked

A scene in upcoming film Being Heumann features a woman with mousy brown hair and 70s glasses, driving her wheelchair down the middle of the road, flipping the bird to a bus driver as she goes past.

For many, it will be the moment they first meet Judith Heumann and start to learn about the disability rights movement she helped lead.

Ms Heumann died in 2023, aged 75, though her legacy lives on, as does the fight for disability rights.

In the new film, Ms Heumann is played by British actor Ruth Madeley, who lives with spina bifida.

The co-author of the screenplay is American disability activist Rebekah Taussig.

Firstly, stories that centre on or even feature disability have been written or created with little to no consultation with people who have lived experience.

Non-disabled actors have been encouraged to "crip up", the colloquial term coined by the disabled community to describe when an able-bodied actor changes their physical appearance, mannerisms and speech to portray a disabled character.

Some of these performances have even garnered acclaim, such as the Oscar-winning turns of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.

Take the frustrating movie Me Before You, which is based on a book written by a non-disabled author and was marketed as a romance between a physically disabled man and his female caregiver.

The comedy, starring Hannah Diviney and Angus Thompson, follows the two characters as they navigate the highs and lows of dating with a disability.

Shortened to 1 minute of reading, this version reads 9.8 on the Niral Score.

You are reading our version, not theirs. This is ABC News's report shortened to its most important sentences, in plainer words, with verdicts and loaded words taken out. Plain description stays, and so do adjectives that carry a fact, such as "former" or "federal". The reporting, the facts and the quotations are theirs — quotations are never edited — and the indicators beside it measure this version. Hover or tap Adjectives to see every one left in the text.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Outlet Niral ScoreAdjectivesSourcingPoliticalSentimentGenderHappiness
ABC Newsas they published this story 20.4 24 23 -0.1 0.3 2.8 27.9
Mundane Readneutralized from ABC News 12 19 23 -0.1 0.2 0 39.1

Sign in to react.

This story is about a death. Comments are closed on those, because the people closest to it are among the people who read them. If something here is wrong, tell us — that we do read.