Able-bodied actors in disabled roles ‘is just as bad as blackface’
“CRIPPING UP” is just as unacceptable as blackface, the actress Sally Phillips has said, as people with disabilities continue to be under-represented on television.
The term refers to an able-bodied ac- tor playing a character who is disabled. Actors who have been accused of “cripping up”’ include the Oscar-nominated Bradley Cooper in his West End portrayal of the Elephant Man, and Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
Philips, 50, told The Sunday Times there is “basically no representation of people with disabilities” within television. She said: “Cripping up is just as unacceptable as blackface. People think a disabled actor isn’t acting if they’re playing a disabled character.
“But that’s like saying Idris Elba isn’t acting when he plays Nelson Mandela. Lack of integration has massive effects. You shouldn’t be stopped from working in TV because you literally can’t get in the building.”
According to the 2019 annual Diamond
Report published by the Creative Diversity Network, widely recognised as the most authoritative diversity monitor across the UK television industry, disabled people are the most under-represented group.
The report, backed by broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, found that disabled people make up just 5.2 per cent of the off-screen workforce and 7.8 per cent on-screen.
Sir Desmond Swayne, the Conservative MP, who was widely criticised after a photo emerged last year of him dressing up as James Brown, told The Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics Podcast that people have “lost their sense of humour” over blackface and questioned why the practice was offensive.