How can you act like you are disabled?

Answer 1

There have been several movies that I can recall where actors portrayed disabled people. Whoopi Goldberg had a routine where she represented a girl with cerebral palsy. It was an eye opener. Dustin Hoffman in Rainman played an autistic savant. Harrison Ford portrayed a man with a brain injury in Something about Henry. One more I can recall had John Ritter (1978) as a man paralyzed after a polo accident --Leave Yesterday Behind. A movie called Scent of a Woman had Al Pacino as a blind man.

Answer 2

I'm seriously surprised to read this question because who would want to act "as if" disabled. The very idea may sound demeaning to the many millions of child and adult folks who live with a congenital (present at birth) or acquired (occurring anytime in life) type of disability. Furthermore, the question seems to imply that (1) all disabilities are the same and (2) that just the idea of being "disabled" can be mimicked. Neither of these is true!

While some actresses and actresses have played roles that included some form of disability, they spent considerable time researching not just how to "act like", but how disabilities affect people's lives, and they researched the disability (the condition), too. Most actors/actresses spend many hours with physicians, physical therapists, and/or psychotherapists to get accurate information about physical disabilities. As such, their "research" gives them a more respectful approach to employing their craft, that of acting. Even child actress Patty Duke spent time in a School for the Blind before playing a blind child in the Helen Keller movie!

But anyone who tries to just adopt some visual (something others might observe) aspect of some non-specific "disability" has no clue about what disabilities do to a person's life. It's very disrespectful-- the very idea is somewhat repulsive. Just off the the top of my head, how could anyone explain what it is like for one of the Boston Marathon victims who woke up after the incident and surgery as bilat BK (bilateral - both legs-- below the knee) amputees. The grueling hours of physical therapy or learning to use artificial legs includes both emotional and physical hardships! Or one of the oldest conditions physicians ever diagnosed--epilepsy--involves society's biases as well as physical and emotional hardships. A child born with a limb or body "defect", who has never known the freedom of standing independently, who has only known life in a wheelchair--how could anyone presume to keenly understand such a life!

I can only hope you've asked this question because you're going to be a character in a play at school. If so, my best advice is to ask a disabled person to tell you what "life" is like for them and from their perspectives. Request permission to ask very detailed questions about what it is like for them emotionally, day to day... their answers might surprise you.

If, however, you've asked this in the hopes you could "act disabled" to get some reaction or sympathy from others, I hope this explains why that wouldn't be a good idea and why "acting like" you're disabled would be highly disrespectful to people who live with some type of congenital or acquired disability.