Greetings:

Our societal impression of blindness comes in large part from
what is portrayed by the popular media. We all know that major
movies can form the opinions of millions. This coming Friday,
October 3, 2008, Hollywood
releases Blindness, The Movie. This movie confirms the worst
stereotypes of blindness and puts on the level with the most
depraved in our society.
Below you will find a draft of a “Frequently Asked Questions”
document that we will be distributing next week. It describes
the movie and anticipates questions we will receive.

We are an organization of action and now we will act. Next
Friday, we plan to organize informational protests at movie
theaters all across the nation. We want to do at least two such
protests here in Colorado. We will, of
course, conduct one right here in Denver and we will do another
in Colorado Springs. These will likely take place in early
evening. Please stay tuned and come out and join us on the
picket lines. We have to send society a
much different message about the capacities of the blind. As I
say, details will be forth-coming on Monday.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the premise and plot of the movie Blindness?

A: Blindness is based on a novel of the same name by the
Portuguese writer José Saramago. The premise of the movie is
that unnamed residents of an unnamed city in an unnamed country
suddenly and mysteriously go blind.
Those who experience the blindness see only a white glare, so the
blindness is sometimes called the “white sickness.” Fearing that
the blindness is contagious, the government quarantines the
victims in an abandoned and dilapidated mental asylum, with
orders that anyone attempting to leave is to be killed
immediately. The prisoners are supposed to be given food and
supplies, but food deliveries are inadequate and increasingly
become irregular. The asylum also becomes filthy because the
blind inmates, as portrayed in the movie, cannot find their way
to the bathroom and simply relieve themselves on the floor or in
their own beds. Some of the inmates die from infection, disease,
or from gunshot wounds when they try to escape or simply become
lost and wander too close to the guards. One group of
inmates, led by the wife of a former eye doctor who can still see
but is feigning blindness to remain with her husband, fare
slightly better than the rest; this is solely because the
doctor’s wife assists the blind, who are portrayed as being
unable to do anything for themselves. As food supplies dwindle,
one group of blind inmates, whose leader has cquired a gun and
dubs himself “the king of Ward Three,” begins to terrorize the
others. The armed clique in ward three hordes all the food,
extorting money and valuables from the other inmates and
eventually demanding sex with the women from other wards in
exchange for allowing the rest of the inmates to eat.
One of the members of this clique, who was born blind and is not
a victim of the white sickness, knows how to read and write
Braille and is given the task of taking inventory of the
valuables stolen from the other inmates. Rather than helping the
other inmates adjust to their blindness, he uses his knowledge of
how to function as a blind person to assist the criminal gang.
When the women from the ward where the doctor’s wife resides go
to ward three to exchange sex for food, one of them is beaten to
death as she is raped. The doctor’s wife later kills the King of
Ward Three, but the man
who was born blind takes his place as leader of the armed gang
and threatens to avenge the “king” by killing the doctor’s wife.
Being blind, however, he is unable to shoot her and she escapes
unharmed. The rest of the inmates finally decide to do battle
with the gang in ward three; during the fight, someone sets a
pile of bedding alight, starting a fire that soon engulfs the
entire asylum. During the ensuing confusion, the man who was
born blind shoots himself. When the surviving inmates, including
the group led by the doctor’s wife, escape the burning asylum,
they discover that no soldiers are standing guard and therefore
they are free. Outside the makeshift prison,
everyone has gone blind and the city has descended into total
chaos; no government services or businesses are functioning, and
nomadic groups of mostly naked blind people wander through the
streets, squatting in abandoned
houses and shops for shelter and taking food where they can find
it-including in rubbish heaps. There is no electricity or
running water, so the streets and buildings of the city are as
filthy as the asylum was. Dogs that people used to keep as pets
have gone wild and roam in packs, feeding on refuse and human
corpses. The home of the doctor and his wife, however, is
intact, and their group sets up permanent residence there. Just
as this
small “family” is beginning to make a life for itself, people
begin to regain their sight just as suddenly and mysteriously as
they went blind.

Q: Have you seen the film?

A: Yes. Members of the staff of the National Federation of the
Blind were
permitted to screen the film. Many other members of the National
Federation of the Blind have read the novel, and according to the
filmmakers
themselves, the movie is “true to the book.”

Q: How will this film harm blind people?

A: Blind people already suffer from irrational prejudice based on
ignorance and misconceptions about our capabilities and
characteristics. This prejudice-which is based on ignorance and
low expectations but is no less
harmful than prejudice based on ethnicity, religion, or sex–is
the cause of the overwhelming majority of problems experienced by
blind people, including an unemployment rate that exceeds 70
percent and the lack of proper
education for blind children. This movie will further entrench
myths and misconceptions about blindness and blind people,
thereby contributing to the barriers to equal participation in
society that we face.

Q: What is wrong with the way blind people are portrayed in the
film?

A: Blindness falsely depicts blind people as incapable of almost
everything. Even accepting that most of the characters are newly
blind and thus have not learned certain skills needed to function
effectively as a blind person, their complete and utter
incompetence is simply not credible to anyone who has had even
casual contact with actual blind people. The blind people in the
film are unable to dress or bathe themselves; they usually go
about naked or nearly naked and relieve themselves on the floor
or in their own beds. The doctor’s wife is shown helping him
dress by holding his pants so that he can step into them, and he
comments at one point that she even has to clean him after he has
defecated. In reality, even newly blinded individuals do not
experience this level of incapacity; they do not forget
how to dress, wash, or use the toilet. The blind people in the
movie are portrayed as perpetually disoriented and having no
sense of direction or ability to remember the route from one
place to another; in fact, blind
people regularly travel independently using white canes or guide
dogs. The blind people who are not completely helpless in the
novel and movie are depraved monsters, withholding food from the
others in exchange for money,
jewelry, and sex. One of the worst of these criminals is a man
who was born blind and has adapted to his blindness, yet he sides
with the criminal gang of ward three, participating in brutal
rapes and attempting to kill inmates
from the other wards. Thus, all of the blind people in the film
are portrayed either as helpless invalids or degenerate
criminals. The movie suggests that blindness completely alters
the human personality, resulting either in total incapacity or
villainous evil. The movie also makes it clear that blindness is
cause for complete and irreversible despair; one blind man
comments, “I’d rather die than stay like this.” Blind people, in
fact, do live happy lives once they have learned to accept their
blindness and adjust to it. The movie also suggests that the
blind must always defer to the sighted; when the doctor’s wife
leaves him outside a supermarket so she can attempt to find food,
he says, “I know my place.” The dignity, worth, and
individuality of blind people is constantly denigrated in this
way throughout the movie.

The National Federation of the Blind objects to this portrayal of
the blind because it simply isn’t accurate. Blind people are
simply a cross-section of society who happen to share the
physical characteristic of being unable to see. The blind are
employed in almost every profession imaginable, have homes and
families, raise children, do
volunteer work in their communities, and generally lead normal,
productive lives. To the extent this is not the case, it is not
due to blindness but rather to the misconceptions and stereotypes
that society holds about
blindness and blind people. This film will further those myths
and misconceptions and deepen public prejudice against the blind.
Most members of the public do not know a blind person and may
therefore assume that this portrayal of what blindness is like is
accurate and true. It is not, and the falsehoods in this film
will damage the prospects for equal opportunity, productivity,
dignity, and happiness for blind people throughout the world.

Q: Isn’t this just a matter of political correctness, or a
difference of opinion with the novelist and filmmakers?

A: No. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but not
his or her own facts. Even fiction has an obligation to be
somewhat accurate and realistic, just like any other art form
does; otherwise it bears no
relationship to the world as we know it. If an artist were to
create a painting called “Elephant,” but the picture in fact
represented a giraffe, a camel, or a creature from the artist’s
own imagination, than any art critic-or any layman-would point
out that the picture does not, in fact, represent an elephant,
and the person pointing out the inconsistency would
not be accused of “political correctness” or a “difference of
opinion” with the artist, but would be recognized as having good
common sense. The portrait of blind people in this movie is
simply wrong; artistic license does not permit a writer or a
filmmaker to make false assertions about an entire group of
people. The stereotyping of blind people is just as
inappropriate as the stereotyping of African-Americans, women,
Muslims, or any other group of individuals who share common
characteristics.

Q: Isn’t blindness being used as a metaphor in the novel and
film?

A: Yes, and this is one of the movie’s main problems. Blindness
is simply the physical characteristic of being unable to perceive
things with the eyes, but the author and filmmakers want it to be
a metaphor for everything that is bad about human nature. At the
very least, blindness represents lack of insight or perception in
this film; arguably it represents even worse traits, since many
of the blind characters engage in rape, murder, and other forms
of criminal behavior. Blind people, however, are not stupid or
incapable of discernment. Although we cannot see with our eyes,
we are aware of the world around us through our other senses and
through the alternative techniques we use to learn about our
environment, such as traveling with a white cane, reading and
writing Braille, and using technology. Blindness is no more an
appropriate “metaphor” than other physical characteristics, like
hair color or ethnicity. Movies in which all
of the villains have dark skin or a foreign accent are rightly
criticized as employing racial stereotypes. If a movie were to
be made in which people’s hair suddenly turned blonde and all of
the characters with blonde hair were
vapid idiots, then people with blonde hair would rightly be
outraged. In today’s society, it should likewise be unacceptable
for blindness to be used as a stand-in for depravity,
incompetence, and lack of understanding.

Q: Doesn’t your protest violate the First Amendment rights of the
filmmakers?

A: No. The First Amendment protects the production and screening
of this film, but it also protects our right to protest its
production and screening and to tell the public that it portrays
blind people in an outrageously false manner.

Q: Have you brought your concerns to the attention of the
filmmakers?

A: Yes. We sent letters to officials involved with the production
of the film but received no response. We can only conclude that
the makers of this movie chose to ignore our concerns.

Scott C. LaBarre, Esq.

LaBarre Law Offices P.C.
1660 South Albion Street, Ste. 918
Denver, Colorado 80222
303 504-5979 (voice)
303 757-3640 (fax)
slabarre@labarrelaw.com
(e-mail)
http://www.labarrelaw.com
(website)

It’s actually the media from The Happening causing people to lose their sight in this film.

This does look great. Fernando Meirelles owns.

Link to the trailer even though people can probably figure this out themselves.

http://www.alliancefilms.com/en/34/trailers/play_trailer/11952/default_high/B/0/

This works: http://www.alliancefilms.com/en/34/trailers/play_trailer/11952/default_high/all/