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Katy Elphinstone

@neurofabulous.bsky.social

1.8K followers 1.1K following 1.3K posts

Thinking about humanity from an autistic perspective | Mother to two wonderful humans and one small dog | #Autism, #Autistic, #Neurodivergent, #AutismAcceptance, #BPSdouble_empathy

www.neurofabulous.org.uk

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Reposted by Katy Elphinstone

Kathryn Bromwich

@kathryn42.bsky.social

Full piece here:

Horror movies have an ableism problem. Isn’t it time we found new ‘monsters’?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Horror movies have an ableism problem. Isn’t it time we found new ‘monsters’? | Kathryn Bromwich

Films such as Frankenstein still use disability as shorthand for moral depravity. But human behaviour is far scarier than human appearance, says journalist Kathryn Bromwich

www.theguardian.com

October 31, 2025 at 2:35 PM

Reposted by Katy Elphinstone

Kathryn Bromwich

@kathryn42.bsky.social

I love most of the films I mentioned in the piece. This isn’t an attack on these directors, and I’m not telling anyone they can’t enjoy these films. I would just like this kind of thing to stop, so that people with disabilities can enjoy films along with the rest of you without feeling excluded

In her excellent International Booker-longlisted novel Hunchback, Saou Ichikawa references The History of the Body, edited by Corbin, Courtine and Vigarello: “The ‘criminalisation of the gaze’ that took hold around the dawn of the 20th century had led to the decline of the freak show, which was subsequently replaced in popularity by the Monsters of Hollywood. Now, with costumes serving as an ethical cushion, people can enjoy ogling deformity without guilt or reserve.”

What is perhaps more painful, and insidious, is the portrayal of disability in films not specifically in the horror genre but which trade in a sense of discomfort: arthouse films by respected auteurs, with less emphasis on gore or jump scares than on an undercurrent of psychological unease. In these films, a disabled actor (or an actor in prosthetics) will often appear at a crucial moment as a visual signifier heightening the level of eeriness in a scene. This has happened in some of the best films ever made: the mute, paraplegic girl in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (referred to as a “mutant”), the “dwarf serial killer” in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, “the disabled one” in Aster’s Midsommar, the gratuitous five-second shot of a facially scarred amputee gleefully clapping along at a Nazi event in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (a modern masterpiece, and one of the most important films of this century). In Yorgos Lanthimos’s remarkable Poor Things, Willem Dafoe’s prosthetics-assisted “deformed … scary face” (as it is described in the screenplay) and Emma Stone’s character’s intellectual disability are not a sign of moral depravity but are nevertheless presented as “creepy and uncanny”. The saddest thing is that these are some of my favourite films. I have no wish to publicly criticise them, but feeling excluded from them is particularly hurtful.

October 31, 2025 at 2:34 PM

Reposted by Katy Elphinstone

Kathryn Bromwich

@kathryn42.bsky.social

(Re Frankenstein: visually stunning, great performances, hated the saccharine ending, but why tf, in an allegory about the dangers of ableism and fear of the Other, would you make the villain disabled – when he isn’t in the book – to make the point he is “the real monster”...?)

There is something sadomasochistic about being a horror fan with a disability. For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the intoxicating cycle of dread-terror-release that a genuinely frightening horror film can bring – the simultaneous feeling of “I hate this and want it to end” and “This adrenaline rush is making me feel fully alive.” But I have also come to expect certain tropes that I know will make me feel a different kind of dread, which other people in the cinema may not necessarily be attuned to.

Guillermo del Toro’s handsome adaptation of Frankenstein, which received a 15-minute standing ovation in Venice this August, powerfully makes the case that we ought not to be afraid of difference. However, given that the story is widely regarded as an allegory for disability, it is disappointing that the film stars only able-bodied performers and that a creature repeatedly referred to as “deformed” is portrayed by Jacob Elordi. While the creature is shown to be gentle despite his “obscene” appearance, the audience is heavy-handedly invited to conclude that “the real monster” is his creator, Victor Frankenstein (in case you hadn’t understood the book). Unfortunately the film then drives home the point about Victor’s moral degradation by making him increasingly disabled – in a departure from the original novel, he is given a prosthetic leg, facial scarring and amputated fingers. Del Toro may have adapted the book with a great deal of panache and visual flair, but he has not understood its most basic message.

October 31, 2025 at 2:33 PM

Katy Elphinstone

@neurofabulous.bsky.social

🙄

October 14, 2025 at 7:18 AM

Katy Elphinstone

@neurofabulous.bsky.social

Ditto!! ☺️

October 14, 2025 at 7:17 AM

Reposted by Katy Elphinstone

Seira (any pronouns)

@seiratempest.bsky.social

This, and also the fact that parents will not see anything "wrong" with their children. Even among neurotypicals children are not all the same and parents perceive their kids as "normal". My mom kept saying "you were a normal child" but my teachers in school said something different.

October 14, 2025 at 6:52 AM