Best Practices for Entertainment

Our first recommendation for best practices in the entertainment industry is to read Article 8 of the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Hiring Practices

When creating entertainment media about disability, we recommend hiring people with disabilities at all levels of the production process. GADIM can recommend consultants with disabilities who can be paid to read scripts, film treatments, adaptations, etc. GADIM believes all consultants should be paid for their work.

GADIM recommends authentic casting at all times, meaning disabled actors should be hired to portray disabled characters. In the event that a disabled actor cannot be hired, the production should have a consultant with a disability on set to assist in the accurate representation of a disabled character. GADIM can recommend consultants who can work with a production on-set or virtually.

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For additional reading:

Content about Disability

Productions should avoid perpetuating myths and negative stereotypes about disability. By employing disabled people as script consultants (and doing what they recommend), productions can avoid many negative stereotypes.

Entertainment media content should not objectify disabled people as a way to make audiences feel pity or inspiration. The content should present disabled characters as multi-dimensional, not as a medical diagnosis. Disabled characters should not be used to evoke tragedy or, even worse, to show a character’s wish for death because of a disability.

Be careful with storylines that involve “a cure.” For example, some storylines “cure” disabilities instead of showing how actual disabled people live with impairment through empowering equipment or technology. In other instances, a program plot has a character acquire a disability only to become bitter and suicidal.

Finally, disability should not be associated with evil in a storyline. The majority of disabled people live regular, happy lives and do not become murderers or villains because of a disability.

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View GADIM’s “Crap Rep: Video Series on Representation”

Avoiding Ableism

Every aspect of the media contributes to how society perceives disability. Media content about disability affects attitudes and behaviors toward disabled people in a society. Poor choices in presenting disability in the entertainment media can lead to more ableism in society.

Because nondisabled people control the entertainment media, the majority of content reflects the beliefs of nondisabled people about disability. Many films based on the real life of a disabled person don’t include the disability perspective (or feature a disabled actor). Disabled actor Michael Patrick Thornton says, “We look to stories to remind us of our shared virtues, of our commonalities across all cultures; in short: what makes us human. By so infrequently folding disability into the human tapestry, people and their stories are being actively erased. That’s not okay. In fact, one could make the argument that it’s immoral.”

A Note about Diversity

The entertainment media should seek to reflect the diversity across individual experiences of disability and tell the stories of people with physical, sensory, cognitive, and intellectual disabilities. The stories of people whose disabilities affect their appearance should be included, as well as those people whose disabilities are hidden or not apparent.

The media should understand that disability intersects with other factors. People of all genders/sexuality, race/ethnicity, ages, and in all geographic locations experience disability. Too often the entertainment media features stories about cisgender white males with physical disabilities or cisgender white males with autism.

Additional Resources for Entertainment Media Creators

Check out GADIM’s “Toolkit on the Go: Representing Disabilities in Film and Television” (2025)