Disability In Water Boy

Improved Essays
Cynthia Fenelus
Final Reflection

Adam Sandler stars in the movie Water Boy as Bobby Boucher. He is a thirty-one year old man who lives at home with his mother. To say the least he is a “momma’s boy.” He plays a water boy for football teams. Bobby presents two disorders. One being a stutter and he also exhibits the characteristics of an intellectual disability. He is used as a water boy for several football teams before one of his coaches discovers his amazing talent of tackling and places him on the football team. Bobby channels all of his anger fueled by the constant disrespect that he has had to endure as a result of his disability into the games and uses his aggression to lead his team to victory. Despite his great contribution to the
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It was irresponsible in the sense that in the beginning if the movie it showed a very bad representation of someone with a disability. It showed that those with a disability were only capable of performing less sophisticated jobs, such as the water boy. Bobby also received a lot of disrespect from his peers. He is called out of him name several times and even hit on. While all of this happens he doesn’t get any help from anyone. Everyone either chimes in or sits around and laughs. At one point in the movie the coach blames him for disrupting the team and watches as his players bully him then proceeds to fire him. He is also patronized on national television by a pro-wrestler because of the way he sounds over the phone. This also becomes a very positive depiction of a person with disabilities because the plot eventually twists when Bobby meets a coach who tells him to stick up for himself and this helps him to the opportunity of participating on the football team. Although it takes a while for people to warm up to his differences, people begin to accept Bobby for who he is and praise him on his capabilities instead of slandering him based off of his differences. So for the majority of the movie Bobby is not represented in the most positive way but the story eventually makes a turn for the best and provides the audience with a very valuable …show more content…
One may argue that Bobby did not have an intellectual inability due to the fact that he had a very rapid growth in learning and comprehension. I still believe that he had a more mild intellectual disability because although it is incurable it is not said that someone with this disability cannot be treated. Bobby received indirect treatment from social interaction with others as well as using different methods to study. His stuttering also incurable but treatable also improved throughout the movie as he became more comfortable with his surroundings. That is not to say that his stuttering will not ever go back as there are situations that can trigger it. This movie created an overdramatized outlet for the mistreatment of people with disabilities but also showed a transformation and acceptance of the general

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