After I watched Radio, I realized that it was one of the movies included in the Cinematic Representation article by Renwick, Schormans, and Shore (2014). This article found two themes present in the films they analyzed: A simplification of occupational participation and infantilization.
They portrayed Radio as someone who was nearly always happy. He rarely showed anger or sadness, until his mother passed away. His emotional dynamics were not as evident as other characters I saw in the movie. This played into the infantilization theme as cited by Renwick and colleagues (2014). Around Christmas time in the movie, the town bands together to give Radio and his mother a whole truckload of presents. Radio expresses childlike excitement when opening the presents and then walks around the next day giving away all of these presents for his neighbors. I thought this selfless act, further contributed to this presentation of Radio as a child. It reminded me of a child giving something that the family already owns to their parents as a gift. In another example, one of the football players …show more content…
Radio volunteers with the football and basketball team, but is never employed. His closest relationship in the movie is with the coach and his mother. There are not many examples of true friendship with his peers nor any sort of allusion to romantic relationships. Viewers do not know want Radio does with his time outside of his role at the school, yet surely he fills his days. Radio’s main personality trait is his disability, he is not represented as being very dynamic.
I don’t think that Radio fit into any of the stereotypes cited by Black & Pretes. Perhaps if viewers did not have any experiences with disability, I could see how people would have seen Radio fit into the stereotypes of pitiable and pathetic, or a
They portrayed Radio as someone who was nearly always happy. He rarely showed anger or sadness, until his mother passed away. His emotional dynamics were not as evident as other characters I saw in the movie. This played into the infantilization theme as cited by Renwick and colleagues (2014). Around Christmas time in the movie, the town bands together to give Radio and his mother a whole truckload of presents. Radio expresses childlike excitement when opening the presents and then walks around the next day giving away all of these presents for his neighbors. I thought this selfless act, further contributed to this presentation of Radio as a child. It reminded me of a child giving something that the family already owns to their parents as a gift. In another example, one of the football players …show more content…
Radio volunteers with the football and basketball team, but is never employed. His closest relationship in the movie is with the coach and his mother. There are not many examples of true friendship with his peers nor any sort of allusion to romantic relationships. Viewers do not know want Radio does with his time outside of his role at the school, yet surely he fills his days. Radio’s main personality trait is his disability, he is not represented as being very dynamic.
I don’t think that Radio fit into any of the stereotypes cited by Black & Pretes. Perhaps if viewers did not have any experiences with disability, I could see how people would have seen Radio fit into the stereotypes of pitiable and pathetic, or a