They tied him up and duct taped his mouth shut and left him alone in a shed overnight. Cut to Radio’s first interaction with the football team. Roughly speaking that is saying children are 2 to 3 times more likely to be bullied if they have a disability. Those are the numbers in the United States of America but they are echoed across the world. That is significantly more than the amount of 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 of those who are not disabled. Nearly 62% of disabled children and young people report being bullied once a week or more. Children with disabilities are easier targets and more frequently bullied then those without. Of all the stereotypes Radio plays into, the bullying of the disabled is the most reoccurring and spotlighted one. Here is the first time of many in this movie where we see bullying of the disabled. Out the window the driver exclaims “get out of the way dummy”. Three minutes into the movie, Radio runs across the street by himself and almost gets hit by a car. However if this movie wanted to have a larger positive societal impact, it would have been less general and generic in respect to playing into the stereotypes of a mentally disabled person. I’m not saying that these features cannot be the case. His teeth are deformed because he is missing some and a few are crooked and chipped. He is super shy, does not speak much, and cannot formulate coherent sentences. His physical appearance is “abnormal” with awkward facial expressions and he always just seems to look lost or unfocused. When we first get introduced to Kennedy’s character the stereotypes are evident. Very early on we see this film playing into the stigmas of how a mentally disabled person would act, react, and look. In Radios case, some of his treatment was nothing but the same. This was a huge part of the culture in the 1970’s South. Taking place in Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, those faced with racial and disability discrimination were fighting for fair treatment and rights. This will be indicative of how Radio should be treated but how he is not by most, especially at the beginning of this film. In one of the scenes a landscape and bright shiny beautiful skyline over a beautiful horizon is shown. In the opening scenes they give the viewer a clue for what’s in store for in respect to how a young, black, and mentally challenged person will be perceived. Not only are these thing very important, but thirteen years later the heavy dense societal problems that occur in this movie are still present and occurring today. While this can help shed light, it is also very problematic because it might not actually be factual. The employment of stereotypes and emotional tactics are playing into exactly how most of society portrays the disabled community and in specific, the mentally challenged. In some ways Kennedy’s character representation is effective because it sheds light on how poorly the disabled are portrayed, indirectly or not. While this is effective for drawing the viewer in and making them feel good it really stops the film from having a larger scale societal impact. Inspired by a true story Radio does a great job of pulling on the audience’s heartstrings and capturing the emotional side of the viewer. The film then follows Radio’s life and times of becoming a vital part of the football team and integrating into society. Later he walked by practice and a football flew his way, he kept it and befriended head coach Harold Jones. He has an old radio in which he uses to listens to all of the Friday night football games. Radio had always loved football and their communities’ high school team. One day minding his own business Radio was pushing along his shopping cart full of belongings and came across the high school football team. In Radio a young black disabled male is treated poorly by the police and his peers because of his disability and in turn is blamed for his treatment. Directed by Mike Tollin, Radio is a movie about a young man named James Robert “Radio” Kennedy. Most of these people are labeled as having a mental illness and therefore are being blamed for their own deaths. About half of all people killed by police are disabled.
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