The Street - Disability.

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How is disability represented in The Street?

The first thing the audience see is the metal fence and barbed wire, with blurred out people moving about behind it. The shot then changes to a man looking out a window in a door, which also has metal 'bars' which the audience has to look through. The audience then see a shot of a different man, who happens to be the main character, with what society would class as a 'disability'. The man is seen walking up to a van through the metal bars, which gives the shot a 'caged' feel to it, due to the fact that everything in the scene seems to be contained/surrounded by metal fences/bars. Later on in the scene, when the main character, Nick, gets angry, he is shot through the metal fence again, possibly symbolising that he needs to be locked up because of his disability, therefore representing disability as a bad thing and potentially dangerous to others, and consequently disabled people need to be separated from 'normal' people to either receive the care they need or to protect other people.

The use of over the shoulder shots when Nick is asking for his old job back allows the audience to see how his old colleagues react to Nick, now he looks so different to what they were used to seeing. It gives the audience a chance to analyse the other characters body language, and how they act around Nick now he has his 'disability'. It shows his former colleagues trying to avoid looking at Nicks face, which is heavily scarred, and looking rather awkward throughtout the whole conversation. This represents disability as something people try and avoid, they don't like looking at disability or be caught looking at it, for fear of causing offence.

This scene also represents disability as an atmosphere, or a burden. The body language used by the characters show that they feel uncomfortable around Nick, creating an atmosphere between, what used to be, good friends and colleagues. They don't feel as if they can act the same around Nick, and are unsure of what to say to him. They are also reluctant to give Nick his old job back because he would be considered a burden when there would be 'checks and polls' in the workplace, and Nick's 'disability' would cause the company some problems, therefore making him a burden if he was hired again.

In the next section of the clip Nick goes to help a woman, who he seems to be friends with, but frightens her when he bends down to help her pick up her shopping, and she screams. Whether this is due to Nicks face is neither confirmed or rejected, but the audience assume that that is the reason why she screamed. Nick seems to think that she screamed because his face is now frightening to other people, a fact which she denies vehemently. This could represent disability as something to be afraid of, as it is something not everyone can relate to, and the lack of information can make people scared of it. People with a disability are usually thought to look 'different' and therefore this could present 'different' looking people, who have a disability, as something to be scared of.

A sound bridge is used to connect the next scene with the one before. Nick is shown to be quite angry after scaring his friend and the music is used to reflect the characters thoughts/mood. It is a non-diegetic, asynchronous sound, mainly made up of face-paced drums, whose pace quickens as the audience is taken through the scene. The scene takes on a angry element, as music which involves the sound of drums heavily, like the music that is used, is mainly associated with anger. The audience are given a reason to why Nick may be getting angrier, because as he walks through the town strangers stare at him in the street. The camera shots are edited between Nicks face and the faces of strangers, supposedly staring at Nick, and everytime the camera comes back to Nicks face the shot gets closer and closer, maybe symbolising how all the stares are building up inside him and fueling his anger. The fact that strangers are shown to stare at Nick could represent disability as something unique/odd, and therefore warrants people the desire to look at it, possibly to study the disability in more detail as it is so different to them.

Another sound bridge is used at the end of the scene to inform the audience that Nick is still angry, and Nick confirms this to another character who works for the Army. The scene is quite dark, there isn't much light and the light that is visible are bars of light across Nick's face, again, maybe symbolising that people with disabilities need to be separated from others, or be barred from the 'normal' people. The lack of light also gives off a sinister element, making Nick's anger seem quite dangerous, on the other hand, it could show the idea that people with disabilities feel that they need to protect themselves from people staring, in effect they want to hide away. Editing is used in this scene to show the two sides to Nick's character, the camera switches between the scarred side of Nick's face and the 'normal' side. They could be considered to be binary opposites, as when the camera focuses on the scarred side of Nick's face, Nick releases all the anger he feels about his disability and the prejudice he's faced because of it, but when the camera focuses on the other side of his face, his anger seems to diminish slightly and he seems to show what he has accepted, that he will be 'ugly and scary'. 

In conclusion, I think that The Street represents the stereotypical view of disability, that it is something unique and different, and therefore people find it either interesting or uncomfortable, maybe even scary. I also believe that The Street gives a truthful representation of what prejudices people with visible disabilities may face in day-to-day life, and how it may make them feel about people, or even society on a whole because of this. The main focus of the clip is how people with disability are treated differently, as people don't want to offend them, or seem to think that they need to be treated differently because of their disability.