Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)

This isn't so much a documentary about this one specific and ground-breaking camp deep in the Catskills, as an historical retrospective of attitudes to and by the disabled in the United States over the last few decades. We do start at "Camp Jened" though, where young folks engaged in a bit of free love and life and where they made enduring friendships that were going to become useful later in their lives as they took on the challenge of ensuring a better deal for themselves and millions like them in the future. Using an impressive array of archive from both official sources and some really quite engaging and entertaining home movies, this makes a strong and potent political statement but wraps it nicely in a format that doesn't come across as a rant. It doesn't take a position from which to lecture us about what's right and fair, more it allows the campaigners to demonstrate the iniquities faced by this substantial section of the population. Some of those difficulties are throwbacks to logistical and architectural issues, but many seem to stem from an increasingly inexcusable political and societal indifference from a community at large that didn't really care. Perhaps much of that stemmed from a lack of exposure to or appreciation of people less able than your average bear, but a fair amount of the focus succinctly illustrates that often it was simply economics combined with a degree of prejudice that was inhibiting policies and practices of inclusion. Fortunately, the likes of Ann Cupolo Freeman were prepared to dig in and persist in the crafting and passing of a law that enshrined the rights of the disabled in the USA. Of course, a law is one thing - what she and her colleagues are also having to sustain is a public-facing strategy that actually ensures that the substance of the legislation is actually meaningfully applied. The impression this leaves us with is that this is very much a work in progress. Narrow-mindedness is declining, practical obstacles are being removed but there is still work to be done to enable society to more fully benefit from some of the most erudite and mischievous people amongst us, and for them to comprehensively engage with every one else, too.