I was expecting a tragic love story. I had watched the trailers, and I was prepared to cry (although to be totally fair, I hadn't actually read the book so I had only vague ideas about the ending and was thus not totally prepared) The movie did produce many tears, but they were unexpectedly angry tears. This was initially because I was angry and frustrated at Will Traynor deciding to end his life, upset at what seemed like a selfish decision that if he couldn’t have life on his terms, he wouldn’t live at all. I started my cry hurt by the devastating choice a fictional character was making, but I quickly moved on to being angry about the people selling me this story.
I wanted a love story and what I got instead was a depressed
man insisting on his own autonomy while simultaneously attempting to convince a
woman that the choices she is making about her life are a waste of her potential and that she needs to live differently. Her feelings grow from “I hate this job and I don’t want you to die” to “I guess I
have feelings for you and I still don’t want you to die.” Meanwhile, both of
them manipulate and keep things from each other. Now, don’t get me wrong, this
is Hollywood and I don’t expect too much in terms of a love story, but the climax of
their "romance" seemed to be that, as Samuel James wrote, “Louisa finally receives his
affection, but his true love remains his life before the accident.” This movie
has less to say about love and more to say about disability, human value, and
what makes life meaningful, and these messages are where things get really
disturbing.
Essentially, the message this movie sends is “If you are disabled in some way that you feel prevents you from living life the way you
want to, death is a totally acceptable option. And if you truly love someone and they
want to die, you will accept their choice and be there for them in the way that they want you to be.” Someone else curtly summed it up as "Live boldly... unless you are in a wheelchair".
“I can’t live the life I want so I should die” is simply,
deeply, untrue. And before you tell me that it's okay for the movie to make that truth claim, or not okay for me to reject it because 'some people in his situation actually feel that way'... let's address that.
First of all, Will is a fictional character created by an able-bodied woman who knew nothing about quadriplegia prior to writing this book, and who somehow managed to avoid talking to a single person with quadriplegia during the course of her extensive medical research on the topic. Will represents less an actual person experiencing a life changing disability than he represents able-bodied people's perceptions of disability. As many disabled people have already expressed with much more eloquence and authority than I have, this movie perpetuates harmful stereotypes about disability while eliminating realistic pictures of what daily life with disability looks like (one can only assume because the makers find the realities of disability distasteful, shameful, or perhaps just unromantic). Secondly, regarding the 'someone somewhere actually feels that way' sentiment... if I actually came across someone with a spinal cord injury that resulted in quadriplegia who felt hopeless and depressed and wanted to die, I would like to think that I could compassionately respond to them in a way that validates their experience and emotions without agreeing with them that they should die.
As I have said, disability activists have pretty clearly expressed the various problems with this story and the way that it was told, both from a community perspective as well as their own experiences. But I haven't heard voices speaking up on behalf of those who are depressed and suicidal, and so I would like to make one additional point.
For more than a decade now, we have been sending able-bodied and exceptionally fit men and women in the prime of their lives to go fight wars for our country. And many of them have come home with life-altering injuries. They have demonstrated totally understandable difficulties adjusting to civilian life post-injury, not the least of which because they devoted years to a mission that they are no longer a part of. That loss of purpose, as well as the daily realities of life with a disability, takes a heavy emotional toll, and is a contributing factor to the high rate of veteran suicide. What is that rate, you wonder? 22 people. Every. Day.
Maybe I am biased. Perhaps I am overly sensitive because of the work that I do, but in our current climate, do we really need the implicit messages in Me Before You? Are they what we should be telling people struggling with depression and suicide? Are they what we should be telling their families and friends?
Can we agree that anyone taking their own life is tragic? Because I think it is possible, if we don't pay attention to the messages filtering through our experiences, to become nonchalant and lackadaisical about this truth. And I think it is possible, if we aren't careful about the messages we are tacitly supporting, that real harm might be done in the lives of real people. Either we decide, as a community, that life is valuable, so we support each other and fight for each other and help others find meaning and purpose in life, or... we decide its a grey area and don't fight and people die.
First of all, Will is a fictional character created by an able-bodied woman who knew nothing about quadriplegia prior to writing this book, and who somehow managed to avoid talking to a single person with quadriplegia during the course of her extensive medical research on the topic. Will represents less an actual person experiencing a life changing disability than he represents able-bodied people's perceptions of disability. As many disabled people have already expressed with much more eloquence and authority than I have, this movie perpetuates harmful stereotypes about disability while eliminating realistic pictures of what daily life with disability looks like (one can only assume because the makers find the realities of disability distasteful, shameful, or perhaps just unromantic). Secondly, regarding the 'someone somewhere actually feels that way' sentiment... if I actually came across someone with a spinal cord injury that resulted in quadriplegia who felt hopeless and depressed and wanted to die, I would like to think that I could compassionately respond to them in a way that validates their experience and emotions without agreeing with them that they should die.
As I have said, disability activists have pretty clearly expressed the various problems with this story and the way that it was told, both from a community perspective as well as their own experiences. But I haven't heard voices speaking up on behalf of those who are depressed and suicidal, and so I would like to make one additional point.
For more than a decade now, we have been sending able-bodied and exceptionally fit men and women in the prime of their lives to go fight wars for our country. And many of them have come home with life-altering injuries. They have demonstrated totally understandable difficulties adjusting to civilian life post-injury, not the least of which because they devoted years to a mission that they are no longer a part of. That loss of purpose, as well as the daily realities of life with a disability, takes a heavy emotional toll, and is a contributing factor to the high rate of veteran suicide. What is that rate, you wonder? 22 people. Every. Day.
Maybe I am biased. Perhaps I am overly sensitive because of the work that I do, but in our current climate, do we really need the implicit messages in Me Before You? Are they what we should be telling people struggling with depression and suicide? Are they what we should be telling their families and friends?
Can we agree that anyone taking their own life is tragic? Because I think it is possible, if we don't pay attention to the messages filtering through our experiences, to become nonchalant and lackadaisical about this truth. And I think it is possible, if we aren't careful about the messages we are tacitly supporting, that real harm might be done in the lives of real people. Either we decide, as a community, that life is valuable, so we support each other and fight for each other and help others find meaning and purpose in life, or... we decide its a grey area and don't fight and people die.
