marauders4evr:

marauders4evr:

This will be my last post on Me Before You probably:

I am so proud of the members in the disabled community who are protesting this book. I hate it as well. But I hate it for a slightly different reason than most of you do. Yes, it is offensive to have a book where the only disabled character wants to die rather than live with his disability. Yes, it is offensive that an abled person is writing a book with a disabled main character who experiences such a taboo choice when the author has never met a quadriplegic before in her life. Yes, it is offensive that the entire book is tragedy porn. Yes, it is offensive that abled people are talking about whether the main character’s decision is the right one, in conversations that are very eerily similar to the conversations that fueled Aktion T4. 

But none of those are actually my main problem with the book.

You see, there’s a large percentage of the disabled community who hate the message of the book, a portion of the disabled community who like the book regardless of the message, and a portion of the disabled community who really don’t care either way.

And then there’s that other percentage.

The percentage that I’m worried about.

The percentage of disabled readers who put down the book and think to themselves, “You know what, maybe my life isn’t worth living?”

Because when you have a book and a movie and all of this attention on a story wherein the character wants to die because he doesn’t think that life is worth living now that he’s disabled, you’re going to have people who start to wonder if what he’s thinking is true.

And not just the abled T4-mimicking people.

But disabled people.

And like many things in my current life, I’m not just worried about any readers. I’m worried about the children. I know, I know, I’m doing the whole cliche “won’t someone think of the children?” bit but hey, I’m an Education Major, it’s my job.

So…

Won’t someone think of the children?

Specifically, won’t someone think of the disabled teenagers?

Won’t someone think of the disabled teenagers who are still trying to find their identities, who are coming to terms with how they’re different and similar to other people, who are coming to terms with themselves, who are essentially at their lowest points emotionally, physically, mentally because puberty’s a b***h to all but disabled teenagers get hit even harder than the rest?

Won’t someone think of those disabled teenagers who see the adverts saying that this book/movie is the next The Fault In Our Stars? 

Won’t someone think of those disabled teenagers who are going to read this book and watch this movie and are going to be constantly hit with the notion that life isn’t worth living if you have a disability?

Please tell me that I’m not the only one who sees how sick, how twisted, how completely damaging this is?

Because let me tell you, I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I had picked this book up when I was fifteen. (I’m now twenty-two.) I don’t like to think about what I would have done. And I don’t like to think about what somebody else might do. But somebody has to. Somebody has to think about these consequences. Because clearly the author didn’t.

Please, signal boost tf out of this. We need people to see just how vile this book/film is and just how harmful it can be. 

Ah nope apparently I’m not done with the posts because I have more to say.

And one of the biggest problems is that all of the promos for the movie right now are so misleading. They’re making it seem like a typical Hallmark style movie where the man and the woman fall in love and go riding off into the sunset on his wheelchair and they live happily ever after. I’ve seen one commercial so far where it was hinted that this is going to be a sad af movie. And even that one compared it to The Fault In Our Stars, making it seem like yeah, one of them is going to die, but it’s going to be by natural causes.

And so people who have been avoiding spoilers are going to go into this movie thinking that they’re getting a romantic story that will tug at the heartstrings and instead, they’re getting a man who spends the entire film talking about how his life isn’t worth living because it’s a life with a disability.

I mean the message itself is horrid, obviously, look at my entire argument up above, but the fact that it’s going to be a shock to so many disabled viewers, including disabled children/teens, the fact that they aren’t going to be prepared for it, the fact that they’re going to be in a crowded place with a bunch of sniffing abled people as they have to abruptly terms with the fact that this movie is preaching for their deaths…

I don’t think there’s a word in the dictionary to describe how horrible and sickening that is.