Why Did Martin Scorsese Choose To Include Hurtful Stereotypes of People With Disabilities In His Beautiful New Fantasy Film Hugo?

There's no doubt that Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest American filmmakers of this, or any generation.  Which makes his inclusion of hurtful, stereotypical images of someone with a physical disability in his new film Hugo so puzzling.  Within minutes of the start, viewers see the film's hero and namesake (an adorable young Parisian orphan) being chased through a crowded railroad station by a comically uniformed police officer.

Wearing a heavy, awkward, foot-to-hip metal brace on one leg, for the next two minutes the officer and his bulky, malfunctioning brace become an unending source of "humor."

The officer's peculiar gait, his inability to maneuver around waiting passengers, a near miss involving an over-sized cake and his eventual collision with a jazz combo are all played for laughs.  But the "fun" isn't over!  Next his leg brace gets caught on the door handle of a departing passenger carriage, and he is briefly dragged along the train platform on his back.

Played by actor Sacha Baron Cohen in a style reminiscent of his famous Borat character, the police officer is the cruel villain of this particular morality tale. Later we learn he is a veteran, disabled during World War I.    

I understand this is a film about the history of film, and Mr. Scorsese wants to employ the motifs and themes of an earlier era.  Still, nearly a century later, is it still permissible to employ such crude and insensitive caricatures?  At a time when thousands of disabled American veterans are struggling to adapt to life using prosthetic limbs, leg braces and canes, is a traumatized war vet really funny?

Why is this such a big deal?  After all, Hugo is just a sweet fantasy.  Why spoil the party with a few ethical quibbles?  Because people with disabilities are usually invisible in the popular media.  Given this lack of representation, any character with a disability comes to represent all people with disabilities to audiences.

Sambo-like characters and Mammies aren't acceptable on-screen anymore.  Why is a bumbling, mobility-impaired war vet OK?   I'm sure Mr. Scorsese didn't set out to insult or offend anybody, and is a good person at heart.  The problem is there apparently wasn't anybody on the production staff, at the studio or with the distributor to raise these issues.  No wheelchair user or disabled veteran, no one who uses a leg brace or a prosthetic limb... and that might be the biggest problem of all. 

Memorial Day

In my family, the Saturday before Memorial Day had special meaning. My brother Paul and I would go with Dad and other area veterans to place small American flags on gravesites in Hillside Cemetery.

Dad served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and was former Commander of American Legion Post 109 in Rutherford, NJ. By the time Paul and I came along, Dad had entered politics and wasn't as active in the Legion.

But one event he never missed was the annual "grave decoration detail." As Paul and I grew older, we were allowed to help plant the flags. You had to be careful. Place them too close to the headstone and the staff would jam up against the concrete base of the marker. Place it too far away and it might get snagged by a passing lawn mower.

Some graves bore the insignia of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veteran's organization. Others had the distinctive shield of the Spanish-American War vets. A few weren't marked at all. The only evidence of their existence was an entry in a tattered brown ledger one of the adults had gotten from the cemetary office.

Last names were written in bold black letters. Reynolds, Everett and Schneider. The local VFW post was named after them. Murray and Hodge were memorialized in the name of American Legion Post 453, the "Negro Post." That's the way it was then.
William Ward died in France a month before the Armistice in 1918. He was 17. Then there was the young Army Air Force lieutenant who never came home from the South Pacific. The P-38 fighter carved into his headstone a subtle indicator that the body of the lieutenant, along with his plane, was never recovered. There were new names too... Mrs. Tassey's son Malcolm. He died in Vietnam.

Throughout the years, Paul and I thought we were just "tagging along" with Dad. It would only be much later that we realized Dad had brought us there to learn a lesson... a lesson about the power of remembrance.

A few days ago I took a walk through Hillside Cemetery. Post 109 had already been there. Unfortunately, an overzealous groundskeeper mangled a couple dozen flags with his power mower. So I spent about an hour replanting those flags, making sure each was straight. I also took time to read the gravemarkers, so that I knew who each of the veterans was.

Some lessons bear repeating...