Authenticity Matters

By Sarah Patnaude

The sun was shining; the breeze was blowing. I could hear the crashing of waves in the distance. It was a normal week spent at my childhood vacation spot: Nags Head, North Carolina. Except it wasn’t. Unlike most thirteen year olds, I couldn’t be found bogey boarding or swimming. I wasn’t playing basketball or even relaxing inside. Instead, I made the porch my fortress for the week. You see, the back porch was my practice stage.

In just a few weeks, I would star in a local children’s production. I had a book of lines to memorize. Ok…you caught me. That’s an exaggeration. As the 2nd main character, I had a total of one line and that was at the very end. How much practice can one line need? Despite only one line, my character was at the center of the story. I was in most scenes in some fashion, moving around and causing havoc. My scenes were calculated but yet spontaneous. My character was blind. Not just blind, but Deafblind. I had landed the role of playing Helen Keller in the production of The Miracle Worker.

As a blind pre-teen, I thought I had this character nailed. I was blind and had a hearing impairment. My first language happened to be Sign Language. For me, these were assets I brought to the table. I could harness my lived experiences to further the authenticity of my acting. The director had other thoughts. My blindness was not an asset. Instead, my blindness was viewed as the very reason to not cast me. I remember her asking me how I, as a blind person, could possibly play a blind character accurately. In other words, would I, as a blind person, be able to further perpetuate the misconceptions and negative attitudes about blindness she was hoping to promote in her rendition of the account of a teacher and her student?
I remember telling her “If you can find someone else with thirteen years of experience playing a blind child by all means cast them. But I don’t think you will.” This was the first time I identified myself as blind. My whole life, I was told I wasn’t blind enough by professionals whenever I fought for services. But this was the opposite. I was too blind to play blind.

Unfortunately, this experience isn’t uncommon in the entertainment industry. I was lucky that my sassy thirteen year old attitude was enough to change the director’s mind, and I have the opportunity to say I had a paid acting gig - receiving a quarter as my cast gift still counts as being paid in my mind. However, blind actors are continuously not casted in roles where characters are blind. These roles still are largely played by sighted performers and are still largely based on the misconceptions and negative attitudes society has towards blindness. In any other role, authenticity is important. Research is conducted. The writers and performers consult others to keep the integrity of the experiences of the character and those who can identify with the character. It’s 2019 and we are still fighting to have a seat in the entertainment business, one of the largest industries in the U.S. It’s time we start having a say in how we are portrayed. It’s time for blind characters to be casted by blind performers. We bring our lived experiences to the table. We bring the truth about blindness to the table. Authenticity matters.