This
month, HBO premiered the film "Warm Springs",
a docu-drama of Franklin D. Roosevelt's contraction of
polio and his recovery. The film stars Kenneth Branagh
as FDR and Cynthia Nixon as his wife Eleanor.
I expected the film to be a sappy tribute to FDR with
scenes of extraordinary courage, clichés and
stereotypes. It had all these, but not in the fashion of
most films with a disability theme. Hollywood rose above
how it usually portrays the disabled and dosed the film
with the glaring light of reality.
Roosevelt came from a wealthy family, cousin of Teddy
Roosevelt, whose face graces Mount Rushmore. Until FDR
became infected with polio, he led a life of privilege
and preference. He called himself a Democrat because he
felt he was the "man of the people." But he
had no idea what that really meant until polio taught
him what being on the outside meant.
"His disability wasn't discussed or made public,
not just because he was a public leader, but because
people connote a lot of other things with disability.
You have to put polio in its frame of context, which was
(that) it was the AIDS of its time," writes
Margaret Nagle, screenwriter for the film.
"Warm Springs" depicts the Depression, the
agony and the ugliness of disability. When FDR was
invited to Warm Springs, a resort in rural Georgia, he
arrived during the "offseason." He expected a
high-class resort but was greeted by a run-down inn on
the brink of bankruptcy. The promise of regaining the
ability to walk kept him from leaving.
The water, with it's high content of magnesium, gave
him the ability to stand in it and eventually take a few
steps. This gave Roosevelt the false hope that he could
be cured of paraplegia, and he returned the next season.
This time Roosevelt was confronted with the disgust
of the able-bodied patrons. Polio patrons were not
allowed to eat in the main dining room and were barred
from swimming in the mineral pools with the able-bodied.
The proprietor and other polio survivors of Warm
Springs squashed Roosevelt's fear of being disabled and
eradicated his disdain for all disabled people,
something every newly disabled person goes through.
Luckily Roosevelt had the money and the strength of
Eleanor to face his paraplegia and do something to help
others like him. When Roosevelt accepted his disability,
his life as "a man of the people" began.
The Bush administration could use a huge dose of such
humility. We have an administration that has not seen
combat, has never lived in poverty and has never been
forced to take responsibility for its actions or suffer
consequences.
Such sheltered lives as these are tearing our country
apart.
For viewing times and cast
interviews visits http://www.hbo.com/films/warmsprings
You can e-mail Barbara J. McKee at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com.
Her column runs on Tuesdays.
