Mar 5, 2024 2 min read

What I shared at a screening of Crip Camp

A black-and-white photo of young Judith Heumann. She is a white Jewish woman with chin-length dark hair and octagonal glasses, and is wearing a pin that reads "SIGN 504." She is speaking into a microphone and seated in a manual wheelchair. / HolLynn D'Lil/Netflix

Last July, I got to screen and introduce Crip Camp (2020) at a local queer film club. It was the first time I've ever introduced a movie and I wanted to write a formal introduction to convey how much Crip Camp means to me. Today, on the one-year mark (in Judaism, yahrzeit) of Judith Heumann's passing, I wanted to share that piece of writing with you.

Disabled people are the largest minority group in the United States, with 1 in 4 Americans adults identifying as Disabled. The Disability community is also unique in that it is the only minority group that anyone has the possibility of joining at any time, and we don’t yet know how many people will become disabled from long covid and other covid-related conditions.

These are statements that are frequently repeated in the Disability community, but are not common knowledge among the general public. Despite this prevalence, the history of the Disability Rights movement has mostly not been taught in schools, and most of us go about our daily lives taking accommodations like curb cuts and closed captioning for granted.

What seems on the surface like a standard documentary, chosen by Michelle and Barack Obama’s production company and wrapped in a Netflix bow, actually presents a radical story of civil rights protest and overall, a deep sense of community care, to a mainstream audience. Although it is a piece of Disability media created for a non-Disabled audience, Crip Camp lets Disabled people tell their own stories – in fact, the first person who appears in the film, Jim LeBrecht, is co-director of the film. People whose disabilities affect their speech are never cut short or edited over — their words are presented exactly as they are spoken.

This aspect of agency is one of the reasons I wanted to present it to queer movie club, since marginalized people telling their own stories is also a struggle that queer filmmakers and viewers contend with. We all know too well the difference between a queer movie made for a queer audience and a queer movie made for a straight audience. While there is a relatively small amount of queer representation in the documentary, I hope that the themes of intersectionality, radical action, and community will resonate with you.

Although this documentary came out in 2020, it has a renewed significance this year because unfortunately, Judy Heumann passed away in March at the age of 75. Up until her death, she continued to meet and have conversations with as many people in the Disability community as possible, even creating a podcast in the last year of her life, and speaking to children who were interviewing her for school assignments. She recognized that her work rippled out far beyond what she ever could have imagined. Crip Camp now functions as not only an invigorating documentary, but also a testament to her incredible life’s work. In Judaism, when speaking of someone who has died, we say may their memory be a blessing, and this film ensures that Judy Heumann’s memory always will be.

Link to the full film