By Benjamin Snow
Like most people, I was involved in a lot of different activities when I was young – things like T-ball, karate lessons, and acting classes. Onstage, I played the wizard in the "Wizard of Oz", painted the fence in "Tom Sawyer", and was the king in a Kabuki theater play. I did these things using my power wheelchair (I have cerebral palsy), and I always like working with people and learning about each other.
My acting experience was a great way to interact with lots of people, but it also gave me the chance to educate others. My drama coaches and other cast members may have not known that a kid using a wheelchair could perform onstage and how easy it was to accommodate other people with disabilities in the future.
I have learned (and I have been able to teach others) that attitude and being open-minded can help you accomplish just about anything you really want.
For example, I don’t use a pencil and paper, but I began writing fun things using a computer before I started school. I remember writing radio dramas that my family and I would act out in front of an audio cassette recorder – "The Lone Ranger", "Sherlock Holmes", and "Spider-Man". I also wrote scripts for family versions of game shows like "The Price is Right" and "Jeopardy!", which we recorded on home video and then played back. I usually played either the host or the winner.
After visiting a place called the Newseum, I got interested in journalism at about the age of 11. It was a terrific place that had exhibits and explanations about news reporting and how the job gets done. I had been interested in writing for a long time, but my visit to the Newseum helped me understand the idea that writing could be something valuable and useful to the people who read it.
Beginning in the eighth grade, I wrote down some of my opinions about the attitudes many people have toward people with disabilities. One of the essays I wrote won a nationwide contest and was included in a national disability report prepared for President Bill Clinton. That also led to my being named to the Youth Advisory Committee of President Bush’s Task Force on Employment of People with Disabilities.
I’ve done some public speaking, which I really enjoy. I did a keynote address at a leadership conference at the University of Missouri at Columbia and also spoke on disability issues to an audience of 400 people.
It has always been important for me to try to help others understand some things about disability – namely that it is a natural part of life, like their hair color. I was in an educational CD-ROM about assistive technology in schools, appeared in a poster about improving accessibility in college computer centers, and was one of 30 winners (out of 5,400 entries) in an essay contest sponsored by the C-SPAN network.
My first college class had to do with writing, too. I was 16-years-old and enrolled in a class on how to use voice recognition software. It was hard for me to type in a hunt-and-peck style, and dictating stuff into a microphone and onto a computer screen helps me write things three or four times faster.
Sometimes I hear things on the radio or see things on television that I need to give my opinion on. I’ve written to Paul Harvey, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Hawking, Bill Kurtis, and Laura Schlessinger, among others. Sometimes I’ve received a courteous, thoughtful response, and sometimes I’ve gotten a form letter. I think people who send form letters don’t think about what a disappointment these letters are.
A few years ago I realized how much I enjoyed watching and studying movies. I decided to combine that enjoyment with my interest in journalism and work toward becoming a film critic. I write for my community college newspaper now,
The Pikes Peak News, and I will transfer to a four-year-university in a year or so. I’ve scouted three universities so far, but have yet to make a final decision.
When I first heard about the Film Your Issue contest, the idea I had was immediate and clear as a bell. My topic gave me a chance to combine my movie-going experience and my experience as a person with a disability.
For entertainment purposes, many Hollywood movies portray people with disabilities as pitiful characters with lousy lives. Iif a character has a disability, it's as if the disability is the most important part of their life and also a big part of the movie story.
That gives a bad impression to give because the pity the audience feels for a character often spills over into real life after the movie is over. I wanted to increase people’s awareness of how it is bad for the audience (and bad for movie critics) to feel pity for people with disabilities. It’s an issue that affects me as a person, and I wanted to do something about it.
I learned a lot from directing my film, "Thumbs Down To Pity". I learned that you can plan things a lot and still have unexpected things happen. You have to keep an open mind because you might have to change things. You might have to find ways to adapt to the changes but still keep your original idea in mind. Sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and say that one of your ideas just doesn’t work as you planned.
Making a film sounds easy at first, but it is some of the hardest work that I have ever done. I wrote the script and directed the film, but I had a lot of help shooting it and editing it. Lots of decisions needed to be made, and it turns out better to work together with people who know what they are doing.
I have a couple of other movie-related hobbies. I’m learning how to record my own commentaries for some classic films, and I am putting together a book on favorite movies from a teenager’s perspective.
I like to do other things, too. I’ve visited 40 states and traveled to four other countries. I really enjoy traveling because it is a chance to see that there are interesting and fun people everywhere you go. I enjoy camping and getting in the hot tub. I enjoy learning more and more about government and politics – how it all works, elections, the people involved, and so forth.
Ten years from now, I see myself as having graduated from college, working at a Chicago newspaper, and probably married. I think my attitude and keeping an open mind will help me get there
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