This series will help you experience what it's like to live with three very different conditions.
Last year, our Opinion Video department published "Whale Eyes," a video guest essay by James Robinson, in which he explained what it was like to live with an impairment that makes it difficult for him to coordinate the direction of his eyes. With intimacy and awkwardness, the film revealed how James had spent his life wrestling with the embarrassment of people who didn't know where to look when they talked to him. |
"I don't have a problem with the way that I see," he said. "My only problem is with the way that I'm seen." |
The film, which was recently nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award, generated an overwhelming response. A flood of viewers shared stories about their own disabilities and the peculiar, sometimes exhausting, social interactions they endure as a result. |
Many people who didn't have disabilities wrote to say that they were eager to overcome their discomfort, but that they often don't know how. |
So, I asked James to turn his camera on several disabilities to help demystify them. The result is an Opinion Video series called Adapt-Ability, the first episode of which premieres today. |
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We will publish the other two films in the series in the coming weeks. The first episode features a woman who has been gradually losing her vision because of retinitis pigmentosa. It may change your understanding of blindness. The second may test a viewer's patience. Can you actively listen to a pace of speech you're not used to? The third film offers the perspective of a man with prosopagnosia, also known as face-blindness. |
What's most striking to me about these short films is that while every condition is unique, the films' subjects share a universal desire to connect with others and be understood. |
I found it deeply moving to witness how the people featured in the films tiptoed around the uneasiness of those who didn't have to deal with such challenges. But these films also reaffirm that society has an even greater duty to be inclusive as well. |
"One of the things that unites us is how we find ourselves in awkward moments and how we put up with being misunderstood and misjudged," James told me after completing the series, which we worked on together for months. "We want people to know that they, too, can learn to adapt to our conditions and that doing so will help us form stronger connections." |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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