Hawthorne and other members of eSight Careers Network have been discussing the social implications of the film by director Fernando Meirelles that currently is being shown in movie theatres across North America.

Based on the 1995 novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, Blindness imagines a mysterious epidemic that causes people to see nothing but fuzzy white light resulting in a collapse of the social order in an unnamed city.

Julianne Moore stars as the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who loses his sight; she feigns blindness to stay with her husband and eventually leads a revolt of the quarantined patients.

The book was praised for its use of blindness as a metaphor for the lack of clear communication and respect for human dignity in modern society. But, the movie reinforces inaccurate stereotypes, including that the blind cannot care for themselves and are perpetually disoriented, according to the National Federation of the (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB).

Jake Joehl agrees with Hawthorne. He says, “I was born blind and have learned to just deal with it. I've learned to compensate for my blindness.”

Another eSight member, Amy Ruell, says this film presents a “teachable moment” for employers. She writes, “I hope employers will take every opportunity to challenge
their own private fears and misconceptions and obtain accurate information about the range of capabilities that we blind people, like our sighted peers, possess.”

Here is Albert J. Rizzi’s reaction to the film: "It is difficult enough walking into a room or a public forum and know that others perceive you as different and that you scare the hell out of them. But to understand that this film could further that fear and give others the impression that blindness could lead to an utter breakdown in our social system is disturbing to say the least. It only makes me angry about how much harder it will be for me to prove myself as I try to get my life back to as normal a life as I had before going blind. We can begin together to redefine deeply imbedded beliefs that have been nurtured and passed on generation after generation about people with challenges."

Fernando Botelho also is concerned about misconceptions. “I judge this movie as your average Hollywood production: more or less ignorant about real life. What makes this one especially irritating, though, is that it touches on a subject about which we know so much.”

You can make your voice heard right now by joining the Blindness discussion on the eSight Networking Forum at http://www.esight.org/link.cfm?n=1473.

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