The term "cripping-up" was first adopted in mainstream media around 2010. It is the act of casting an actor without a visible disability into a role where there is visible disability[1]. It is a derivative of the word "crip" and is used to call out certain casting practices in stage, TV drama and film production. There is an academic discussion[2] around it as a theory, looking at the extent of the practice and the nuances in its interpretation, which extends to exploring the difference in acting between embodiment and impersonation, and how without the lived experience of disability, how most portrayals of disability by non-disabled actors do not get under the skin of what it is to be disabled. This issue was mapped out in the MacTaggart lecture delivered by screenwriter Jack Thorne[3][4] at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 2021.
A call against cripping-up has become part of the disability rights movement, and a vocal lobby of acting and creative professions[5][6][7] are actively engaged with the industry for more authentically and creatively when it comes to disability portrayal. This includes industry professionals such as the director of My Left Foot, Jim Sheridan[8] and others within the industry have joined this call for change.This has led to instances such as disabled actors and writers calling on the UK TV and film industry at BAFTA to be more proactive.[9]
As a result, there are more TV, Film and stage productions are casting authentically or incidentally, with organisations like Netflix and BBC Studios forming a disabled writers partnership[10], The Profile[11] was launched in 2021 which is casting resource created by the Royal National Theatre giving the industry access to professional disabled actor showcases. Channel 4 (UK) created new guidance for portrayal[12], and the Creative Diversity Network (CDN)[13] has developed the data platform Diamond[14], which is used by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Paramount, S4C, Warner Bros. Discovery, UKTV and Sky TV to obtain consistent diversity data on programmes they commission which includes disability representation onscreen.
There are parallels with movement for better representation for Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities which have led the way with colour-blind casting, that covers incidental portrayal. The emotion felt by disabled communities was summed up by Frances Ryan in The Guardian 2015.
"...disabled characters create powerful images and sentiments for audiences. They can symbolise the triumph of the human spirit over so-called “adversity”. They can represent what it is to be “different” in some way, an outsider or an underdog who ultimately becomes inspirational. These are universal feelings every audience member can identify with. And there is something a little comforting in knowing, as we watch the star jump around the red carpet, that none of it – the pain or negativity we still associate with disability – was real. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Perhaps as a society we see disability as a painful external extra rather than a proud, integral part of a person, and so it doesn’t seem quite as insulting to have non-disabled actors don prosthetics or get up from a wheelchair when the director yells “cut”. But for many disabled people in the audience, this is watching another person fake their identity. When it comes to race, we believe it is wrong for the story of someone from a minority to be depicted by a member of the dominant group for mass entertainment. But we don’t grant disabled people the same right to self-representation."[15]
The call for change in industry practices has come from organisations such as 1in4 Coalition,[16] Equity UK,[17] TripleC,[18] UK Disability Arts Alliance[19] as well as disabled actors such as Kurt Yeager[20], Amy Trigg[21] and Liz Carr[22][23].
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