Ep 079: Popcorn Disabilities: The highs and lows of disabled representation in the movies
Welcome to SEASON FIVE of Braaaaains!! WHA WHA???
We're kicking things off with the fantastic Kristen Lopez, who is a freelance pop culture journalist and the author of two books: But Have You Read the Book: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films, published by TCM and Running Press in 2023, and Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies published by Bloomsbury Academic, which we’ll be talking about today!
Listen on Spotify | Amazon | iHeart | Any player
As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented-and too often misrepresented-in movies. Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned, yet fun and engaging, survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century.
Over the course of this episode, we talk about little-remembered gems like Tod Browning's Freaks, one of the earliest well-intentioned attempts to show disabled characters as complex, three-dimensional human beings, to a slew of contemporary films, all of which have the power to enlighten, influence, and be used as a tool for social good.
Listen to Braaains on these platforms (or anywhere you listen to podcasts!)
Music: Deppisch
Support this show: Patreon.com/BraaainsPodcast
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Kristen Lopez is a freelance pop culture journalist whose bylines have appeared in Variety, The L.A. Times, and The Hollywood Reporter, to name a few. She’s the former film editor for TheWrap and the former TV Editor for IndieWire. She’s also the author of two books, But Have You Read the Book: 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films, which TCM and Running Press put out in 2023, and Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies, which Bloomsbury Academic released in November 2025.
She’s currently working on a second volume of But Have You Read the Book, coming out this July, and Welcome, Boils and Ghouls: The Complete Oral History of Tales From the Crypt, which is dropping in 2027.
ABOUT POPCORN DISABILITIES:
You can learn a lot from the movies — about sex and relationships, about business, about history. Sure, there's a fair amount of fantasy, wish fulfillment, and glorious hair to exaggerate everything, but for better or for worse, films remain one of the most important ways that viewers around the world learn about other people and cultures. And almost since the dawn of the medium, movies have shaped the public's understanding of and assumptions about disability.
As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented-and too often misrepresented-in movies. Popcorn Disabilities is her impassioned but nonetheless fun and engaging survey of how Hollywood has dealt with disability over the last century. As she reveals, even when they're not just narrative props to help out an able-bodied protagonist, disabled movie characters are overwhelmingly white, affluent, and conventionally attractive, obscuring the variety of disabilities and the experiences of those who deal with them. But she also explains where films have gotten it right and how the power of the medium can continue to be used to enlighten and educate in the future. From little-remembered gems like Tod Browning's Freaks — one of the earliest well-intentioned attempts to show disabled characters as complex, three-dimensional human beings — to contemporary films like Coda, My Left Foot, A Different Man, and many others, it challenges popular assumptions about disability while never losing sight of movies' unique power, influence, and potential as a tool for social good.
LINKS
Find Kristen online: Twitter/IG/TikTok
Podcast: Ticklish Business
Website: The Film Maven
Link to buy Popcorn Disabilities: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/popcorn-disabilities-9781493086344/
Other episodes you’ll enjoy:
PBS’s The Class and the Importance of Mentorship - Episode 073
You’re Not Alone: How Stigma Hurts Everyone - Episode 036
Depression: A conversation with the creators of CBC Gem’s Get Up, Aisha - Episode 052