Popcorn Disability is my upcoming book looking at disability in the movies coming out in 2025. As a prelude to that, I’ve decided to review some of the movies I’m watching as I work on it. Some these will eventually make their way into the finished product and some won’t.
This installment of Popcorn Disability is brought to you by X/Twitter because I had everyone vote on what they wanted me to talk about! I did not think this 1985 drama directed by Peter Bogdanovich would win against a far superior disabled movie (1976’s Coming Home) and the worst movie to ever exist in humanity (2016’s Me Before You) but here we are. So let’s discuss the movie I’ve actively avoided for the last 20 years and answers the question: Are any of Kristen’s Boys represented in her book?
Mask tell the true story of Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz), a California teen with craniodiaphyseal dysplasia that results in significant facial deformities. His free-spirited biker mother Rusty (Cher) is his biggest advocate, asserting that he be treated no differently than an average teen. But as Rocky gets older the issues of growing up start to clash with his disability.
I had more than a few friends ask me at the beginning of writing Popcorn Disability if I was finally gonna watch Mask since they were all present for the Eric Stoltz phase I went through in the 2000s. Having finally crossed it off the list, I’ll admit he’s a key reason why it works at all. The character could have so easily fallen into a sainted portrayal of disability that was ridiculously common in the 1970s and 1980s (go back to read my Ice Castles review for reference). Instead, the character feels lived in and messy. Rocky can be selfish, good-hearted, kind of a dick. We contain multitudes, dammit.
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