Introduction and Thesis

Jay Dolmage has outlined 11 myths of disability whose collective use “both borrows from and shapes cultural beliefs about disability in the everyday” (Disability Rhetoric, 32). The myth of disability as needing to be overcome or compensated for is seen in the film The Theory of Everything. The film revolves around Stephen Hawking (portrayed by Eddie Redmayne) who possesses special talents, specifically an extreme intellect, which “offsets” his ALS. This perpetuates the stereotypical image of the disabled genius who is granted normalcy by virtue of his exceptional talents. In other words, the cultural view of disability as in need of compensation via giftedness and/or hard work is reinforced. In the film, Hawking is valued for a) his gifts and b) his perseverance in the face of physical limitations.

Examples and Interpretations

First Fall and Diagnosis

Early in the movie, Stephen is seen before a blackboard performing mathematical integrations in his signature scrawl and working fastidiously to develop his theory that the early universe was a singularity. Having finished for the day, Stephen is visibly content with his work; upon leaving the office for the Cambridge courtyard, he seems scarcely able to hold back a grin. The music is upbeat. Just as his slow trot turns into a gallop, Stephen trips, falling face first into the pavement and shattering his eyeglasses. The music stops. Bystanders run to his aid, and after waiting a few moments, realize he is completely unconscious and in need of medical attention. The camera angle moves to a window looking down onto the courtyard, accentuating the height of Stephen’s fall, as people lift his motionless frame by the arms. In arguably the most dramatic scene, the film grinds to a halt the audience’s concern for Stephen’s academics in a matter of seconds, redirecting their attention to what caused him to fall.

We pick up at a hospital, and as the left side of Stephen’s head comes into focus, the right side is laid on a slab for imaging. The image is bright, overexposed, emphasizing the foreignness of the environment. A barrage of tests is conducted upon his body, some requiring his involvement like pushing with his legs or connecting his fingers to demonstrate his neuromuscular proficiency. The cuts between scenes are jittery and sharp. Thereafter, Stephen is seen sat in a bath looking scared and confused in a sort of self-embrace as ominous orchestral music plays momentarily, when suddenly a J cut of the doctor’s voice comes in with the diagnosis, “It’s called motor neuron disease.” The two of them come into view. Stephen is unblinking for the entire minute long conversation with the doctor and is clearly shaken by the news that he will only have two years to live. A fisheye lens and higher frame rate are used for close-ups on the doctor, who continues in a distant and impersonal tone, “The result is gradual muscle decay. Wasting away… I’m ever so sorry.” The doctor stands up and walks away; the focus of the camera doesn’t follow, instead he just gets gradually blurrier. The camera returns to Stephen, this time zooming out until the empty hallway is in view, accentuating his isolation. In an interview (Chinthapalli, 2), Katie Sidle, the consultant Neurologist for the film stated the following:

“The doctor’s actually shot at a slightly different speed because when you’re getting information like that, we imagine it would be quite surreal for someone. You wouldn’t even really be hearing everything they’re saying because it’s such dramatic news… so it was almost dream-like or nightmarish. And we chose to have the doctor make his statement and then walk away partly to emotionally play the idea that Stephen was completely isolated.”

While watching this scene unfold, it seemed clear to me that the director James Marsh wanted whatever obstacles Stephen faced before to seem trivial in comparison to the ones posed by his disability that lay ahead. We the audience aren’t invited to think about physics, love, or life; no, instead we are at a loss for how our protagonist will cope in the face of physical disability.

Telling Brian and Jane

Stephen blasts Wagner’s Prelude to Die Walkure from the record player, sits in a corner and reads his favorite chess strategy book as his social roommate Brian returns in high spirits. Brian switches off the music and imitates a wildlife journalist as he teases Stephen’s “bizarre hibernation patterns.” This amuses Stephen, who looks confined and weak as the camera looks down upon him.

Brian kneels before Stephen, inquiring as to his hospital stay, “So how was it? What did they say? How’s your wrist?” In a weak voice, Stephen offers, “I have a disease, Bri.” Brian initially perceives this as a joke and plays it off as such, until Stephen grows tired of the conversation and politely asks his roommate to leave, “Will you go, Bri?” His roommate backtracks clunkily, apparently aware at last of the gravitas, when the door knocks and opens to a Cambridge residence worker, “Stephen, phone for you. It’s a girl.”

We see Stephen’s girlfriend Jane, phone in hand, as the line goes to dial tone. Unsatisfied, she heads to his room and looks through the entryway window as Stephen hides out of sight. Jane continues her search at the pub, where she happens upon a sad-looking Brian who informs her of Stephen’s diagnosis. Later, we see an apprehensive looking Jane tread softly through a sunlit doorway into a large room drenched red by the curtains, before her a dejected Stephen slumps into a chair facing the TV. The yellow from whence she comes may signify her hope and optimism, whereas the red she strays into could represent her love and passion for Stephen as well as his anger.

After small talk, she tries to broach the subject of his health, saying “Stephen.” He replies, “You just missed him. He was here earlier.” She pleads with him to play a game of croquet with her, to which he repeatedly declares “Go.” Eventually, she poses an ultimatum, “if you don’t get up and play a game with me, I won’t come back here again. Ever.” He stands up, makes his way across the room and beckons for her to follow him to the lawn. There, the camera focuses on his painstaking efforts to situate the mallet within his deteriorating grasp. Addressing the ball, he strikes it pure. Close-up footage of his newly spastic gait and foot drop suggests traveling between the wickets is becoming increasingly difficult. Despite his apparent difficulties he proceeds to play brilliantly, and when it becomes obvious that he is going to win, Jane protests, removing his ball from play in a bid to stop his progress. She wants more time with him, however long it may be.

Hightailing it back to his room, Stephen shatters a chair against the wall. Jane arrives shortly thereafter, wanting to talk with him about his diagnosis. He repeatedly asks her to leave him, to which she insists, “I can’t,” prompting the following terse exchange.

Stephen: I have two years to live. I need to work.

Jane: I love you.

Stephen: You- You’ve left- You’ve left- That’s a false conclusion.

The dialogue of this passage shows Stephen engaging directly with the myth of overcoming disability. He sees working on his thesis harder than ever as compensation for his physical limitations, when he shouldn’t need to try any harder than he did before to be deserving of her affection. His last sentence underscores the overwhelming sense of defeat he feels in the face of this adversity.

Dissertation Defense

On the morning of Stephen’s defense, Jane helps him prepare. Stephen and Jane are now married and have a son, Robbie. He has gone from walking unassisted to using two canes. Stephen’s “slow unsteady gait” (Rozengarten, 278) is overemphasized on his walk across campus, as the facial expressions of a doctoral student about to defend their thesis is undoubtedly a rich cinematic landscape. Of course, this emphasis serves “to highlight this dichotomy of the body and the mind.” (Joubin, 277) Upon arriving at his destination, Stephen is seen entering the room from very high camera angle emphasizing his weakness and poor gait, whereupon he is offered a seat. Through slurred speech, he declines. One interpretation of this declination posits Stephen “is still too prideful to truly accept his physical state and perhaps wants to keep his dignity as a student in front of his mentors.” (Sims, 83)

Stephen’s thesis is received very well, and the camera angle gradually lowers until the audience is looking up at him, with natural lighting, colors, and upbeat music signifying his triumph as a student and crucially as an individual over his disability.

Dinner Party Postgrad, Manual Wheelchair Presentation

Following Stephen’s successful defense, the Hawking’s host a dinner party, where Stephen is shown struggling to use utensils. During dinner, Stephen arises from the table, prompting a concerned look on Jane’s face. He makes his way over to the stairs which he attempts to climb in order to see his son. This scene is “shot in diminishing high angles and close-ups through the rails of the bannister that again represent his physicality as imprisoning. Ultimately, the scene goes on to infantilize him to some degree, cutting to a shot of his young son staring at him from beyond a baby gate and thus drawing a parallel between the two. While positioning Hawking as both academically powerful and non-normatively embodied, such moments nevertheless present his physicality as a tragic aberration.” (Marquis, 837) This sequence emphasizes the inaccessibility of the Hawking’s house. Stairs prevent Stephen from reaching his child, and ultimately lead to the relocation of his bed to the kitchen.

After the party, Jane presents Stephen with a manual wheelchair, to which Stephen claims, “This is temporary.” Of course, Stephen will only get weaker, and will rely upon the wheelchair increasingly as time progresses. The wheelchair and newborn daughter Lucy are presented scenes bathed in yellow, perhaps indicative of their newness.

Getting Dressed Scene

Stephen finds inspiration while getting dressed one evening. Jane is in the process of putting a sweater over his head when baby Lucy cries, and Stephen encourages her to tend to the newborn. Peering through the fabric at the fireplace, Hawking theorized that black holes radiate heat, which would ultimately lead to the discovery of Hawking radiation. Therefore, “Hawking’s crip positioning in time and space provides a uniquely embodied perspective for the production of scholarship.” (Rozengarten, 280)

Outdoor Family Gathering

The Hawking’s have a family gathering at Stephen’s parents’ place. Stephen, now a wheelchair user, struggles to ascend the steps even with help. Once situated at the dinner table, he chokes on food, indicating he is no longer able to eat without full assistance and requires lifesaving procedures. Stephen’s dad offers water, but Jane knows the answer immediately, saying “No”. This, when coupled with her practice of wiping away Stephen’s saliva, suggesting the two are becoming increasingly interdependent, and that Jane is familiar with Stephen’s needs.

Tracheotomy Scene

Stephen is invited to an opera in France with colleagues and students. There, he chokes on his own saliva and codes. The auditorium is lit in dramatic shades of orange and appears to have been ignited. Tragic music by Wagner is playing all the while, harkening back to Stephen’s solitary time spent in his room immediately post diagnosis, and once again he is without Jane. An ambulance is called, and he is rolled out of the theater, taken to hospital, marking a shift to a cold and antiseptic environment of muted colors, mirroring the setting of his diagnosis. Jane catches word of this over the phone and races to his bedside. Once there, close ups show her frantic interaction with the doctor, “I’m not sure he will survive coming off sedation.” He goes on to explain the consequences including side effects of a tracheotomy in dire terms, which include losing the ability to speak, “The only way of weaning off the ventilator will be to give him a tracheotomy…. He will never speak again.” She instructs him in French to perform the procedure, asserting “He must live.”

Spelling Board and Intel ACAT

Stephen is tearful when he realizes he can no longer communicate by talking. Using a spelling board, Jane attempts to engage with Stephen, though he is largely unwilling in a scene reminiscent of his introduction to his first wheelchair. The music is very downtrodden.

Later, Stephen is assisted by a nurse Elaine, who proclaims after her first interaction with him, “I think he’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever met in my life.” Stephen is visibly happier when he realizes he can communicate with the highly adept Elaine with the spelling board, and this trend is continued when he switches to an electronic interface, upping his communication to four words per minute. He decides to write a book, and it becomes an international bestseller.

“A Brief History of Time” Speech and Disability Drop

In late scenes, Stephen is seen promoting his book in front of a large audience. The dialogue is largely centered on inspiration, overcoming and compensation. Speaking on the limitations of our species, Stephen’s computerized voice delivers a philosophy of life, “There should be no boundary to the human endeavor. Where there is life, there is hope.” This scene showcases Stephen’s jubilance and ebullience.

The myth of “disability drop” is unfortunately invoked, wherein Eddie Redmayne is seen to rise from his wheelchair, his character supposedly freed of ALS and now able to pick up a pen on the floor. Once again, he resumes his life as a handsome actor in the eyes of the woman that he hands the pen to and the eyes of society.

Closing Thoughts

Disability is not, as the filmmakers of The Theory of Everything would have us believe, something to compensate for or overcome. Stephen Hawking’s academic achievements are to be congratulated, but this film traverses a somewhat different narrative path, relying heavily on the so-called “supercrip,” about which Eli Clare writes, “They focus on disabled people ‘overcoming’ our disabilities. They reinforce the superiority of the nondisabled body and mind. They turn individual disabled people, who are simply leading their lives, into symbols of inspiration” (Clare, 2).

Jay Dolmage suggests underfunding of disability services at universities send the wrong message to employees, “This lack of investment tells the rest of the university that disability doesn’t matter. But watch The Theory of Everything, and you can retain the fantasy that all students and faculty with disabilities get accessible housing and technology, that they might even get star treatment, and that they are sure to succeed if they keep working hard” (Academic Ableism, 176). At one end of the binary of faculty attitudes about disability, Dolmage situates Stephen Hawking in “…the world of the superhero (like Hawking), where that disabled colleague will dramatically compensate for their disability, rising above the competition…” (Academic Ableism, 178).

David Perry advocates a new way of viewing Stephen Hawking, “He was a genius, he worked incredibly hard, he had access to great health care and social support, he had plenty of privilege and received help from countless people behind the scenes” (Perry).

References

1. Marsh, James, et al. The Theory of Everything. Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2015.
2. Dolmage, Jay Timothy. Disability Rhetoric. Syracuse University Press, 2014.
3. Chinthapalli, Krishna. “Helping Eddie Redmayne to Portray Motor Neurone Disease.(Personal Account).” Student BMJ, vol. 23, 2015, p. 12.
4. Rozengarten, Tova. Gendered Disabilities: Silent performatives in cinema. Diss. Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences., 2020.
5. Joubin, Alexa Alice. “Can the Biopic Subjects Speak? Disembodied Voices in The King’s Speech and The Theory of Everything.” A Companion to the Biopic (2019): 269-281.
6. Sims, Nicole Marie. The Quest for Authenticity: Complicating the Portrayal of Disability in Stephen Hawking Representations. Diss. University of Illinois at Chicago, 2017.
7. Marquis, Elizabeth. “Beautiful Minds and Unruly Bodies: Embodiment and Academic Identity in Still Alice and The Theory of Everything.” Discourse (Abingdon, England), vol. 39, no. 6, 2018, pp. 829–840.
8. Clare, Eli, et al. Exile and Pride : Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. Duke University Press, 2015.
9. Dolmage, Jay T. Academic Ableism. University of Michigan Press, 2017.
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