Two of the biggest names in media are working together to develop, fund, and co-produce shows from Deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent creatives. Variety confirms Netflix and the BBC are entering into a five-year partnership in which they will “consider projects from U.K. producers that have been created or co-created by writers who identify as deaf, disabled, and/or neurodivergent.”
The two companies will make a webinar as well as a creative brief and outline of the pitching process available to producers. The BBC will be the entry point for submissions and pitches, but will assess the projects alongside Netflix.
“We are looking for ideas which feel ambitious and elevated, and which challenge the limits that the industry might unconsciously put on disability,” the companies said in a statement. “The intention of the partnership is to firmly place the shows alongside our most talked about and original dramas already being developed.”
“Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent creators are some of the least well represented groups on television in the U.K. Put simply, we want to change that fact,” explained Anne Mensah, Netflix VP, series, U.K. “Together with the BBC, we hope to help these creators to tell the biggest and boldest stories and speak to the broadest possible British and global audience.”
Research from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that, across all Netflix shows from 2018-2019, just 5.1 percent of main characters were depicted as living with a disability — which is statistically on par with the number of series regulars with a disability on primetime broadcast shows. Just 2.4 percent of speaking characters on Netflix shows had a disability. On the film side, 2.3 percent of all speaking characters across the 100 top-grossing movies of 2019 were shown with a disability. Only 19 of those films featured a lead or co-lead living with a disability.
Meanwhile, a report from the Writers Guild of America West concluded that writers with disabilities make up less than one percent of employed TV scribes, yet 56.7 million Americans identify as disabled.
“Enola Holmes” and “Radioactive” screenwriter Jack Thorne addressed the TV industry’s lack of disability representation in his recent MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival. “Gender, race, sexuality, all rightly get discussed at length. Disability gets relegated out,” he said. “Producers have ignored disabled writers. Commissioners haven’t taken the opportunity to tell disabled stories. There are very few disabled people in front of the camera, and even fewer behind it.” He declared that the industry has “utterly and totally” disabled people.
Thorne’s message seems to have factored into the decision-making behind Netflix and the BBC’s new partnership.
“Jack’s powerful, memorable MacTaggart has shone a revealing light onto the extent of the challenges faced by disabled creatives,” said Piers Wenger, BBC director of drama. “We recognize the need for change and we hope that in coming together the BBC and Netflix have created a funding model which will help level the playing field for deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent creators in the U.K.”
