How philanthropist Jay Ruderman helped ignite disruptive change in Hollywood
Hollywood is undergoing an inclusion revolution — and philanthropy has been an unexpected, yet influential contributor to the disruptive change.
The Boston-based Ruderman Family Foundation had sent the entertainment industry a wake-up call by publishing a white paper which found that in 2016, only 5 percent of top show characters with disabilities on television were played by actors with disabilities.
But in February 2020, the Foundation released a follow-up study which documented that 22 percent of all characters with disabilities on network television and 20 percent of characters on streaming services are portrayed authentically by an actor with the same disability. The Foundation’s research also revealed the general public’s significant demand for authentic representation, as a separate white paper showed that half of U.S. households want accurate portrayals of characters with disabilities.
What is behind Hollywood’s trend toward greater inclusion? One key player is the Ruderman Family Foundation, whose work for nearly two decades has centered on advocating for and advancing the inclusion of people with disabilities throughout society. In recent years, the Foundation has identified Hollywood as an opportunity for catalytic social change.
“We’re all impacted by entertainment; it has changed popular culture,” said Jay Ruderman, the Foundation’s president. “That’s why the Foundation started developing relationships with actors and studios, emphasizing that disability is part of diversity after Hollywood for years had only defined diversity based on race, gender, and other factors. Once we saw changes in attitude taking hold, the entertainment industry’s behavior also began to change.”
That wave of change took center stage at this year’s 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, when The Peanut Butter Falcon star Zack Gottsagen co-presented the award for Best Live Action Short Film, marking the first time that an actor who has Down syndrome presented an Oscar.
For the Foundation, the first step toward effecting change was speaking its mind. Last December, the Foundation circulated an open letter to the entertainment industry calling on studio, production, and network executives to pledge to create more opportunities for people with disabilities, and to make more inclusive casting decisions. Acclaimed actors who signed the pledge included George Clooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Norton, Bryan Cranston, Mark Ruffalo, Glenn Close, and Eva Longoria. A separate pledge initiated by the Foundation aimed to secure commitments to auditioning more actors with disabilities. It was first signed by CBS and more recently, the BBC pledged a more authentic and distinctive representation of people with disabilities on screen.
The Foundation promotes the same message through positive reinforcement of inclusive casting practices. It has recognized the likes of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “General Hospital,” Netflix’s “Atypical,” NBC’s “This Is Us” and feature film “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” as part of a growing group of films and television series acknowledged with the Ruderman Seal of Authentic Representation, which is awarded when productions meet two criteria: they feature actors with disabilities with a speaking role of at least five lines; and they are in, or on the verge of, general release.
While this advocacy-based approach is not normally the modus operandi of philanthropic organizations, the Ruderman Family Foundation believes advocacy and philanthropy go hand in hand. The Foundation also does not shy away from bold public statements that risk stirring controversy.
“In order to create disruption and ultimately, prosocial outcomes, we bring advocacy to our work and we’re comfortable with criticizing certain aspects of the community we’re trying to change,” Jay Ruderman explained. “We take strong stances and use very strong language. Why don’t other foundations and philanthropic organizations do this? Many of them are too slow. They need to go through an entire process, it’s not natural for them to do it. They respond timidly to major news events or don’t respond at all, often over fear disappointing of disappointing donors, grantees, and other partners. Others fund advocacy but don’t take it on themselves.”
The Ruderman Family Foundation operates on a different plane. Tapped to lead the Foundation by his father, Morton E. Ruderman, Jay is an attorney by trade who says his prior experience with civil rights issues enabled him to understand the disability community as a socially, economically, and politically excluded and segregated class. That is the assumption from which he leads the Foundation: disability rights are civil rights. Accordingly, he does not hesitate to use every tool in his arsenal to stand up for those rights, including forthright and proactive communication.
“I don’t care about networking and making friends,” he said. “I’m going to say what I think is right and just, and it’s had an impact.”
Yet once the Foundation called out Hollywood on its disability inclusion problem and began to see results, it complemented its strategy with good cop advocacy in the form of partnerships with entertainment’s leading influencers. This year, the Foundation began working with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to promote more opportunities for people with disabilities in the Academy Gold Program’s internship for college-age students, and with the Sundance Film Festival and its parent organization (the Sundance Institute) to make disability inclusion and diversity a priority at the festival itself as well as during the entire year.
In March, the Foundation honored renowned filmmakers Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly for their activism that addresses Hollywood’s missed opportunity regarding casting actors with disabilities. A number of high-profile actors attended the star-studded event in Beverly Hills, including Larry David, Ted Danson, Cheryl Hines, Kevin Pollak, and Ron Livingston.
“This is not a victory lap. This is the beginning of something,” Peter Farrelly said that night. “This is a forgotten group of people. They have not gotten their time in the sun. You talk about diversity, and disability has to come next.”
Subsequently, in June, Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer joined the Foundation’s call for inclusive and authentic casting.
“Nothing can replace lived experience and authentic representation,” Spencer said in a public service announcement released by the Foundation. “That’s why it’s imperative that we cast the appropriate actor for the appropriate role, and that means people with disabilities as well.”
Spencer’s comments exhibit the Foundation’s strategy of advancing inclusion by amplifying the impact of influential voices. The organization in October honored actress Taraji P. Henson, founder of a foundation dedicated to eradicating the stigma surrounding mental illness in the African American community, with its Morton E. Ruderman Award in Inclusion.
Following the Foundation’s steps to empower actors with disabilities and to encourage more inclusive actions by the studios that employ them, Jay Ruderman acknowledged that “there’s still more to accomplish” in Hollywood. One of the Foundation’s next steps is enabling actors with disabilities to empower themselves, he said.
This approach is already seen through Link20, the Foundation’s global social movement which is led by a network of young advocates with and without disabilities. In 2019, Link20 spearheaded a campaign which persuaded Major League Baseball to change the name of its “disabled list” to the “injured list.” Link20 has also successfully advocated for equal medal pay for Paralympic and Olympic athletes.
“Link20’s tangible results show that the more the disability community itself takes charge of these issues and advocates for the rights of its members, the more progress we’ll witness toward a society that prioritizes inclusion,” Ruderman said.
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This post has been republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Joe Chung Photography [From left to right: Sharon Shapiro, Amy Buchwald, Kevin Nealon, Kurt Yaeger, Jay Ruderman, Danny Woodburn, Ron Livingston, Mariann Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, Lynn Shea, Bobby Farrelly, Marlee Matlin, and Larry David on the red carpet at the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills on March 3, 2020, for the presentation of the Morton E. Ruderman Award in Inclusion. On that night the Ruderman Family Foundation, headed by Jay Ruderman, honored the Farrelly brothers for their activism that addresses Hollywood’s missed opportunity regarding casting actors with disabilities.]