Special - Review

Diversity in entertainment media is one of the biggest discussions of our time. After several centuries of the dyacis heterosexual white able-bodied male perspective being pre-dominant in out books, movies, tv-shows, voices get louder for more representation for other people. What we do, as humanity, is baby-steps, as usual - we as a society are still struggling to give dyacis heterosexual white able-bodied women some screentime and just let them have a win every once in a while, or any other group with just one of those factors changed from the aforementioned norm. The problem with that is: It's everything but an accurate portrayal of life.
Now while we are slowly (oh so very slowly...) getting better at this on the gender and race side, one of the groups still being let down on a regular basis are disabled people, and that is a shame.
Luckily, another baby-step was walked by Netflix who just released their new show "Special".
"Special" is the story of young Ryan Hayes, a gay man who also has a mild form of cerebral palsy, resulting in him having a limp and trouble coordinating his hands. He is living with his mum who fully lives for taking care of him. After a car accident, he decides to take his life into his own hands and to become independent. He starts an internship at an online magazine (very similar to Buzzfeed). All of his colleagues assume that his limp was a result of the car accident and instead of correcting them, he writes his article about exactly that.
The show is based on "I'm Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves" by Ryan O'Connell who also wrote the script for the show, executive produced it and plays Ryan Hayes on it - and he does all of that brilliantly.
Apart from the refreshing portrayal of layered minority identities (we also have Ryans best friend Kim who is fat and Indian - almost as if people can be more than one of those things) and the absolute honesty about gay and disabled realities, "Special" captivates with its unbreakable humour that really doesn't take prisoners and yet manages to walk the fine line between being gallows humour and being disrespectful.
That is also what makes "Special" an absolute fun thing to watch - none of this is a sad, tragic petty story so we can all feel sorry for someone, its a wonderful portrayal of someone's reality with all the downs, yes, but also all the ups, the happy moments, the friendships, the love. Dear media producers, please give me much, much more of that!