The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was the first television network to incorporate closed captioning in the 1980s, followed by descriptive audio in the 1990s. Today, PBS remains committed to making educating, inspiring, entertaining, and engaging content accessible to the public. In partnership with the ReelAbilities Film Festival, PBS premiered their exciting new disability-focused docuseries, “Renegades.”
“‘Renegades’ is part of American Master’s VIA Initiative,” said Stephen Segaller, Vice President of Programming for The WNET Group. “The V is for visibility—stories about the disability community, I is for inclusion—stories told by the disability community and A is for accessibility—making content as accessible as possible to the widest possible audience.”
Each episode of “Renegades” is hosted and narrated by Lachi, a blind musician and disability rights advocate. The series includes five 12-minute short films created and produced by a team of d/Deaf and disabled filmmakers, showcasing the lives of diverse lesser-known historical figures with disabilities, exploring not only their impact on and contributions to U.S. society, but also the concept of disability culture.
One core concept of disability culture is the mantra “Nothing About Us Without Us,” meaning that people with disabilities must be centered in any conversation about disability. Charlotte Mangin, the executive producer of “Renegades,” first learned about this concept from producer Day Al-Mohamed. Al-Mohamed is disabled, and Mangin is not, but there was an opportunity for everyone to learn from one another. “I was teaching them what I knew about filmmaking, what I know about working for PBS,” Mangin said. “And they were teaching me so much about the disability community, disability history, how to communicate in different ways, so, I had to really be very thoughtful about how to communicate my knowledge and [that] was really fascinating to navigate all of that.”
The five individuals profiled to celebrate disability and promote inclusion in this first season of “Renegades” were Thomas Wiggins (1849-1908), Daniel K. Inouye (1924-2012), Judy-Lynn del Rey (1943-1986), Brad Lomax (1950-1984) and Celestine Tate Harrington (1955-1998).
As a journalist, I really enjoyed learning Del Rey’s story. As PBS highlights, Del Rey was “a woman with dwarfism who revolutionized the world of science fiction by editing and publishing books from sci-fi writers.” I strive to one day add some of her accolades to my resume. While the film did not have archival b-roll footage, director Jeremy Chin said that the absence of this pushed him to “approach this project with reverence and give Del Rey the tenderness and care it deserved.”
According to Al-Mohamed, less than two percent of Hollywood films represent the disability community in an authentic way by giving people with disabilities speaking roles or using actors who actually have a disability. “Renegades” is an important step toward changing this by increasing public knowledge of disability history, and encouraging cross-cultural understanding between non-disabled people and those with disabilities.
“Nobody’s showing this. Nobody’s talking about that,” said Isaac Zablocki, director and co-founder of the ReelAbilities Film Festival. “You’ve got to raise the voices.”
To watch the full “Renegades” series, visit: pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/shorts/renegades/