Representation of Blindness in Film and TV — What’s Getting Better, What Still Misses the Mark

AUDIO VERSION

How persons who are blind are shown in movies, TV, and news stories shapes how others treat them in real life. That’s why representation matters. For decades, blindness has been used as a plot device: the tragic victim, the mysterious hero with “extra senses,” or the helpless dependent waiting to be rescued. Thankfully, things are shifting. But for every step forward, a few tired stereotypes still linger.

Here’s a look at what’s improving and what still needs work.

What’s Getting Better

1. More Blind Characters with Full Personalities

It’s becoming less rare to see blind characters who actually have lives beyond their disability. Instead of being side props or emotional lessons for sighted characters, they’re starting to be shown as workers, parents, villains, or love interests.

2. Authentic Storytelling from Blind Creators

Shows like See (Apple TV) featured blind consultants and trainers. Documentaries like Crip Camp and Going Blind were shaped by disabled filmmakers. When people who are blind help build the story, the result feels less like inspiration-porn and more like reality.

3. Attention to Real Technology, Not Movie Magic

Gone are the days when characters felt faces to recognize people. Screen readers, white canes, Braille displays, and apps like Be My Eyes are slowly starting to show up on screen, and not as futuristic gimmicks, but as everyday tools.

What Still Misses the Mark

1. Too Many Sighted Actors Playing Blind Roles

Most blind characters are still played by sighted actors. It’s often justified as “acting,” but it shuts out blind performers from even playing themselves. Meanwhile, many roles focus more on looking blind than being blind; lots of unfocused eye movements and staring into space, but no authentic experience.

2. Overused Tropes: The Tragic Burden or Magical Mystic

Blind characters are still either pitied or mystified. They’re shown as helpless dependents or as having supernatural abilities. “I can hear your heartbeat from across town.” Reality is far more interesting than either extreme.

3. Stories That Focus Only on Cure or Suffering

So many people who are blind adapt successfully. They work, date, parent, engage in sports, run businesses, and do so much more. They want stories that reflect variety, not just sorrow or miracle-recovery endings.

Where Representation Should Go Next

• Hire blind actors — even for roles that aren’t about blindness.

• Let blind writers and consultants shape scripts.

• Show blind joy, humour, anger, boredom — the full spectrum.

• Stop making blindness the entire plot point. Let it just be one part of a character, not the whole identity.

Representation doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be honest. When blindness is shown with accuracy and respect, audiences learn something far more powerful than pity: they see possibility, normalcy, and shared humanity.

Best and Worst Portrayals of Blindness in Film & TV

Top Best Portrayals of Blindness

1. Scent of a Woman — Al Pacino as Lt. Frank Slade

Yes, the performance is loud and over-the-top, but it’s layered, not pitiful. Slade isn’t portrayed as fragile or angelic. He’s cranky, flawed, charismatic, and fully human. His blindness informs his life, but it doesn’t define him. That balance is rare.

2. Daredevil (TV Series - Netflix Version)

Forget the goofy Ben Affleck movie — the series gets it right. Matt Murdock is capable but not superhuman. He uses adaptive tech, mobility skills, and yes, heightened hearing; but he still struggles. He's not a “blindness = superpowers” trope; he's a person with strengths and limitations.

3. In the Dark — Perry Mattfeld as Murphy Mason

Murphy isn’t polished or inspirational. She’s messy, sarcastic, irresponsible at times, and deeply real. Some viewers criticized casting a sighted actor, but the writing and attitude deserve credit: she’s not saintly, she’s not tragic. She’s allowed to be complicated.

4. A Patch of Blue (1965) — Elizabeth Hartman

Shockingly ahead of its time. The character’s blindness isn’t romanticized or dramatized. It’s one layer in a story about class, protection, and independence. Feels more authentic than many modern films.

5. See (Apple TV) — Ensemble portrayal with blind consultants

The show is wildly fictional (a world where everyone is blind), but it earns its place here for including blind trainers, consultants, and actors, and for highlighting non-visual movement and combat in thoughtfully choreographed ways. It’s stylized, but respectful.

Top Worst Portrayals of Blindness

1. Blind (2017) — Alec Baldwin as a Blind Novelist

An able-bodied actor squinting vaguely into space while delivering Hallmark dialogue? Hard pass. The movie treats blindness as romantic seasoning rather than a reality. It’s emotional tourism not representation.

2. Book of Eli — [SPOILER ALERT]

The film reveals after two hours that Eli was blind the whole time — but demonstrated perfect aim, combat skills, and navigation without any realistic method. It leans hard into the “mystical blind warrior” trope without showing any actual blindness experience until the gotcha moment.

3. At First Sight (1999) — Val Kilmer

This one should’ve stayed in the drawer. The entire narrative suggests that blind people are incomplete until sighted partners or surgery “save” them. Even when the character regains sight, the movie pivots into melodrama rather than nuance.

4. Bird Box — Sandra Bullock's Horror Movie

Blindness is treated as a metaphor for sensory purity and “seeing is dangerous” — yet the film refuses to deal with blindness as blindness. It uses blindfolds as an aesthetic, not a lived reality. People are wearing scarves; they aren’t navigating the world without sight.