School shooting as Degrassi leaves Jimmy wheelchair bound

Blog 4: School shooting as Degrassi leaves Jimmy wheelchair bound Degrassi is a show about Jimmy, a high school student who loves to play basketball. Unfortunately, he got injured at school during a school shooting and is now a paraplegic. While he was down at first, after careful reflection he finds a way to do what he loves, play basketball despite being wheelchair-bound (source). The character, Jimmy Brooks, played by Drake Graham, is left paraplegic and wheelchair-bound after a school shooting. After leaving the TV show, Degrassi, Actor Aubrey Drake Graham became a rapper commonly known as Drake. He is not a wheelchair user in his daily affairs and the pressure of being wheelchair bound through his character Jimmy pushed him over the edge.
Drake did not enjoy playing Jimmy and after two seasons of playing this wheelchair-bound character, Drake left the show to be a rapper. The Huffpost article explains how Drake had given the directing team some warning demanding that they heal Jimmy’s injury so he could walk again or he would leave the show.
While it could be argued that Drake’s demands were reasonable, they come from the place of an able-bodied actor taking on the role of a character with a disability. If an individual with a disability was cast for the role once Jimmy became wheelchair-bound in the show the result would have likely been much more positive. Drake’s demands and comments are a good example of why an actor who is not wheelchair-bound in real life is not fit to play a character who is. The major issue is that being wheelchair-bound is not an easy task and it is not fun, which is why individuals who can walk do not enjoy the experience. Therefore, in the directing and acting community it is something to consider that when a character in the show becomes wheelchair-bound, the director needs to find an actor more suitable to play the role. Not only does this ease the emotional burden on an able-bodied actor, but it also sets limits and rules about which types of disabilities actors can be expected to take on. Overall, I would argue that it is a tricky issue because the personality of the actor is ultimately what determines if having them play a wheelchair-bound character will work. For Drake, it did not work. It seems from reading about the organisation of the show that Drake was not given sufficient warning that his character would become permanently wheelchair-bound and for this reason was not given the option to leave peacefully. Therefore, I would argue that if directors have to continue to have able-bodied actors play wheelchair-bound characters they would have to be upfront and honest with the actor in this regard. If the directors did such a respectful act, then they could find either an actor with a disability or an actor who feels comfortable taking on such a role. Therefore, there would not be the major issue as there was with Drake. To learn more about what the Fans think of the show, I encourage you to review the Fandom page as found here: Jimmy Brooks | Degrassi Wiki | Fandom

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