Sep 18, 2026 · 53 min · 11 segments
 **Episode Description:** In this…
Stephen David MillerHost
Christopher SchneseHostThe first film we're going to talk about today and the first film I saw at the festival is Being Human by Sean Hader.
This is her follow up to Coda, which is a film that both you and I, I think, really liked, maybe even loved out of Sundance when it came out.
So it is telling the story of Judy Heumann, who is a civil rights activist.
She was a woman in a wheelchair and she was a disability rights pioneer who basically was advocating for the government to make spaces more accessible for disabled people.
It follows a sit-in that she organized at the H-E-W, I forget what it stands for, building in San Francisco.
Basically, a government building that is tasked with executing a law that had already been signed allowing disabled people access to any federally funded program.
I was, I'll admit, a little worried when I booked this that it would be just very treacly and inspirational.
I think maybe some of that... coda being the cute movie that won all the awards splashed over on me and made me preemptively cringe when i booked but i was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie like to get this out of the way it is an inspirational biopic right it's certainly It fits in that template.
It is showing us people who are fighting for their rights, and it's doing it in a way that has lots of speeches and cuts to people watching those speeches and feeling moved.
But I think this movie is better than the formula would suggest because it is tackling a very, very, very specific subject.
This isn't a movie that's just saying... gosh, people should have rights, right? Disabled people should be allowed in public space.
It is tackling what is it about the disability rights community that is unique, that's different from other groups.
it kind of presents this idea that like, hey, it is hard to be accessible, right? It is not enough to just inspire people to think disabled people are human, disabled people deserve respect or anything.
It's like, no, you need to actually do work you need to inconvenience yourself to make the world something that everyone can participate in.
And I think so much of this movie is kind of like an ode to the friction of like the hassle, right? There's a quote in the movie that a character gives that says like, disability is not a tragedy, it is a tremendous hassle.
And I think this movie is interesting and kind of prickly because it is all about like being willing to get in the way, to annoy people, right? Like this movie is about a 21-day sit-in that was kind of non-stop pushing this one government official played by Mark Ruffalo to sign to enact a law that had already been approved even though he keeps saying I don't know how we'll pay for this I don't know how we'll do it it's not pragmatic you're asking for too much and this movie is just saying like it is not too much to assert that you deserve to have the same access and privileges as everyone else and you don't need to like preemptively apologize for the fact that it's hard to include you right and i think it just captured something about the disability rights community including like a kind of sometimes dark sense of humor you know a willingness to like you know, laugh at and recognize like, hey, it's weird.
The first film we're going to talk about today and the first film I saw at the festival is Being Human by Sean Hader.
This is her follow up to Coda, which is a film that both you and I, I think, really liked, maybe even loved out of Sundance when it came out.
So it is telling the story of Judy Heumann, who is a civil rights activist.
She was a woman in a wheelchair and she was a disability rights pioneer who basically was advocating for the government to make spaces more accessible for disabled people.
It follows a sit-in that she organized at the H-E-W, I forget what it stands for, building in San Francisco.
Basically, a government building that is tasked with executing a law that had already been signed allowing disabled people access to any federally funded program.
I was, I'll admit, a little worried when I booked this that it would be just very treacly and inspirational.
I think maybe some of that... coda being the cute movie that won all the awards splashed over on me and made me preemptively cringe when i booked but i was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie like to get this out of the way it is an inspirational biopic right it's certainly It fits in that template.
It is showing us people who are fighting for their rights, and it's doing it in a way that has lots of speeches and cuts to people watching those speeches and feeling moved.
But I think this movie is better than the formula would suggest because it is tackling a very, very, very specific subject.
This isn't a movie that's just saying... gosh, people should have rights, right? Disabled people should be allowed in public space.
It is tackling what is it about the disability rights community that is unique, that's different from other groups.
it kind of presents this idea that like, hey, it is hard to be accessible, right? It is not enough to just inspire people to think disabled people are human, disabled people deserve respect or anything.
It's like, no, you need to actually do work you need to inconvenience yourself to make the world something that everyone can participate in.
And I think so much of this movie is kind of like an ode to the friction of like the hassle, right? There's a quote in the movie that a character gives that says like, disability is not a tragedy, it is a tremendous hassle.
And I think this movie is interesting and kind of prickly because it is all about like being willing to get in the way, to annoy people, right? Like this movie is about a 21-day sit-in that was kind of non-stop pushing this one government official played by Mark Ruffalo to sign to enact a law that had already been approved even though he keeps saying I don't know how we'll pay for this I don't know how we'll do it it's not pragmatic you're asking for too much and this movie is just saying like it is not too much to assert that you deserve to have the same access and privileges as everyone else and you don't need to like preemptively apologize for the fact that it's hard to include you right and i think it just captured something about the disability rights community including like a kind of sometimes dark sense of humor you know a willingness to like you know, laugh at and recognize like, hey, it's weird.
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