Born This Way – "Defying Limitations in the Face of Cognitive Disability"

In a year that has seen critical acclaim for the coming-of-age film The Peanut Butter Falcon, starring former Special Olympics athlete Zack Gottsagen, Hollywood is learning that there is a place in the industry for people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This hasn't always been the case – although the CDC estimates that more than 250,000 Americans have Down Syndrome, only 1.6 percent of all speaking characters in 2018's top 100 movies evinced any sort of disability. Tropic Thunder parodied the practice of actors "going full R-word," an unfortunate Hollywood tradition that has included several Oscar winners. The Rebeccas trace the industry's history of portraying characters with IDD (which, to be fair, does include highlights such as Chris Burke's authentic Golden Globe-nominated performance in the early '90s family drama Life Goes On) and sit down with Rachel Osterbach and her mother Laurie, two of the stars of A&E's Emmy-winning docuseries Born This Way, which follows seven adults with Down Syndrome, and the show's executive producer Jon Murray.