Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)

March 25, 2020 6:26 PM

Down the road from Woodstock, a revolution blossomed at a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, transforming their lives and igniting a landmark movement. (Sundance 2020 award winning documentary, now on Netflix)

Rolling Stone Review: Netflix Doc Revisits Ground Zero for Disability Rights Movement - A look back at how a New York summer camp helped form a generation of political firebrands is the definition of inspiring

Collider Review: Netflix Documentary Is Eye-Opening and Deeply Inspiring

HollywoodNews review - Netflix’s “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” Is Another Important Documentary From The Obamas And Higher Ground

The Wrap Review: Stirring Documentary Recalls Training Ground for Disability Rights Activists

posted by oh yeah! (5 comments total)

I was sure I'd first heard of the 1990 Capitol Crawl from a metafilter FPP, but nothing turned up in searching for it, so, maybe it was just in the comments of a related thread? (I guess I should have heard of it when it happened, but, I was a pretty oblivious 18-year-old at the time.)

Anyway, I thought this documentary was great. What a time capsule the Camp Jened footage was.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:30 PM on March 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

I had absolutely no idea about any of the disability rights movement, and this really blew me away. So glad I watched it. I hope this finds its way into a lot of peoples' lives.
posted by curious nu at 4:59 PM on March 30, 2020

Such a fantastic documentary, I really hope it gets seen by lots of people. I was sobbing from the sit in through the rest of the film.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:00 AM on April 25, 2020

One of the things I found really standout about this documentary was that it didn't feel like it was made by/for the abled. Like, I remember a Harvey Fierstein interview once about Torch Song Trilogy where the interviewer tried to praise the movie as a universal love story and Fierstein was all, 'thanks but no thanks', that it was a gay love story, and if straight people were moved by the story, great, but that it was a backhanded compliment to call it a 'universal love story' or that it transcended gender or whatever other praise that erased the gayness. (I'm probably totally mangling what he said, but, that was the gist of it as far as I remember.)

Anyway, I had that same feeling watching Crip Camp. Like, sure, this is a story that everyone can get something from, abled or disabled, but that James Lebrecht being both co-director, co-writer, and Camp Jened attendee kept the focus of the movie on the alumni-activists and seeing events through their eyes rather than othering or exploiting them.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:14 PM on April 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

I just saw this. I was aware of some aspects of the disability rights movement and not this one. I loved the overlapping of the hippie summer camp scene and the kids-and-counselors-with-disabilities (we just want to get away from OUR PARENTS) scene. And how far away that all seems, how informal the various adaptive stuff was that they did so that everyone could experience summer camp in the way that made it a real summer camp. And how they managed to layer some of the other social issues at the time (especially the Black able-bodied counselor from Alabama) without unduly centering it on anything but the story of what these kids and later them-as-adults were experiencing within the disability rights movement.

Disability rights are also still a thing that are really handled a little bit state by state as well, it was interesting to see everyone moving to California because it did (and I think still does?) have some of the most progressive social policies in terms of what sorts of benefits and assistance you can get to enable you to live independently. Glad I saw this.
posted by jessamyn at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2020 [1 favorite]