Speechless is an ABC sitcom that premiered in September 2016. On May 12th, 2017, it was renewed for a second season on May 12th, 2017. It follows the DiMeo family: parents Maya and Jimmy, and their three children, JJ, Ray, and Dylan. What may set this sitcom apart from any other sitcom is that JJ has cerebral palsy. What definitely sets it apart from any other show is that it is likely the most accurate portrayal of disability on television, and never fails to bring laughter to the viewers.
There has been a severe lack of representation of disability in TV. Very few shows have recurring characters who are disabled, and even fewer of those characters are played by disabled actors. Able-bodied actors playing disabled characters is called "cripface." Micah Fowler, who plays JJ, was born with cerebral palsy, as was his character. JJ is nonverbal and uses a laser pointer on his glasses with a board of commonly used words and the alphabet attached to his wheelchair to communicate.
As a main character, the focus of most episodes is on JJ and inevitably, his disability. JJ receives assistance school from an aide hired by the school district, Kenneth. Together and with JJ's family, they wrangle ableism, discrimination, and the realities of high school and adolescence humorously. For example, in an episode that takes place in the grocery store, a man talking on his cell phone moves JJ's wheelchair out of his way rather than asking him to move. In response, JJ takes the man's shopping list and follows him so that he and his wheelchair can get in the man's way. When the man confronts him, JJ replies, "You moved me like an object in your way, so I'm being an object in your way." The man yells in response, which brings him negative attention and he embarrassedly walks away.
However, the show does not revolve around the struggles JJ faces as a person with a disability. He, Kenneth, and his family constantly get into sitcom-appropriate shenanigans inside and outside of school. In one episode, JJ is going to have a date with a girl who is in a wheelchair temporarily due to an injury. His family and Kenneth help prepare JJ for the date by putting the younger brother Ray in a wig and a wheelchair and telling JJ what to do when the girl comes over. Practicing for a date is a tried-and-true sitcom plot that works with or without wheelchair-using characters.
Speechless does not revolve entirely around JJ. Creator Scott Silveri said on the matter:
I didn’t set out to depict disability writ large – that’s not my goal, and that’s too big of a responsibility for us. I just wanted to talk about this one family. But I remained mindful of the things I did want to depict: Us against the world, we’re different, and we’re not going to apologize for it. In fact, we think we’re a little better for it.
The siblings and the parents have their own quirks and plots revolving around them. The middle child, Ray, is a neurotic neat-freak who clashes with his parents' disorganized ways. In one episode, he and his mother Maya bond by sneaking into and posing as members of a country club. In another episode, Dylan poses as a girl he likes on the internet and catfishes him. In another episode, the father Jimmy finds that Maya's friends' husbands are conditioned to do whatever they're told when they're told to do it, and takes advantage of it. Besides these common sitcom tropes, Speechless also portrays the realities of marriage. Maya and Jimmy work together well amid each other's quirks. Sometimes there are tensions between the two, but they love each other as they are. Maya is an enthusiastic, occasionally overbearing character, who is quite often the one starting the shenanigans in an episode. Minnie Driver, who plays her, said about her character:
She’s like a real person, she’s awful and she’s great. But it really bothers me the notion of dislikable women. It’s absolute bollocks, because women are just people. People being difficult, and awful, and rude, and kind, and funny, and sad – she had a lot of dimensions, and the family had a lot of dimensions.
Speechless is first and foremost a sitcom meant to be taken lightly. It is not a drama about the struggles of a family with a disabled child. Cedric Yarborough, who plays Kenneth, said about the show:
“First and foremost, it’s just funny – that’s why people love the show. And because it’s a family. It’s not anything other than what you see with a ‘typical family’ – mom, dad, a neighbor who also cares for the kids, and then the kids. So all those elements are all there, just like your Beaver Cleaver, ‘The Cosby Show,’ just in a different kind of category.
Sitcoms are a staple in television worldwide. Sitcoms have made groundbreaking representations of different identities over the years, and continue to do so. In an evolving culture in which more identities are being represented more accurately, disability has finally found a place. Speechless is the most accurate depiction of disability on television because it portrays disabled people as what they are: normal people with wacky families, who cheat on tests, who have crushes, who have normal lives that are lived with some form of mobility equipment, and that's just fine.
