[Editorial] Disability and Horror: A Quiet Place Part 2 (2021)

I eagerly looked forward to this follow-up from John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place, which introduced a different vision of the apocalypse. For the disability community, often the seemingly innocuous question of “how would you survive in a zombie apocalypse?” rings of ableist attitudes that assume a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. In the first film in this franchise though, a disability-friendly dystopia is imagined, one where your ability to adapt is more important than your speed or strength. As in A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place II is another film that shares a new perspective on the importance of disability narratives in storytelling, demonstrating what I always knew to be true in my life - that bravery, cunning, and flexibility are most important. Films, especially post-apocalyptic visions from the Hollywood studio system typically have not shown this onscreen, preferring to serve up action-based narratives emphasizing physical feats and one-step-ahead thinking. 

A big reason why both of these films work so well is that they not only portray but deeply value one of the biggest strengths of the disability community at large. Millicent Simmonds, a Deaf actress in the role of Regan, is shown thinking several steps ahead of everyone else. On a daily basis, to have needs met, people with disabilities often display this kind of thinking. After all, you need to be prepared when there are stairs in your way or when there’s no bathroom you can use or you can’t ask for directions. Ingenuity and ability to adapt are as important to this film as the use of American Sign Language (ASL) which also proves extremely useful in this silent landscape of terror. 

A Quiet Place was hailed in the press for casting Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds in the role of Regan, a character with full sensorineural hearing loss who has a cochlear implant. Not that the media got it wrong, characters with disabilities should be portrayed by actors with those disabilities, but in 2021 that is the bare minimum we should expect from films that feature stories of disability. I hail the casting of Millicent Simmonds because in A Quiet Place II, we see her beginning to mature as an actor, continuing to develop her sensitivity and expression onscreen. I also find it praiseworthy that the script gives her opportunities to use her own voice in this film, where she was completely silent in the first. This difference may seem subtle, but misperceptions of deafness and D/deaf individuals abound when there is no representation of the full range of ability and characteristics on screen. Representation on screen very often directly determines the amount of political goodwill for people with disabilities, as with almost any marginalized group.

With all the things this film does right, the use of lip-reading and sign language are still a bit frustrating for me as a member of the Hard of Hearing (HOH) community. The character of Regan can read lips, but she has to ask another character to enunciate clearly so she can understand them. Unfortunately, the difference in the character’s mouth shape after two lines of dialogue is minimal at best. At another point, she turns their head so that they are facing her when they speak to her. Again, one line of dialogue is delivered directly to her, then they are facing a different direction again. Yet in both cases she magically understands every word. Making the point about enunciation and directional speech is important, and to see it in any form is helpful for the audience’s general awareness. 

While there was an ASL (American Sign Language) coach on set, the use of ASL in this film was a bit looser than in the first film. The sequences that used it as a major part were filmed in such a way that D/deaf audience members will have trouble reading the signs as fingers go out of frame quite frequently. The use of it by actors other than Millicent Simmonds was not perfect, which I would definitely expect, but there was one key emotional sequence where the ASL was so central that an actor’s inability to sign well took me entirely out of the moment. 

The character of Regan’s younger brother Marcus, played by Noah Jupe, merits a mention in the discussion of disability in these movies even though both the character and the actor are able-bodied. In both films, Marcus has either an illness or an injury that requires him to be mostly immobile for parts of the film. In this one, for the majority of the film, he can not walk, so instead he listens. There are a few narratives that I read into this representation. The easiest one to put it down to is that everyone benefits from accessibility and a mindset of contributing what you can how you can. I also feel like the image of Marcus playing out his part while stuck below ground is a reminder that everyone will at some point in their lives become disabled.

Unfortunately the tropes that surround the BIPOC characters within the story create an uncomfortable tension as Black men repeatedly sacrifice themselves for the benefit of this white family and every BIPOC character dies within their first few minutes of action onscreen. Intersectionality is still eschewed in favor of lazy narratives supporting white heroes as the only ones to root for. Guns also play as significant a role in Part 2 as they did in Part 1, where brute force is considered a necessary part of the narrative, rather than respecting the ingenuity and intelligence of the characters as the primary weapon. While A Quiet Place II is operating on levels I appreciate, I’d like to see stories that do better by the intersectional disabled community rather than continuing to center whiteness and gun violence as the norm.

I may sound nitpicky, but as I said, I’ve been waiting for this film for ages. Not just A Quiet Place II, but any film that has a solid representation of disability, that depicts the capacity of the characters rather than the able-ist attitudes around them or their emotional journey coming to terms with their disability. “Overcoming the odds” and “inspiring others” are my least favorite but  most common plot synopses for films about people like me. Our disabilities are the least interesting things about us, and films like A Quiet Place II are a good start in telling the good stuff. 

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