Sontag herself was treated for cancer and observed the destructive inclination to view the disease beyond its physical reality and instead as a metaphorical “diminution of the self”. In her essay Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag argues that the physical reality of illness is worsened by the cultural tendency to view it as a metaphor – as a judgment or manifestation of a person’s inner character. His words doubtless have more import in the form of a suicide note than they would have coming from the mouth of an ailing cancer patient. This plot device is troubling in its reliance on preserving a characterisation of Willoughby as the hypermasculine, able-bodied leader of the town who actively ended his life, rather than a sick man who passively succumbs to his disease. ‘Jarringly ableist’: Woody Harrelson’s character in Three Billboards is troubling. His letters to Mildred and Officer Dixon are revered as emotional centrepieces of the narrative, and it is only when coming from beyond the grave that they truly take his advice. By doing so, he transcends the physical reality of his disease and becomes an almost godlike voice of authority in the film. Diagnosed with cancer, Willoughby takes his own life ostensibly to save his family and friends from the burden of his long, inexorable decline into illness. The other jarringly ableist storyline in Three Billboards is that of Woody Harrelson’s character, chief of police William Willoughby. But the effect is ruined as James storms out of the restaurant, the camera lingering on his tear-stained face as he delivers the plaintive closing line: “I didn’t have to come and hold your ladder.” As such, the transition from comic relief to object of pity never breaches the “us” and “them” divide, and James is doubly shunned for the sake of Mildred’s character development. But who the hell are you, man? You’re that billboard lady who never ever smiles, who never has a good word to say about anybody … and I’m the one who’s not the catch?!”įor a moment, James comes close to being humanised, and I can almost see why Dinklage praised Three Billboards as “ one of the best scripts I’ve ever read”. After a requisite number of height-related gags, Dinklage delivers a powerful monologue that flips the script on Mildred: “I know I’m a dwarf who sells used cars and has a drinking problem, I know that. In his only significant scene, James goes out to dinner with a clearly embarrassed Mildred who feels she is forced to repay him for providing a false alibi. To its credit, the film uses this instinctive prejudice as a lure to criticise Mildred’s, and implicitly the audience’s, false sense of superiority. Photograph: Merrick Morton/Twentieth Century Fox Three Billboards’ clunky reliance on ableist tropes as a form of humour was disappointing.
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