Live Poll: Neuromuscular Disease in the Movies

I am not sure: Elephant Man Sea Inside I accuse 1941 ???

Thanks, Mario, for the suggestions! None of these characters have anything related to Muscular Dystrophy, though, and since it's Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Month, I want to stick pretty closely to those. A few years ago, I did all physical disabilities, though, and I probably will do another one like that so I'll definitely use these for that poll if no one beats me to it.

my left foot???

I was debating with myself about that one (the character has cerebral palsy) but I included Huntington's so I should include this one -- and 'My Left Foot' is such a good film. I'll just have to change one word in the intro (cerebral palsy isn't progressive like Muscular Dystrophy or ALS. One of the criteria that I'm using is whether the condition is one that the Muscular Dystrophy Association includes under its umbrella of services. What has always struck me as odd is that Muscular Dystrophy is so much more rare than these other mentioned maladies and yet it's the one that has a big organization dedicated to the treatment of all of these conditions. I'm glad but I've always found it curious. It's also curious that I never before found out why; I will soon. Thank you, Mario!

Since September is almost over, perhaps the poll doesn't have to be focused on Muscular Dystrophy Awareness Month. If muscular dystrophy is in the list title and the awareness month is cited, I find it confusing to include illnesses that aren't considered to fall under that umbrella.

Wasn't that Jerry Lewis disease???

Jerry Lewis didn't have it but he was really involved with the MDA and yeah, exactly, he did those big fundraising telethons. His son had it.

Hi Peter, It's very important to me that it's focused on multiple dystrophy awareness month and as long as it's pushed while it's still September, I don't see a problem with it. Right now, there are no diseases in the list that don't fall under that umbrella. I'm very involved with the MDA and everything fits -- and I address that in the intro.

That's surprising since the website you cited does not mention cerebral palsy nor Huntington's. How are they raising awareness of diseases that they won't even list on their own website? I noticed there are other organizations and even awareness months for those diseases. It's unclear to me what other illnesses you would consider including.

Yes, just like there is an organization for Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy, which is the type of muscular dystrophy that I have, but I choose to be much more involved with the MDA than that group. And ALS has an awareness month in May but Muscular Dystrophy clinics have far more ALS patients than Muscular Dystrophy patients. One organization doesn't preclude another and awareness months aren't mutually exclusive. I don't want to assume that you don't have a neuromuscular disease and that you haven't lost family members to it so please, if you have skin in this game, please just let me know and I'll offer you my support, but otherwise it makes sense why you'd be unclear about what other illnesses I'd include when even I had to look up cerebral palsy, although I absolutely know that while multiple sclerosis would not be included, myasthenia gravis would be. I'd note more specific inclusion criteria in my intro if it were as simple as an IMDb rating but since it's not that simple, I think "muscular dystrophy, ALS, and related neuromuscular diseases" suffices.

If an illness is part of an awareness event it shouldn't be hard to find out - the whole point is publicity.

Thanks, Peter. I'll add these. I was thinking movies because of the alliteration but that's not a very good reason given the subject matter and "awareness" -- and I didn't know of any of these titles.

I added all but the last one, since that's the only series. Thanks, so much, for the suggestions: some very good ones in there. 'Definitely improved the poll, I think.

Other possible options regarding cerebral palsy: Door to Door (2002) William H. Macy as Bill Porter Storyteling (2001) Leo Fitzpatrick as Marcus Oasis (2002) Moon So-Ri as Gong-joo Peranbu (2018) Sadhana as Paappa Also at least three series: Speechless, Special and Breaking Bad.

I added two of the movies and if I'm able to, I'll add the other two. Because I'm not sure if I'll be able to add the other films, I'm going to limit it to just movies.

'All four movies added.

Typos fixed.

Thank you, much, Pencho!

Congrats on your 300th poll. :)