Author(s): Sushovan Mishra, Dr. Brahmananda Padra

Abstract: One of the most powerful mediums for influencing audiences is thought to be cinema & filmography. India is the world's largest producer of feature films with a sizable international following, how any matter is portrayed in Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood etc with films and documentaries is especially unavoidable. Examining how disability is portrayed in movies is important because it influences how the public perceives, visualizes, and stereotypes people with physical disabilities in real life. The medical model of instructions, which inspects disability as a functional limitation, is the foundation of the dominant viewpoint on disability socially and psychologically. According to this set of norms, people with disabilities face a natural disadvantage in competitive social situations, which calls for medical intervention. On the other hand, the social model emphasises the inclusion and acceptance of people having disabilities within society and offers a contemporary alternative. According to this, society should remove the obstacles that limit disabled people's options. The purpose of this study is to examine how physically disabled characters are portrayed and told in current Indian cinematics. According to earlier research, Indian cinematic viewpoints have a tendency to depict characters with disabilities in a way that is complicated, fractured, dependent, and pitying in general though there were certain exceptions to it. However, it appears that the representation of disabled characters in films has changed since the inclusion of disability rights & bills to the mainstream dices.

Keywords: Disability, Indian cinema, stereotype, inclusivity, social stigma, mainstream, filmography

Article Info: Received: 08 Aug 2025; Received in revised form: 08 Sep 2025; Accepted: 20 Sep 2025; Available online: 16 Oct 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.105.61