Mental Retardation in Film: Radio
Main Actors: Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris, Debra Winger
Year released: 2004
A mentally retarded young man, nicknamed "Radio" due to his love of radios (real name James Robert Kennedy; played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) is befriended by a high school football coach in Anderson, South Carolina, Harold Jones (played by Ed Harris), after some of the coach's star players play a mean trick on Radio and he rescues him from a storage shed where they have tied him up. At first, the young man is almost completely non-verbal and non-responsive, but little by little, as Radio comes to trust Coach Jones more, and Coach Jones takes him inside his office at the high school and even has him attending and participating in some of his regular classes, Radio becomes more verbal and more demonstrative. That football season, he helps out with the football team, most of whose players eventually come to accept and like him. When football season ends, Radio helps out with the basketball team, coached full-time by Jones's assistant. Little by little, he is mainstreamed into regular high school life.
Along the way, Radio's mother dies and Coach Jones fights to keep him at the school, even with his disability, which is described within the film as severe.
3. Describe the relevance of the movie as it relates to persons with disabilities or exceptionalities:
I found the movie quite relevant, as it related to persons with disabilities or exceptionalities, particularly in terms of the football team's, and other students', original...
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