A boundary breaking documentary film, called The Crippendales in an ironic reference to the risque all-male cabaret act The Chippendales, is to put a group of disabled men on stage and turn them into a group of strippers, in the manner of the hit film The Full Monty.
The controversial and light-hearted film, which has the provocative promotional tag line, 'They might not have legs, but do they have the balls?', was privately screened for the first time in London this month and is being hailed as a breakthrough by disability groups. It has also been picked for the New York Film Festival and will make its first public appearance in this country at the Sheffield Documentary Festival early next month. Disabled members of the audience who watched the film last weekend at a conference run by Different Strokes, a group for stroke survivors, were delighted. 'It brought the house down. The response was incredible,' said John Horan, a disability lawyer and stroke survivor.
The film's director, Havana Marking, hoped to challenge the idea that the sexuality of disabled people is something to be ignored or, at worst, censored. She also believed the exercise would be liberating for the men involved.
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