Picture This!

This week with the Entertainment Industries Council was really exciting. We had our Picture This! event on Wednesday at the National Association of Broadcasters in D.C., which focused on people with intellectual disabilities.

The event was held in partnership with Special Olympics and was hosted by actress and Special Olympics Board Member Vanessa Williams. Over 40 experts in the field were in attendance.

There was also a panel of writers and producers from the entertainment industry including:

• Andi Bushnell - Supervising Producer/Writer, Criminal Minds
• Sue Castle - Executive Producer, PBS Series - In the Mix
• Maria Macina - Producer, Guiding Light
• Rosemary Rodriguez - Director, Without a Trace

The goal of the meeting was to discuss concerns, eliminate stereotypes and identify ways of changing on-screen depictions of people with intellectual disabilities through roundtable discussions. These ideas were then brought to the panel of writers as a way to communicate firsthand with people from Hollywood.

Clips from Williams' new movie, My Brother, were also shown at the meeting. Williams stars as a mother dying of tuberculosis who is desperately trying to get her two sons, Isaiah and intellectually disabled James, adopted together.

My job throughout the event was to be a recorder for one of the tables. With my notes, and the notes from the other interns, EIC will put together a Picture This! publication highlighting the top three issues about intellectual disabilities to come out of this event. The table I sat at had some very interesting people like:

• Tim Shriver - Chairman of the Board of Special Olympics (and brother of Maria Shriver)
• Blair Williamson - Actor with an intellectual disability
• Neil Romano - Member of the President's Committee for People With Intellectual Disabilities
• Anthony Lover - Director of My Brother

It's crazy how many notes I took. I'm really excited about this because I'll hopefully be able to get more publishing credit under my belt when this is all finished. I look forward to writing a story about this event for EIC.