Broken Elevator Denies Tammy Duckworth Entrance To Barbie Land
Not the best way to celebrate passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth planned to end a busy week reading Tommy Tuberville for filth with a family outing to see the Barbie movie.
“Barbie is a big thing in my house,” Duckworth told Politico Playbook. “I have a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. We have three Barbie Dream houses, including one I set up — all 900 pieces. So we were super excited for the movie.”
You’re probably already aware, but it’s never not worth repeating: Duckworth lost both her legs in the Iraq War, where she served as a US Army helicopter pilot. Iraqi insurgents shot down her helicopter in 2004 with a rocket-propelled grenade. She uses a wheelchair and had confirmed ahead of time that the theater showing Barbie was fully accessible. This is a familiar practice for anyone with mobility issues. My son relies on mobility aids and we often case out any place we’d want to go well in advance. However, all our Mission: Impossible-style heist preparations can go haywire when we encounter our arch nemesis, the non-functioning elevator.
When Duckworth arrived at the movie theater and bought tickets, she learned the elevator to the theater itself was broken. There was no way for her to see the film. She was especially frustrated that there was no signage explaining the problem, as if it was a minor inconvenience rather than an insurmountable barrier for someone like Duckworth.
The historic Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon, has a gently sloped ramp to the balcony level. I wish more buildings used ramps rather than elevators, which are not always reliable.
The out-of-order elevator is a last-minute sock in the jaw that disabled people often endure. In “The Big Bang Theory,” the elevator in the lead characters’ apartment building is always out of order. This running gag would hit viewers much differently if Penny, Leonard, or Sheldon had mobility challenges. However, people with disabilities are often “conveniently” absent on television and movies.
We encountered quite a few non-functioning elevators during a recent trip to Europe. When taking the train from Berlin to Hamburg, we discovered that the only elevator to our platform was out of order. The escalator was the only way to reach the platform. This created a logic puzzle, as we couldn’t leave the kid alone while taking the luggage to the platform and we couldn’t leave the luggage alone on the platform while waiting with the kid. Fortunately, there were enough adults present so that one could stay with the luggage and another could stay with the kid while I brought down all our bags and the kid’s walker and then finally the kid. We made the train and had an otherwise a very pleasant trip that I recommend.
Another non-functioning elevator almost foiled us in Hamburg at the Miniatur Wunderland, the world’s largest model railway exhibit. We’d also gotten tickets for the amazing virtual reality experience, but the elevator to that part of the building was out of order. I carried the kid down several flights of stairs, but he was eight and weighed just under 60 pounds. As we both get older, that won’t be an option.
And it wasn’t for the adult Tammy Duckworth. The staff reportedly wasn’t very supportive or helpful — though arguably there was little they could do because of liability issues. So Duckworth sent her friends and daughters up to see the movie without her while she waited for them outside.
“I missed out on an experience with my girls,” Duckworth said. “I’m pretty tough about these things. But this one really was a little bit of a stab to my soul.”
I can’t carry my son forever. I can’t be with him forever. So I worry about the future when he’s stuck waiting outside because that lifelong arch enemy has denied him another experience with friends and family.
Keep the elevators working.
[Politico]
Follow Stephen Robinson on Bluesky and Threads.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel for more fun content.
Catch SER on his podcast, The Play Typer Guy.
It ain't wheelchairs that confine us.
As a person who navigates several disabilities and also gives trainings on disability inclusion: the things that suck most in my life aren't the disabilities I live with, but rather inaccessibility and the ableist privilege that allows it to persist.