Side Note: I started writing this on 1st Jan 2023 (or at least that’s where the first revision draft is), and now that it’s nearing the end of 2023 I found this post in my drafts and decided to finish it off.
This show caught my attention after I saw one of the writers, Nina Oyama, tweet about it. The synopsis itself was enough for me to sit down and give it a spin.
After seeing their care workers hook up at a bar, Frank and Sarah, who have cerebral palsy, decide to explore their own relationships with sex, and each other.
For fellow Australians, it’s available to stream on SBS on Demand, not sure about other countries (even though I know the SBS exists in other parts of the world).
The other selling point is that it’s six 10-15 minute episodes, so you could easily binge the whole thing in one go, or watch 1-2 episodes a day as I did, because even though I wouldn’t call myself a prude, openly discussing and thinking about sex is not something I’m used to as part of my regular conversations, so I did need some spacing between episodes to mull over the themes in my head.
In my opinion it’s an accessible and brief show that shows a pretty basic (and hopefully insightful and nuanced enough for those without disabilities) exploration of disability-specific struggles but also how things should be played out in terms of relationships between people.
Since it’s only six episodes, the generic two/three-episode rule applies here. If it doesn’t grab your attention or you’re fully repulsed (for whatever reason – no judgment on my part) after two episodes, feel free to drop the show.
Now onto the spoiler-heavy discussion where I explain why I really loved this show, because it generated a lot of discussion of disability-related themes in my head that I want to share here.
Disability and accessibility to sex
Let’s posit that there is a basic human need for sex (as well as the intimacy that comes with it). Considering the exception of those who are asexual/aromantic, let’s also assume that having said sex and intimacy generally makes people happier and better people.
It’s a pretty clear reality that the “more visibly normal and attractive” people have better odds at navigating the required social rituals to find an able and willing partner. And so having a visible disability like cerebral palsy can be a pretty quick initial deterrent to the majority of people.
Is it fair that people with significant visible disabilities aren’t able to as easily access sex? No.
Is it anyone’s responsibility to fulfill that need for them? Probably also no. But hey if there was a affluent enough government that could sufficiently fund and/or allow their disability system to enable people with disabilities to access those kinds of services, that’d be pretty great, no?
So this leaves such people at an impasse where they’re reliant on others.
Fallibility of friends/family/neighbours as carers & dependency on others
One of my current fears and dislikes is having to rely on anybody for anything unless it’s purely transactional (i.e. I pay money for them to do something for me). Goodwill and favours aren’t something that’re easily measurable, so I currently don’t have a mental model for ‘knowing’ what’s sufficient, only a very generalised notion that any goodwill/favours should be sufficiently repaid, or volunteered without expecting anything in return.
The reason I bring this up is that the first episode slaps me with one of my fears of having to rely on a non-professional carer: what happens if they wander off or go do something and forsaking some (or all) of their responsibilities for their own personal needs?
Treating people with disabilities like normal people
Like it or not, discrimination happens everywhere and the subtle ones are much more insidious. As someone who quite easily passes as a normal human being until I open my mouth or have to converse with people beyond the usual pleasantries (people usually don’t really notice my hearing aid).
It takes a certain level of intelligence, education/awareness and maturity for an ordinary person to look past anything perceived as abnormal, and even then there’s a natural tendency for humanity to expect others to be ‘reasonably’ similar (where the range of tolerance differs heavily). Of course there’s the nature vs. nurture argument which, well, I won’t really get into.
What Latecomers did correctly was model abled people treating people with cerebral palsy (with their insecurities) as normal people. And those scenes were so smooth and well done such that one would simply forget that they had cerebral palsy.
The insecurities and depression associated with having a disability
Something that’s always amusing to me (in a sadistic dark humour way) is when an adult has a breakdown/meltdown for the first time. They’ve lived a normal (or privileged) childhood, and hadn’t really experienced any deep or damning events that forces them to face reality for real, but now they’ve encountered their first and the flurry of emotions that come with it.
Whereas when one has a disability or are markedly different from the general population, it is undeniably an experience they’ve had most likely much earlier on when they’ve had a greater realisation of just how different they are and behind everyone else. The reality of my hearing loss hit me extremely hard around 20-21 years old when I was in the final year of my music degree and realising “Shit, I’m really behind everyone else, aren’t I? I’m never going to be able to get up there.” I’ve mentioned at some point that I experienced a deep depression in the final year of my music degree. This was it.
Despite the shortness of the Latecomers episode, I really appreciated how well they weaved the individual frustrations into the overall narrative and story. And it felt much more genuine because, well, the actors had undoubtedly experienced it themselves at some point: the frustration of not having what should be a normal accessible human experience, but their disability putting up several social and physical barriers.
Ending Thoughts
It’s so weird to write about these themes and such especially given how much I struggled with Literature and interpretation of texts back in high school due to general naivete and not being able to relate with the themes investigated. Now that I’m more mature and can see parallels with this content to my own personal experiences it’s a delight to be able to write about it.
I really enjoyed Latecomers, and I hope you do too.
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