Dean's List

His old high school friends put it this way: “Don’t let Zupan fool you. He was an a**hole before he was in a wheelchair.” He is coming to campus next week, and at least with this speaker, we know exactly what we will be getting.

Mark Zupan will be speaking on Wednesday, November 8, in Laurie Auditorium following the showing of the award-winning film Murderball. He and a host of others are featured in this 2005 documentary about the U.S. Quad Rugby team which competed for gold in the 2002 and 2004 international Paralympics competitions. The story of the team’s struggle to win the world championship is cleverly juxtaposed with the story of a young man who is paralyzed in a motorcycle racing accident.

The Student Affairs division, under the leadership of Kelley Kester in Disability Services and Ankita Rakhe in Campus & Community Involvement, is showing this film as part of its new programming series.

Murderball received critical acclaim because of its unique editing (without narration), and for the inspiring story of this group of disabled men who strive for some form of normalcy as they take the pain and anguish of their disabilities trying to rise above the challenges they face.

Mark Zupan seems an unlikely star in a film that features him and other unlikable and unsympathetic characters. Knowing they are real makes it worse at first because the viewer wants to see something good happen to them, though few of them seem to deserve it. They are crude, competitive, and play and live with chips on their shoulders. And why shouldn’t they? Knowing them then as real people makes the story all the better as it unfolds.

The film is one of the best I have seen this year. I rarely enjoy a film if I can’t find a character I like and care about fairly quickly. In some films the payoff never comes. Not so in Murderball where the momentum of the story builds and the layers of the lives of the subjects are repeatedly peeled back. Their reality and the complexity of their emotional and physical obstacles draw us in. The film challenges viewers to put aside prejudices about the disabled.

After previewing the film with the Student Affairs staff and despite the R rating, I rented Murderball to show my family (and view myself a second time). The idea of watching people with missing limbs play a violent sport was not appealing to them, and it may not be to you. (Despite the positive reviews, the film had never made its way to my “must-see” list either.) But like me, it didn’t take long for my family to become hooked.

Murderball isn’t always easy to watch. It is raw and honest and sometimes painful. It is also extremely touching, dramatic, and leaves you wanting more. Fortunately for us, we’ll get it, with Mark Zupan’s visit to campus on November 8.