Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution’ on Netflix, an Uplifting Documentary About a Fight For Human Rights

Netflix documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution arrives on a wave of credibility and acclaim. It received accolades at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and it’s the second documentary falling under Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions banner, which scored an Oscar win for best documentary with its first, American Factory. It chronicles the humble origin of an extraordinary movement, how a small upstate New York camp for people with disabilities became the breeding ground for a crucial civil rights battle. Is this film the uplifting salve we need to soothe our weary souls? (Review spoiler alert: YES. YES IT IS.)

CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: James Lebrecht — co-director of Crip Camp with Nicole Newnham — was born with spina bifida. We see adorable footage of him as a child, joyously scrambling up the steps using only his arms. Now, he’s a sound engineer for a theater in San Francisco, and thankful he wasn’t sent to an institution like many people with disabilities who grew up in the mid-20th century. The Cub Scouts wouldn’t let him join, Camp Janed, “a summer camp for handicapped people run by hippies” up in the Catskills of New York, welcomed him with open arms. “Someone said, ‘You’ll probably smoke dope with the counselors,’ and I’m like, ‘Sign me up!'” Lebrecht says with a laugh.

For disabled teenagers, Jened was a haven, free from discrimination or boundaries. They experienced delicious temporary reprieve from a world that not only didn’t want to accommodate them, but didn’t value them. They were free from the loving restrictiveness of their parents, and free to talk openly and earnestly about them. They were free to play baseball, swim in the pool, make out with each other and generally act like teenagers. They shared their beautiful souls with each other and, in one rather humorous instance, shared crabs with each other. Whoops.

The counselors were disabled, too. One was Judy Heumann, who we see holding a democratic vote with the campers on the popularity of lasagna for dinner. A few years later, she’d very democratically lead dozens of disabled people in a 28-day sit-in for legislation guaranteeing rights for the handicapped — and some of her Jened alum were alongside her. After that, Judy fought for more thorough and encompassing civil rights legislation, and became the first-ever Director for the Department on Disability Services, and worked for the Clinton Administration and the World Bank Group and, and, and. She became a leader and a difference-maker. Others, like Denise Sherer Jacobson and Neil Jacobson, found happiness at Jened — they met each other there, and are still married, and enjoy the new world Judy spearheaded. Camp Jened was a wonderful, inclusive place, and it inspired many to fight for the rest of the world to be more like it.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Crip Camp likely will be mentioned in the same breath with many great, funny, uplifting documentaries about the power of the human spirit — Man on Wire, Hoop Dreams, The King of Kong, Senna, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Performance Worth Watching: To know Denise Sherer Jacobson, even for a few minutes in a documentary, is to love her.

Memorable Dialogue: “It was so funky! But it was a utopia.” — Denise Sherer Jacobson, reflecting on her time at Camp Jened nearly 50 years later

Sex and Skin: None, but there are a couple of frank sexual references.

Our Take: Lebrecht and Newnham lean heavily on decades-old footage taken at Janed, and it’s remarkable. It’s full of joy and humor, radiating warmth. There are too many great moments in Crip Camp; in one, Lebrecht is caught flirting with his first-ever girlfriend, and later he bemoans his inability to celebrate their one-week anniversary because the crabs incident forced occupants of the boys’ and girls’ cabins into temporary segregation. In another, a group sits around a table, sharing their feelings and frustrations with intelligence and sensitivity far surpassing what we expect from teens.

The archival segments are cut with current interviews, former campers reminiscing on their time at Jened. The film then seamlessly evolves into a narrative about Heumann — that’s pronounced “human” — and the history she made. Denise Jacobson proves to be a bit of a foulmouth as she tells her story, and we love her even more for it; she and Neil have cerebral palsy affecting their speech, and their subtitles float on the screen like poetry.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Crip Camp is earnest and inspiring without being cloying or manipulative; it’s honest, real and true, more than a little educational, exploding with empathy, spiced with melancholy, and made and presented with great affection. It might just be the movie we need to see right now.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution on Netflix