Actress under fire over ‘ableist’ tweet honouring Stephen Hawking

If you already thought it was hard to say the right thing when someone dies, it’s just got harder, unless you think very, very carefully about the words you use.

Gal Gadot, an actress who played Wonder Woman in the new series of movies featuring the golden rope-wielding superhero, tweeted what she no doubt thought was a sincere tribute to Stephen Hawking after the physicist died this week aged 76.

“Rest in peace Dr. Hawking. Now you’re free of any physical constraints. Your brilliance and wisdom will be cherished forever,” she wrote. So far, so respectful, you may think.

But Gadot has come under fire for being “ableist” – that is, acting like Hawking may’ve wished that he didn’t live with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) or that ALS had somehow impaired his ability to do something.

A Twitter user called Adam B. Zimmerman quickly let her know that what she’d said was offensive to him and other people who’re differently abled.

“I think you’re fantastic Gal but this tweet is very ableist,” Zimmerman tweeted. “His physical constraints didn’t stop him from changing the world. People with disabilities don’t wish for death to be free of their challenges. We wish to be valued for what we CAN do, not pitied for we can’t.”

Amara Campbell, meanwhile, called Gadot a bigot. “I am chronically ill. Can’t shower or even get myself out of bed. Lost 18 years thus far. But I ran a charity funding research for my illness and advocate for Change. All from my bed. Is my life not important? Disablement is not shameful, bigotry is,” Campbell wrote.

“It’s harmful to suggest that his disability constrained him,” another tweeter called Nicole added. “He did more in his lifetime than most of us. It’s harmful to suggest that he has to be dead to be ‘free.’ He was free his whole life.”

But other Twitter users wanted those offended to lighten up, calling them “way too politically correct”. “It’s a beautiful tweet, Gal,” Dorian Louis wrote. “If we choose to argue about everything people say, no one will say anything at all for fear of exactly this.”

Mark Whittington agreed: “Your sentiment was heartfelt and sincere.. I have a minor disability (blind in one eye) and believe me I would be happy to be free from that physical constraint, while living needless to say”.

Hawking himself often said that ALS may’ve been helpful in his work. 

“My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics,” Hawking wrote in a 1984 article for Science Digest, according to USA Today. “Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in.”