What to Know
After an unacceptable experience on a recent flight, actress Marissa Bode is asking airlines to do better. In a vulnerable and emotional video shared via TikTok, the Wicked actress used her recent flight experience to illustrate how disabled people are treated in “barbaric and dehumanizing” ways when flying. “I felt very dehumanized many times as a disabled person in my lifetime, but this was at the top of the list,” she said of her recent flight back from New York.
Because there are no accessible bathrooms on flights, disabled people are left with extremely limited (and undesirable) options. “A disabled person who cannot walk’s options are peeing before and after the flight and dehydrating themself basically the whole entire flight, which I do most of the time,” Marissa, who portrays Nessarose Thropp in the Wicked films, explained. “Or option B, which is wearing a leg bag or a catheter, which I’ve also done previously, especially for international travel because those flights are, of course, a lot longer.”
During her flight from New York, Marissa decided to go with option A.
The flight was not super long and Marissa had traveled this route many times before, so she thought she would just use the bathroom right before her flight and again once it landed. Shortly after boarding her flight, she fell asleep. She woke up with about an hour and a half of the flight left and just “had this feeling.”
“I don’t have control over my bladder, so I wear absorbent undergarments to help if I have leaked,” Marissa explained. “Which I found out on that flight that I had, but also through my pants, and there was nothing that I could do about it for an hour and a half until the flight landed because there’s … no accessible bathroom on the plane.”
Understandably, Marissa “felt so sick and so gross and subhuman and so anxious” because she was essentially “trapped” for the rest of her flight, unable to do anything about this due to the lack of accessible bathrooms.
Her partner was also on the flight with her.
They were sitting beside each other, but Marissa didn’t want to say what had happened to her aloud. Instead, she texted her partner, saying, “Hey, once we get off the plane, I’m just gonna go straight to the bathroom and I’m sorry I won’t wait for you just ’cause obviously this is an emergency.” Of course, her partner understood, and she went to the bathroom right away.
While there, however, she received a text from her partner saying the crew had broken her wheelchair. To make the whole thing even worse, her partner’s wheelchair was a replacement wheelchair she got the last time she traveled and found out her wheelchair was broken. According to Marissa, this happens “disgustingly” often.
Then the way staff reportedly treated her partner was also horrifying.
Marissa said that the people who told her partner that the wheelchair was broken wanted her to sit in it to figure out which part was broken. Of course, Marissa’s partner did not want to do this, as it could seriously hurt her. The staff members her partner was talking to reportedly argued with her and complained that she was being “difficult” and “too loud” just because “she was rightfully upset” about the situation.
Unfortunately, the way staff treated Marissa’s partner was not necessarily surprising to Marissa. She said they’re “notorious for not listening to disabled people, ever.” Because of this, Marissa’s partner also experienced difficulties when getting on the flight. “She was simply telling them how she needed help, how she needed to get on the plane, and they were not listening,” Marissa said. “They were grabbing her without consent, holding her in ways she did not need to be held because she’s ambulatory.”
She added, “Again, if you are not asking how to help a disabled person, you are not helping them. You are assuming and potentially putting them in harm’s way.”
@marissa_edob After a week of sitting on this I have decided to press post. I know im not the only disabled person to be treated this way when flying and with any sort of a platform, I think it’s important to amplify these issues. I’m so sick of being treated as “too difficult” or unreasonable when asking to be treated as a human being. Claiming ignorance is no longer going to cut it. Educate yourself. Listen to disabled voices. The resources are out there.
♬ original sound – Marissa
This is extra disappointing because Marissa loves traveling.
Every time they fly, Marissa and her partner have to deal with these kinds of issues. “This is how disabled people are treated, and something has to give,” she argued. “You need to have proper training for your staff in how to treat disabled people like human beings.”
Marissa added that she really enjoys traveling and experiencing different cities. “A lot of disabled people love to travel. We should not have to be terrified every time,” she said. Later, she added, “We are human beings that deserve the same equity as everybody else on the flight.”
