Popcorn Disability: Does Anyone Even Like 'Scent of a Woman' (1992)?

Al Pacino owes Denzel Washington (and audiences everywhere) an apology

When I started writing Popcorn Disability, the book, people tended to give a lot of suggestions. Was I doing the “big Oscar movie” before rattling off a litany of titles. When most people think of disability in the movies they equate it with awards and, for a while, there was fuel behind that statement. It’s not so much the case now (and, really, it’s a bit of a false stat considering how few movies about disability actually get made, let alone nominated) but the early ‘90s was certainly the stereotype’s time to shine, and there is no movie more indicative of that fallacy than Al Pacino’s Oscar win for 1992’s Scent of a Woman.

Until this week, I’d never watched the Martin Brest-directed film that nabbed Pacino his first (and, to this date, only) Best Actor Oscar after four previous nominations; said previous nominations were for Serpico, Godfather 2, Dog Day Afternoon and And Justice for All. That’s important to remember later. Also, Pacino was nominated in Best Supporting Actor the same year as his Scent of a Woman nom, albeit for Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross. Also worth remembering for later. All I knew about it was he played a blind guy and that everyone in 1992 started saying “who-ah” because of him.

None of that prepared me for, though, for the 156 minutes which would unfold. The film follows mild-mannered prep school teen Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell) and the Thanksgiving weekend he spends attending to a blind veteran Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Pacino). Slade is a loudmouth, cringe-inducing ball of fire whose goal over the weekend is to cross off various things on his to-do list before killing himself. You know, as most of us disabled people tend to do (per the movies). Charlie and Frank drive around New York experiencing life, with Charlie committed to making Frank change his mind and Frank imparting words of wisdom that only a blind, vaguely racist/misogynist can.

I asked on social media for someone to explain the appreciation for this movie in 1992. It existed, no doubt. What’s interesting is how many people, now, mentioned that it’s awful and that seems more indicative of the post-Oscar backlash that tends to accompany movies that were so massive as to pepper the landscape the year they were nominated. (The 30th anniversary of Forrest Gump drew similar critiques online.) Going in search for reviews from that time actually yielded very little — there’s a whole separate piece about the history of film criticism.

I did find 1 review from the film’s original release and it was courtesy of Roger Ebert himself, who gave the movie 3.5 stars. Ebert’s biggest criticism, at the time, seemed to be how formulaic it felt, with the script drawing from other prep school stories like Dead Poet’s Society and Taps. I, myself, saw a lot of Rain Man in this, as well, considering the story focused on two disparate people forced into a road trip together, one of them a unique “genius” of sorts. But Ebert didn’t see Frank Slade as particularly cringe-inducing, with this line screaming 1992 loud and clear: “The colonel's ideas are not Politically Correct. On the other hand, he is not a sexist animal, either.” Ebert, you might have been wrong there. One of the biggest issues I had with this is the absolving of Frank’s conduct because of his presumed uniqueness and disability. I could easily see the movie being pitched in 1992 as “you know everyone’s favorite racist uncle? What if he was blind?!”

But because of that whole routine Ebert calls the performance “risky” for Pacino. “Risky, because at first the character is so abrasive we can hardly stand him.” What’s funny is that he doesn’t say it was risky him playing a blind man, or even that it was risky he was playing a blind man who was unlikable. By 1992 the idea of playing disabled was a commonplace technique. By this time Daniel Day-Lewis had already won an Oscar for playing Christy Brown in My Left Foot (the same year Tom Cruise was nominated for playing wheelchair user Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July). There had even been previous blind disabled performances like Patty Duke’s win for The Miracle Worker.

The only real complaint I’ve read about the movie, at the time, was the acknowledgement that its runtime was too long. Sure, that’s part of the problem. But more than anything it’s just hard to justify why Pacino won the Oscar for this. Outside of one speech and the tango scene the role is just bland as hell. It’s not even worth getting riled up for from a disabled film perspective. Frank has stereotypical blind elements — he claims to have a “spidey sense” of being able to tell a woman’s perfume, or even her mere presence, with his sense of smell. He’s also got the kookiness often given to disabled characters. Where Dustin Hoffman’s Ray counts cards in Rain Man, here it’s Frank’s acerbity and unpredictability.

I’ve heard it said that his win was more of a career Oscar (and it’s still bananas to think he didn’t get an award before this) and it’s really the only explanation. The role yields no challenges for Pacino — short of finding new ways to drop those “who-ahs.” It’s also just not a very good movie. If there’s a movie that does cement the “play disabled, win an Oscar” mentality, it’s definitely Pacino.

It’s worth going back, briefly, to Day-Lewis’ win for My Left Foot. Like Frank Slade, Day-Lewis’ Christy Brown is unlikable, loud, and acerbic. But where Day-Lewis blows me away is not only his commitment to the character, but also how every element, from the script to the cinematography to the supporting characters, situates telling a story about disability first and a story second. In this case, Christy’s disability cannot be removed from his personality and vice versa. But where creatives, too often, attempt to say “oh, they transcended their disability,” My Left Foot was all “there’s nothing to transcend, merely to deal with and adapt.” Scent of a Woman takes a weird route, saying Frank both transcends his blindness but also don’t blame him for anything because he’s blind. It’s a weird cake and eat it too moment.

Considering this was post-ADA, there was a moment of gladhanding with disability in general. The idea that America had solved the disability issue. The landscape of disabled movies around the passage of the ADA certainly reflects that. It also reflects the perceived equality of the time: disabled people are the same as us. It’s a key element of Scent of a Woman: that Charlie and Frank are both men on paths of self-discovery. But since Frank was disabled late in life, and since Charle is the main character, the movie isn’t ever introspective about being blind in America. Look at something like Coming Home, in 1976, which is, in nearly every scene, about how being disabled shapes a person’s personality. By 1992 the movies were reflecting the mentality: “eh, disability is just a state of mind.”

Also, Scent of a Woman is pure caretaker cinema, wherein the focus is on a caretaker and how they grow through knowing a disabled person. Scent of a Woman is Charlie’s story, first and foremost. He’s the first person we meet and the last person who gets their story closed out. He is meant to mature as a person for having met Frank. Frank’s there as set dressing, a flamboyant character meant to educate in the school of life. He’s a prop, more than anything, and Hollywood loves to reward a gimmick.

In a year where Pacino was next to Denzel Washington for Malcolm X, Pacino should apologize to Denzel every day! Then again, the Academy owes Pacino an apology for not rewarding him four times previously.