Perceptions of Disability Take Center Stage in ‘Left and Right’

As I watched, I realized we, as an audience, still have everything to learn about physical impairment.

Shervin Lainez
Molly Joyce. Shervin Lainez

Myths have long persisted about the left and right sides of the body, and their associations with good and evil. The Latin word “sinister” translates to “on the left hand side,” and Christian traditions have pinned the left side to immorality since Eve appeared at Adam’s left side in Genesis. As time progressed, thought leaders associated left-handedness with witchcraft, demonic possession, and then anomaly; a physical marker of deviousness that could be coached away with behavioral therapy. 

The right-hand side, by comparison, was considered good, healing, even beneficent. 

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