Good American Family is an upcoming Hulu miniseries about the true story of Natalia Grace, a little girl from Ukraine who has spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, a rare form of dwarfism, and who was adopted by an American family headed by Kristine and Michael Barnett, at the age of seven.
Around 2012, the Barnetts began to accuse Natalia of lying about her age, claiming that she was actually twenty-two years old, and eventually won a petition that would legally change her age. The next year, the Barnetts abandoned Natalia in an apartment alone while they moved to Canada.
Fast forward to the moment this became a worldwide story where the Barnetts were charged with neglect. Tests were conducted to prove Natalia’s age, and multiple talk show episodes and documentaries have been made since.
And now here we are with Good American Family, which is set to debut on March 19th.
The show stars Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo and, yes, we’re all just as surprised as you are to see Ellen in something that isn’t Grey’s. Natalia is played by Imogen Faith Reid, who thankfully is an actor with dwarfism herself, so we can cross disability-based casting off the list.
I took a little gander at the trailer and I am… concerned. The trailer states that the show is inspired by various stories, perspectives, threats, accusations… but in actuality, it looks far from that.
In real life, there were reports of abuse and neglect from the Barnetts. They have rejected the accusations and claim that Natalia showed signs of being a sociopath and that she actually was the one to physically hurt their family.
In the trailer, all you see is what looks to be from the Barnetts perspective. Natalia looks evil. She has temper tantrums where she’s destroying furniture in rooms and attacks her then-brother during a car ride. There is a brief moment where Child Protective Services comes to their home and talks about suspicion of abuse, but the framing goes right to Natalia and makes her out to be she’s the abuser.
There is no real indication that there will be framing of another side of the story. So is this show really going to be inspired by multiple stories and perspectives? Michael Barnett sold the rights to the show. Is that influencing the show?
Ellen recently expressed in an article that she knew nothing about the case or story. She didn’t watch the documentary. She didn’t talk to anyone involved: not Natalia, the Barnetts, nobody. Her research consisted of how to be a good mother to a disabled child (though of course she used the pejorative “special needs”). If an actor is going to take on such a controversial role, it is their job to do as much research as possible. This isn’t the script for the movie Orphan, which Kristine was inspired by.
Another thing to think about is the actor playing Natalia. Imogen Reid is around 27-years-old. She was born in May 1997. She was probably only a year or two younger when the show was filming. Natalia was 10-years-old at the time the events in the story happenedt. Does casting an adult to play a child play into the parents’ bias that Natalia was, according to the Barnetts, an adult? What message is the show trying to send here?
Imogen being an adult means that she looks like an adult. When you compare her looks in the show to images of the real Natalia, you can see that Natalia obviously looks like a child but Imogen looks her adult age, nothing close to 7-10 years old.
And if you need to be convinced that Natalia was a child, her birth mother, Anna Volodymyrivna Gava, was found. It was learned that she was born in 1979. For Natalia to have been 22 like the Barnetts claimed, her birth mother would’ve had to have been 10-years-old when giving birth. A genetic DNA test was also done to confirm Natalia’s age, which indicated she would have been about nine years old when the Barnetts petitioned a judge to change her age to 22.
Natalia was clearly a child. Why are we hiring an adult to play her?
At this time, it doesn’t look like Good American Family is going to do anyone, especially Natalia, any good. It’s not going to lead to any justice. The trailer 100% depicts Natalia as the villain.
What is the plan? Are they going to try to pull a “gotcha!” moment later on down the road in the series and turn the tables on Kristine instead? If so, then why couldn’t we already do that in the trailer?
Hollywood has a terrible pattern of making disabled people and characters into villains. How many villains do you see have some sort of disfigurement or impairment? Maybe it’s a missing limb, a scar or burn on their face. The villain then uses their disability as their backstory to becoming the way they are.
Now it’s one thing to do that for fictional characters, but to do that to a real person is another story. Will the world turn on Natalia once the series airs? We’ve seen how people changed their opinion on G*sy Rose when the Hulu series, The Act, came out. Who’s to say that won’t happen to Natalia?
Only time will tell, and we’ll have a follow-up piece for you once all the episodes have aired.