Unlikely heroes.

In one scene from The Ringer, the recent Farrelly brothers' movie (There's Something about Mary, Dumb and Dumber), a gang of Special Olympics athletes clad in nothing more than towels, leads an exuberant steamroom dance. It's my seventeen-year-old son Tim's favorite scene in the film.

Why? "Because they're having so much fun, and no one my age would ever have guts to do that."

Put simply, the steamroom scene makes viewers--even trend-conscious, socially inhibited teenagers--wish they were more like Special Olympics athletes. An age-old hierarchy is reversed: the "retarded" child or "moron," who throughout history has been ostracized, and pitied, is for once, the coolest guy in the crowd.

To appreciate the full drama of this moment, it's worth remembering the day-to-day reality of the world's 170 million people with intellectual disabilities. Despite centuries of social progress for other mistreated minorities, people with intellectual disabilities still suffer the most outrageous social injustice and personal indignity. Worldwide, the vast majority of children with intellectual disabilities does not go to school, receive proper healthcare, or have simple friendships. A recent Special Olympics/Gallup survey suggests that some 63 percent of Americans want these children segregated into special schools. A few years ago, the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for Katherine Boo's expose showing that more than fifty persons with intellectual disability had died because of abuse, neglect, or outright criminal behavior on the part of those charged with their care.

It is this persistent mistreatment of people with intellectual disabilities that led Special Olympics to team up with Bobby and Peter Farrelly, despite their reputations for often crossing the line of decency and for their controversial depictions of people with disabilities. In the end, despite the misgivings of many, we moved ahead for two reasons.

First, we came to trust the Farrellys. Without that confidence, no guarantees would have sufficed. But equally important, we decided it was time to take a chance because many of us were frustrated by conditions as they are. We agreed to make The Ringer simply because we had to: we needed to try to break the mold and reach a new generation with a positive message of dignity, acceptance, and hope.

Ironically, The Ringer works because it tells a story about all of us. It's about believing that the part within each of us that is afraid of rejection, afraid of being "retarded," can be set free from inhibition. It's about believing that each of us counts, no matter our weaknesses or vulnerabilities. It's about modeling our behavior on the Special Olympics athlete who rises to the medal stand, waves his or her arms, luxuriates in the cheers of the crowd, and believes with every ounce of God-given energy that somehow, joy and love are enough.

This hope is alive in on-screen performances by Eddie Barbanell and John Taylor who happen to have Down's syndrome, but it's also a possibility for each of us in our daily lives. It does, however, require a different worldview. Our culture is obsessed with the myth that political power, stardom, and business success will bring us happiness and joy. From that vantage, a courageous teenager with Down syndrome doesn't have much to offer. But if the Special Olympics athlete becomes a role model and an aspirational figure, then everything changes.

Nowhere was this more evident than on the set of The Ringer itself. Hundreds of actors and production staff remarked that working with colleagues with intellectual disabilities was the greatest experience of their professional lives. One actor, Bill Chott, caught it best when he said: "I'm not sure I can explain it, but I've never worked anywhere where I get twenty hugs a day. And I like it."

It's not easy to imagine ourselves as workers or students or parents giving twenty hugs a day. It's also not easy to be a person with intellectual disabilities in our fast-moving, high-pressured, twenty-first-century world. Sadly, it's not all hugs.

But aren't we all looking desperately for role models who remind us that despite our differences, we're all on the same side--that somehow we can overcome the fearful tension around us and find places of meaning and acceptance for ourselves and for all our children?

For my part, the athletes of Special Olympics have been the best teachers of those universal truths about human solidarity. Now, for the first time, they're on screen teaching us all with laughter and joy, inviting us to join their world without prejudice, envy, greed, or conquest.

So the next chance you get, try cranking up the music in the steamroom with a couple of pals. It might be the best thing you can do to make the world a better place.

Timothy P. Shriver is chairman of Special Olympics.