“Why are disabled people on TV always portrayed as being nice all the time?”

Options
Sam_Alumni
Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,602 Championing
in Everyday life
Disabled actors should be cast as villainous characters on screen as well as in positive roles, leading performers with disabilities have said. Adam Hills, presenter of the Channel 4 satirical show The Last Leg, called for a broader representation of disabled characters on television.

I thought this was an interesting article about how disabled people are represented in the media.  What do you think?

Comments

  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,602 Championing
    Linley on twitter said:




  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,602 Championing



  • Markmywords
    Markmywords Online Community Member Posts: 416 Empowering
    Non-disabled liberal media types want us to appear pitiable and sympathetic. They think the truth is too negative to show.

    I am not "brave" or "inspiring" or "humbling." >:)
    If I could run away from it screaming like a coward I damn well would ! I simply have no option.

    The Paralympics do not help. They are exceedingly healthy athletes with minor disabilities.
    How about some new events? The "Can't get out of bed marathon," or the "Floating face down with useless limbs," or the "Sitting in a box afraid to go out race?"
  • Nystagmite
    Nystagmite Online Community Member Posts: 595 Empowering

    Markmywords said:

    The Paralympics do not help. They are exceedingly healthy athletes with minor disabilities.


    But how do you know that? Some of them have things like paralysis or blindness, which aren't exactly minor health problems.
  • Markmywords
    Markmywords Online Community Member Posts: 416 Empowering
    You must mean partial paralysis. Well I'd swap with them in a heartbeat if I could have the pain, neuropathy, scleroderma, skeletal necrosis, transplant rejection and constant exhaustion reversed.

    They're up against the best in the world in their disability class. Enough said?

    If you think they are suffering some of the worst things that can happen to people then I am glad for you that you don't know the true horror of which fate is capable.
  • Nystagmite
    Nystagmite Online Community Member Posts: 595 Empowering
    I'm genuinely curious how you know about their whole medical situation? If you've researched the different classes, you'll know that some will have paralysis below the chest, etc. 
  • Alex
    Alex Scope Posts: 1,281 Pioneering
    I find this article a little confusing. Historically hasn't there been the opposite stereotype? Think Bond villains, pirates, Darth Vader... Channel 4 even did an ad about it:


    Obviously that extreme isn't helpful either!

    As for less cartoonish representation - there are characters like Donna in Eastenders and Clarissa in Silent Witness who aren't "nice all the time"!

Categories