Social Lives
Symposium
Author: Dr Emma Smith, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute Member and Post-Doctoral Researcher; recipient of the prestigious Marie Sklowdowska Curie Actions Individual Fellowship
I distinctly remember the first film I saw specifically related to disability. The film was Murderball, a documentary about the US and Canadian wheelchair rugby teams, their rivalry, and their experience in international competition. What was impactful and memorable about the film was not the focus on disability, it was the opposite. It was the fact that the film focused on team dynamics and personal experiences – things which you’d see in any documentary about any sports team. Of course, disability was relevant to those experiences, but for me, it was the first time I had seen media which was about disability, without being entirely focused on the disability itself. It gave me good perspective – people with disabilities were, first and foremost, people. They spoke openly and honestly about their experiences – they let me into their world for a moment, and contributed significantly to my decision to become an Occupational Therapist – a job which would let me help people with disabilities be people, to do the things which were meaningful to them.
Since then (it’s been a few years), I’ve always noticed those key moments when people with disabilities were represented in the media. For a long time, they were few and far between. Media often portrayed people with disabilities only in relation to their disability, or with stereotyped understanding of disability and not for the rich and full lives they were living. We often saw disability represented in relation to charity – a cause for fundraising. As the conversation shifted, we saw a rise in tokenism, where a person with a disability might be included in a conversation, but often only to fit a quota, or tick a box.
But there has been a shift in the past few years. We are starting to see more meaningful representation of people with disabilities in media (up to 3.5% of characters in prime time tv shows in the USA). While there are numerous concerns about representation of disability by non-disabled actors, films and television shows, like Star Trek and Glee, The Theory of Everything, and recently, Crip Camp are providing new perspectives for later and current generations. Disability representation in advertisements is also on the rise, while companies like Mattel and Lego are now producing mainstream toys which represent disability.
The motivation for this shift has been questioned. Perhaps it is just good business sense, after all, at least 15% of the world lives with some kind of disability. Campaigns like #WeThe15 remind us of this and remind business leaders that ignoring such a huge proportion of the population is done only at their peril.
Regardless of the motivation, the fact remains that representation matters. It matters for people with disabilities, who see themselves represented. Kids who have never seen anyone like them in the media are now seeing people like them, and it’s changing perspectives. Representation also matters for people who don’t (yet) have disabilities. It’s contributing to more open conversations about disability. It is reducing some of the stigma around disability that has dominated conversations in the past.
We all have a responsibility to ensure we consider the diversity of the world around us – and that includes disability. We have opportunities each time we select photos of people for social media, each time that we consider who to engage as key stakeholders in our work, each time we choose books or films to show to our kids or a class we teach. Representation matters, and it’s up to all of us to make it happen.