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.
Continue reading “Disability and the Media: Representation Matters”