Common Portrayals of Persons with Disabilities
“They’re all the same”
Part of stereotyping is the attitude that all members of a particular group are the same, or else fall into a very small number of types. This is particularly true in the few cases where persons with a disability appear in media. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found that disabled “individuals are viewed as the objects of pity and depicted as having the same attributes and characteristics no matter what the disability may be.” Similarly, the Web site Media and Disability, an organization advocating for broader representation of people with disabilities, points out that “disabled people, when they feature at all, continue to be all too often portrayed as either remarkable and heroic, or dependent victims.”
Not only are people with disabilities stereotyped, the full range of disabilities is not reflected in media portrayals. Lynne Roper of Stirling Media Research Institute, in her article “Disability in Media,” notes that “wheelchairs tend to predominate… since they are an iconic sign of disability. Most actors playing disabled characters are, however, not disabled. The wheelchair allows the character to be obviously disabled, whilst still looking ‘normal’, and does not therefore present any major challenges for audience identification.”
Victim
Perhaps the most common stereotype of persons with disabilities is the victim, a character who is presented as a helpless object of pity or sympathy. Jenny Morris, in her article “A Feminist Perspective” in the collection Framed: Interrogating Disability in the Media describes images of disability in the media as “...a metaphor...for the message that the non-disabled writer wishes to get across, in the same way that ‘beauty’ is used. In doing this, the writer draws on the prejudice, ignorance and fear that generally exist towards disabled people, knowing that to portray a character with a humped back, with a missing leg, with facial scars, will evoke certain feelings in the reader or audience.” Tiny Tim in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or John Merrick in The Elephant Man are examples of disabled characters whose disability is used by the author to earn sympathy from the audience.
The victim stereotype may also be used for comedy, using characters’ disabilities – such as Mister Magoo’s blindness or Forrest Gump’s intellectual disability – to place them in humorous situations.
Hero
The flip side of the victim stereotype is the hero, the character who proves her worth by overcoming her disability. Roper calls this type theSupercrip: “Supercrips are people who conform to the individual model by overcoming disability, and becoming more ‘normal’, in a heroic way… An example of a ‘Supercrip’ is the Irish writer Christy Brown, who described his book My Left Footas his ‘plucky little cripple story’.” The extreme end of this spectrum includes superheroes with disabilities such as Oracle (a wheelchair-bound heroine who uses her computer skills to fight crime), Silhouette (who fights villains using martial arts despite being partially paralyzed) and most famously Daredevil (whose blindness has enhanced his other senses to superhuman levels).
While at first glance this may seem like a better image than the victim, a positive stereotype is still a stereotype. Roper points out some of the problems that arise from this view of disability:
The third common stereotype is the villain. Throughout history physical disabilities have been used to suggest evil or depravity, such as the image of pirates as having missing hands, eyes and legs. More recently, characters have been portrayed as being driven to crime or revenge by resentment of their disability. In both the TV series and film Wild Wild West, for instance, the villainous Doctor Loveless has a disability (in the TV show he is a dwarf; in the movie he has lost everything below the waist). As Roper puts it, “popular cultural images of disability commonly perpetuate negative stereotypes, and often pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of non-disabled audiences.”
Mental illness is often presented as a motivation for villains: Media and Disability points out that “some disabilities receive particularly poor representation. Mental illness has all too frequently (and disproportionately) been linked in programmes with violent crime, even though there is no evidence to support this mis-portrayal.” Not only is mental illness not linked to violence but, as Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson point out in Grand Theft Childhood: the Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games, “Most people who suffer from a mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence.” (Italics in original.)
Part of stereotyping is the attitude that all members of a particular group are the same, or else fall into a very small number of types. This is particularly true in the few cases where persons with a disability appear in media. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found that disabled “individuals are viewed as the objects of pity and depicted as having the same attributes and characteristics no matter what the disability may be.” Similarly, the Web site Media and Disability, an organization advocating for broader representation of people with disabilities, points out that “disabled people, when they feature at all, continue to be all too often portrayed as either remarkable and heroic, or dependent victims.”
Not only are people with disabilities stereotyped, the full range of disabilities is not reflected in media portrayals. Lynne Roper of Stirling Media Research Institute, in her article “Disability in Media,” notes that “wheelchairs tend to predominate… since they are an iconic sign of disability. Most actors playing disabled characters are, however, not disabled. The wheelchair allows the character to be obviously disabled, whilst still looking ‘normal’, and does not therefore present any major challenges for audience identification.”Victim
Perhaps the most common stereotype of persons with disabilities is the victim, a character who is presented as a helpless object of pity or sympathy. Jenny Morris, in her article “A Feminist Perspective” in the collection Framed: Interrogating Disability in the Media describes images of disability in the media as “...a metaphor...for the message that the non-disabled writer wishes to get across, in the same way that ‘beauty’ is used. In doing this, the writer draws on the prejudice, ignorance and fear that generally exist towards disabled people, knowing that to portray a character with a humped back, with a missing leg, with facial scars, will evoke certain feelings in the reader or audience.” Tiny Tim in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or John Merrick in The Elephant Man are examples of disabled characters whose disability is used by the author to earn sympathy from the audience.
The victim stereotype may also be used for comedy, using characters’ disabilities – such as Mister Magoo’s blindness or Forrest Gump’s intellectual disability – to place them in humorous situations.Hero
The flip side of the victim stereotype is the hero, the character who proves her worth by overcoming her disability. Roper calls this type theSupercrip: “Supercrips are people who conform to the individual model by overcoming disability, and becoming more ‘normal’, in a heroic way… An example of a ‘Supercrip’ is the Irish writer Christy Brown, who described his book My Left Footas his ‘plucky little cripple story’.” The extreme end of this spectrum includes superheroes with disabilities such as Oracle (a wheelchair-bound heroine who uses her computer skills to fight crime), Silhouette (who fights villains using martial arts despite being partially paralyzed) and most famously Daredevil (whose blindness has enhanced his other senses to superhuman levels).While at first glance this may seem like a better image than the victim, a positive stereotype is still a stereotype. Roper points out some of the problems that arise from this view of disability:
- It focuses on the individual who “succeeded” in overcoming her disability, rather than the many others who must live with theirs.
- It presents disability as a challenge which the character must overcome in order to be “normal”
- It makes audiences feel better about the condition of persons with a disability without having to accommodate them, reinforcing the notion that disability can be overcome if only the person would “try hard enough”
- “Hero” roles are nearly always played by non-disabled actors, presenting a false picture of disability (compare Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Footto the real Christy Brown)
The third common stereotype is the villain. Throughout history physical disabilities have been used to suggest evil or depravity, such as the image of pirates as having missing hands, eyes and legs. More recently, characters have been portrayed as being driven to crime or revenge by resentment of their disability. In both the TV series and film Wild Wild West, for instance, the villainous Doctor Loveless has a disability (in the TV show he is a dwarf; in the movie he has lost everything below the waist). As Roper puts it, “popular cultural images of disability commonly perpetuate negative stereotypes, and often pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of non-disabled audiences.”Mental illness is often presented as a motivation for villains: Media and Disability points out that “some disabilities receive particularly poor representation. Mental illness has all too frequently (and disproportionately) been linked in programmes with violent crime, even though there is no evidence to support this mis-portrayal.” Not only is mental illness not linked to violence but, as Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson point out in Grand Theft Childhood: the Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games, “Most people who suffer from a mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence.” (Italics in original.)Concerns about Media Representation of Disability
Media Coverage of Disability Issues
Persons with disabilities receive treatment in the news. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found an “overall lack of coverage of disability issues by television news outlets,” and what coverage there is typically tends to fall into the “victim” or “supercrip” categories: either stories that ask for the viewer’s sympathy or “uplifting” stories of people who have “overcome” their disabilities. It’s significant that the most TV coverage given to persons with disabilities is the Paralympic Games, which – despite the International Paralympic Committee’s efforts to “emphasize… the participants' athletic achievements rather than their disability” – are almost invariably presented in news coverage as triumph-over-adversity stories.
Lack of participation
Joanne Smith, host of CBC’s Moving On, said after researching a story on persons with disabilities in the media that “I was actually shocked when I spoke to some casting agents and some executive producers specifically about hiring people with disabilities, whether it be for broadcasting or for acting, and I had some people point-blank tell me they didn’t want to hire people with disabilities.”
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found that “there is a lack of participation, particularly with respect to employment, among persons with disabilities in television programming. This was found to be due in large part to a lack of communication and information accessible to persons with disabilities about employment opportunities in the broadcasting industry as a whole.” As noted above, characters with disabilities are most often portrayed by non-disabled actors; even Degrassi Junior High and its sequels, which featured several non-stereotyped characters with both physical and mental disabilities, cast a non-disabled actor to play Maya, a character with paraplegia.
Persons with disabilities receive treatment in the news. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found an “overall lack of coverage of disability issues by television news outlets,” and what coverage there is typically tends to fall into the “victim” or “supercrip” categories: either stories that ask for the viewer’s sympathy or “uplifting” stories of people who have “overcome” their disabilities. It’s significant that the most TV coverage given to persons with disabilities is the Paralympic Games, which – despite the International Paralympic Committee’s efforts to “emphasize… the participants' athletic achievements rather than their disability” – are almost invariably presented in news coverage as triumph-over-adversity stories.Lack of participation
Joanne Smith, host of CBC’s Moving On, said after researching a story on persons with disabilities in the media that “I was actually shocked when I spoke to some casting agents and some executive producers specifically about hiring people with disabilities, whether it be for broadcasting or for acting, and I had some people point-blank tell me they didn’t want to hire people with disabilities.”
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters report found that “there is a lack of participation, particularly with respect to employment, among persons with disabilities in television programming. This was found to be due in large part to a lack of communication and information accessible to persons with disabilities about employment opportunities in the broadcasting industry as a whole.” As noted above, characters with disabilities are most often portrayed by non-disabled actors; even Degrassi Junior High and its sequels, which featured several non-stereotyped characters with both physical and mental disabilities, cast a non-disabled actor to play Maya, a character with paraplegia. Solutions
Media producers have recognized that they must make efforts to better represent persons with disabilities. For instance, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation provides a guide for producers to use in portraying persons with disabilities on-screen. It consists of three questions:
Media and Disability has these suggestions:
There is evidence that portrayals of persons with disabilities is improving. For instance, the character of Doctor Gregory House on House, M.D. could have been created with Media and Disability’s second suggestion in mind (though he – like most characters with disabilities, even other non-stereotyped ones such as Stevie on Malcolm in the Middle – is portrayed by a non-disabled actor).
To address the lack of participation of persons with disabilities in the media industry, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters report made this recommendation: “Broadcasters will develop scholarships, bursaries and/or internships, where appropriate, as means to focus students with disabilities on potential careers in broadcasting. Broadcasters will also offer, where appropriate, training for new employees with disabilities in the industry and/or develop other means for industry orientation such as mentoring and job shadowing.” One organization in Canada that is working towards increasing the presence of persons with disabilities is Lights, Camera, Access! Its founder, Leesa Levinson, describes herself as “an ambassador for talent with disabilities” (Levinson herself has multiple sclerosis).
- Does the portrayal patronise the disabled person?
- Does the portrayal victimise the disabled person?
- Does the portrayal demonise the disabled person?
Media and Disability has these suggestions:
- Consider disabled characters in scenarios that might be commonplace for a non-disabled person.
- Consider disabled characters as rounded individuals, with good and bad qualities. Showing a disabled person as being mean, or nasty might be a challenge, but how many non-disabled people are “nice” all the time?
There is evidence that portrayals of persons with disabilities is improving. For instance, the character of Doctor Gregory House on House, M.D. could have been created with Media and Disability’s second suggestion in mind (though he – like most characters with disabilities, even other non-stereotyped ones such as Stevie on Malcolm in the Middle – is portrayed by a non-disabled actor).To address the lack of participation of persons with disabilities in the media industry, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters report made this recommendation: “Broadcasters will develop scholarships, bursaries and/or internships, where appropriate, as means to focus students with disabilities on potential careers in broadcasting. Broadcasters will also offer, where appropriate, training for new employees with disabilities in the industry and/or develop other means for industry orientation such as mentoring and job shadowing.” One organization in Canada that is working towards increasing the presence of persons with disabilities is Lights, Camera, Access! Its founder, Leesa Levinson, describes herself as “an ambassador for talent with disabilities” (Levinson herself has multiple sclerosis).
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