Disability in the 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.”


“wheelchairs tend to predominate… since they are an iconic sign of disability.


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.
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
“Supercrips are people who conform to the individual model by overcoming disability, and becoming more ‘normal’, in a heroic way.
While at first glance this may seem like a better image than the victim, a positive stereotype is still a stereotype. 

• 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)

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.

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.