Depicting Disability on Reality Love TV

Author's Note

          The importance of accurate disability representation in film and television has been bitingly pertinent to me, specifically. I grew up seeing Jack Nicholson hop over sidewalk cracks and lock his door four different times as an obsessive-compulsive writer in “As Good As it Gets”; I watched characters on “Glee”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, and “Big Bang Theory” washing their hands or aligning scattered objects and, as a result, developed a faulty archetype about OCD. I developed a misconception about the disorder, prodded by the stigmatized representations I had seen on-screen. Since my understanding of OCD extended to what I had seen, tidy room-keepers and frequent hand-washers became the model of a sufferer. Though I did (and still do) keep a pocket-sized sanitizing gel on me at all times, my room was (and is) quite messy, so I discounted myself from possibly suffering from such a disorder. As a result, I spent the first 15 years of my life in occasionally debilitating mental anguish. I considered obsessive-compulsive disorder as a possible diagnosis, but discarded it after reflecting upon the representations of OCD that I had seen.
            Though I’m in no position to blame television entirely for my late in life diagnosis, the stereotyping of OCD in society—as reflected in media—led me to develop a false understanding of an often misunderstood disorder. My earliest childhood memory is of dropping my mother’s hand to run and touch a curb, with absolutely no idea why I did that, sans the knowledge that I had to. Had I seen one on-screen, obsessive-compulsive character display any OCD symptoms beyond those so unendingly recycled for comedic effect, I would’ve sought help far earlier. This misrepresentation of disability on-screen had very tangible and real implications for me growing up, as I discarded the source of my internal discord due to incessant disability stereotyping. Though it seems silly in reflection, with no other identifier, I simply considered myself “crazy” for an unnecessarily sizable chunk of time. Because my disorder was played as a caricature on-screen, it came at a very real expense for me. When disability is irresponsibly represented on television, it has palpable repercussions.
 

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