Depicting Disability on Reality Love TVMain MenuIntroductionWhy study disability on reality love TV?Chapter 1: Not EnoughDisability is underrepresented on reality love television.Chapter 2: The Wrong WayDisability is being improperly represented on reality love television.Chapter 3: InauthenticallyDisabled narratives are being co-opted by able-bodied exploiters.ConclusionAuthor's Note"As Good As it Gets" could do so much better.Reference WorksTedi Beemer510bbe08373b24594fad542f475bf8c1cabfd73d
Why study disability?
12017-06-21T09:37:15-07:00Tedi Beemer510bbe08373b24594fad542f475bf8c1cabfd73d189504plain2017-06-21T10:00:08-07:00Tedi Beemer510bbe08373b24594fad542f475bf8c1cabfd73dResearch that examines the portrayal of disabled people in mainstream media is critical to the furthering of disability rights. Because Gerbner’s cultivation theory entails that "television exposures can be the basis for acquiring opinions, attitudes and beliefs", the representations of marginalized groups that we see on television often impacts our archetypal understanding of that group. GLADD’s Primetime Television Broadcast diversity report for the 2016-2012 season concluded that only 1.7% of regularly appearing television characters were people with disabilities. Furthermore, intersectional identities for disabled people (a disabled person of color, for example, or an LGBT character with a disability) were almost entirely absent. Disability is hard to understand and normalize when it isn’t being represented for able-bodied audiences. Unfortunately, when disability is represented in mass media, it’s generally relegated to one of ten stereotypes identified by Paul Hunt: “the disabled person as pitiable and pathetic, as an object, of curiosity or violence, as sinister or evil, as the super cripple, as atmosphere, as laughable, as his/her own worst enemy, as a burden, as non-sexual, and as being unable to participate in daily life.” Hunt finally concludes that when disabled people are represented on television, it isn’t to normalize disability, but rather the opposite: “In most cases, disabled characters are introduced not because they are ordinary people but to suggest precisely the opposite.” With these misrepresentations of disability in mass media, it is no wonder why able-bodied people form misconceptions of disability ever day. These misrepresentations make the need for accurate representation crucial.