Introduction
"Why hasn't our movement politicized our sexual oppression as we do transportation and attendant services?" -Barbara Faye Waxman
Love and dating reality television hardly provides an accurate or diverse slice of its represented population. The average American reality show features a cast far whiter, more upper-class, more able-bodied, and more attractive than a truly random populous sample would produce. Subsequently, reality television has long been considered a departure from reality. Modern social movements have attempted to provide greater representation for minority groups on love reality television—consider a racial discrimination in casting lawsuit brought against The Bachelor franchise in 2012. In 2005, a study was conducted to examine the representation of lesbians on reality television, with the resulting conclusion that lesbians are “nowhere to be found in the universe of reality TV.” However in conversations about social equality, specifically those on the fight for representation on mainstream television, disability is often excluded from the narrative. While gender, race, and class are usually included in the dialogue on media visibility, disability is forced to bow to its more prominent companions.
Currently, disabled people are being improperly represented on reality love/dating television. Though 1 in 5 Americans and 11.6 million Great Brits suffer from a disability, finding single instances of disability on reality dating television proved to be incredibly difficult. First, disabled people are not being represented enough. Greater representation of disabled people to a statistically meaningful level on reality television builds confidence in those with disabilities and allows able-bodied watchers to visualize and understand the disabled experience. Second, disabled people are not being represented in the right way. Shows should include both narrative and non-narrative instances of disability in order to allow able-bodied viewers to both identify with a character and learn about life with disability. Finally, disabled people are not being granted control of their own narratives. When able-bodied producers pioneer the trajectory of a disabled-narrative, important nuances gained from living with disability firsthand will be lost. These three avenues of misrepresentation perpetuate myths about disabled people as nonsexual by perpetuating ableist love narratives.