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Depicting Disability on Reality Love TV

On Invisible Disabilities

Those who suffer from invisible disabilities often face significant challenges stemming from the inconspicuousness of their conditions. Subsequently, their disabilities are commonly challenged, questioned, and demeaned by those incapable of fathoming what isn’t physical present.[1]

[1] https://invisibledisabilities.org/what-is-an-invisible-disability/

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What is a disability? A disability is broadly defined as some form of impairment that limits functioning in a certain or general arena of life. Disabilities can be organized according to a plethora of categories: severe as opposed to non-severe, visible or invisible, genetic or developed by trauma. The most common method of categorizing disability consists of four quadrants: physical disability, intellectual disability, cognitive disability, and psychiatric disability. Physical disabilities impair physical activity, and include arthritis and deafness. Intellectual disabilities include “significant limitations in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills.” An example of an intellectual disability would be mental retardation. Cognitive disabilities, like ADHD or traumatic brain injuries, hinder one’s ability to process or remember information. Lastly, psychiatric disorders are “characterized by emotional, cognitive, and/or behavioral dysfunction”, and include conditions such as autism or mental illness. While the obvious field of disability to consider for this study would be physical, I find these groupings to be too narrow and exclusive for my research. Some physical disabilities, like arthritis or epilepsy, are conditions which could be easily covered (disguised or unmentioned) in the staged scenarios I’m examining. Alternatively, only examining physical disability would exclude other apparent disabilities that I’d like to include. Though Down Syndrome is sometimes accompanied by physical complications, it’s widely considered to be an intellectual disorder. The facial characteristics that come with the condition often make it easy to identify an individual with Down Syndrome. Therefore, I’d like to include Down Syndrome and all other visible disabilities in my studies.Though invisible disabilities can be just as debilitating, they often remain unapparent to outward observers. These invisible disabilities could simply be concealed or not brought up throughout the course of a reality television show. Few viewers would expect a contestant with dyslexia to announce his disability, unprompted, on live television. While those with invisible disabilities can hide their condition, visible disabilities are impossible to conceal for very long. Since this research is observational and I have yet to develop a capacity for mind-reading, visible disabilities are more appropriate subject matter for this study.

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