Images+of+Disability



[|The DEMOS Project]
 * Images of Disability**

As a society we are not especially inclusive. Until recently, the compulsory sector of education was organized around a system that segregated learners according to the nature of their impairment and sent them to special schools. The impact of segregated schooling was that at an important, formative stage in life, the majority of people did not encounter anyone with a disability. Since personal experience is lacking, information about disabilities comes via the mass media, whose portrayal of people with disabilities varies between a focus on the medical aspects of the impairment to the 'super crip' and the 'triumph over tragedy'. Hurst & McCarthy (2001)

Colin Barnes (Barnes, C. (1992) //Disabling Imagery and the Media//. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People, Ryburn Publishing, Halifax, UK.) has also written on this subject and defined the portrayals in mass media of disabled people into ten categories:

1. As pitiable and pathetic; 2. As an object of violence; 3. As sinister and evil; 4. As atmosphere or curio; 5. As super cripple; 6. As an object of ridicule; 7. As their own worst and only enemy; 8. As burden; 9. As sexually abnormal; 10. As incapable of participating fully in community life; 11. As normal.

Quiz: To which of Barnes’ categories do the following belong? 1. Captain Hook from Peter Pan 2. Dr. No of the James Bond film 3. Hugh Grant's deaf brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral 4. Fritz or Igor (Dr Frankenstein's assistant) in many Frankenstein films or adaptations 5. Mr. Magoo - cartoon character 6. John Merrick in the Elephant Man

What others can you think of in popular media?