Disability in the Media

After looking through several articles on the internet I have discovered a lot about when where and how disabilities and disabled actor are used in things such as TV dramas etc.

Firstly, it was after the great war that disabled actors first came onto our screens. After newsreels recorded the rehabilitation of injured servicemen, those who had disabilities began to move into the acting business. a good example of this is disabled actor Douglas Bader who was "Immortalised on the big screen" shortly after the war. It wasn't until 1992 that a disabled actor played a disabled character on British television (on BBC soap Eldorado)

Times have changed significantly overtime as in the 21st century a wide range of disabilities, such as motor neuron disease and Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to name a few, have been successfully portrayed in several different aspects of the Media. However, a lot of these parts are still played by able-bodied actors leaving little room for disabled actors to really make a name for themselves. (http://www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collections/introduction-bfi-collections/bfi-mediatheques/unlimited-disability-screen)

Many people also believe that women and older people have also been seriously under-represented in the media, a study has shown that the British, small-screen diversity has been far younger and androcentric than the actual population itself. It also showed gaps in the representation of the disabled, ethnic minorities and people of different sexualities. only half of the actual age make up in the country was represented with only 15% of women on major stations being aged 56 and over which, the real percentage being 30%. (http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/16/women-old-disabled-under-represented-television)

I read an article by Nicky Clarke who was praising the work of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant when they were producing 'The Office' she mentioned how they had managed to bring in so much realism that " it took me a minute to realise that it wasn't a documentary." this was not just because of the realistic setting or the Mise-en-scene, but because of the casting as well. She spoke of how they had casted disabled actress Julie Fernandez rather than have an able-bodied person play the role and praised them for being some of the few people that would do such a thing. She even mentioned her own experiences at drama school where they had to mimic disabled people from time to time for a role but believed it "was as incongruous as being asked to black up." She believes that while the representation of disabled people in the media is improving, it is happening too slowly. (http://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2011/sep/22/ricky-gervais-stephen-merchant-disability)

The media do often come under scrutiny however when they represent the disabled because of the ethical issues surrounding it. For example, the language often associated with disabilities can come across as offensive or generally negative. For example words such as, "fool, barmy and struggling" which can make the disabled seem less like 'normal' people. However there are those who manage to perfectly address the issues of disabilities without offending anyone. For example, Stephen Fry created a documentary about manic depression and it's effects on a person and managed to perfectly address the issues without offend people and managed to get enough media attention that the information was spread around a large volume of people who may not have been aware of the issues of depression.

I felt this was relevant in case we decided to portray one of the characters in our thriller as being disabled and learn what an appropriate way of doing this was.