I think most poorly people could find work sitting still on screen if we looked like that.
Glee: Big Brother
Jesus. One of Quinn’s first sentences when she shows up in a wheelchair is to Artie:
Race You.
*vomits*
Wheelchair users only do that in the imaginations of non-disabled people.
I’m awaiting “whoah! There’s a speed limit!” and “Hey! Don’t run me over!” because the writers don’t have anything original to say. Unimaginative stereotyping wankstains.
Edit: If that’s the steepest ramp in Lima… I’m moving there. I can’t get more than 5 mins from my flat without encountering ramps steeper than that.
Edit 2: Oh God. “Special” ditch day. Glee really is anti-inclusion.
Edit 3: And why don’t either Quinn or Artie have their footplates correctly adjusted for their leg length? A paraplegic sitting in that position is going to get pressure sores because their weight is all resting on their butt rather than distributed along the backs of their legs too.
Grey’s Anatomy: The Lion Sleeps Tonight
I am livid with Grey’s Anatomy right now.
In trying to convince Morgan to let her (extremely premature) son die Arizona says:
He’s at risk from cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, inability to walk or feed himself, cognitive disabilities. […] I think you need to consider what kind of life you want for your son. Is it OK for him to be in pain every day? Is it OK if he needs a feeding tube for the rest of his life? Is it OK if he can’t run, climb or crawl?
There’s no hint of “this is Arizona being a prejudiced arse in saying this,” it’s taken as acceptable to claim that death is better than impairment because those are increasingly becoming our societal norms.
I do hope the network and writers get a lot of letters from preemies with CP, from people who use feeding tubes, and from people who can’t see or hear telling them that they’re glad to be alive and would rather that than having been given up on.
I think this kind of bullshit is what you get when non-disabled people are allowed to speak on our behalves. I know that Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator, is hugely enamoured with Autism Speaks.
This appeared in the Valentine’s day episode this year:
And on the 28th of March she repeatedly tweeted about how great Autism Speaks are.
Autism Speaks, the charity that won’t allow people with autism to speak through them: They have no people with autism on their board. Only 4% of their funding goes on services for people with autism, the rest goes on bollocks like “awareness”.
“Awareness” based on “pity and fear.”
So it’s not really surprising to see the show take that pity and fear and transpose it onto different impairments too.
Rage!
Thank God for soothing ice cream.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Some audio of me talking about The Undateables from a fortnight ago on Woman’s Hour. I really do seem to have become an authority on crips who can’t get laid. Not a great legacy.
