As a severely visually impaired person myself (I have ocular albinism and nystagmus which makes me blind in my left eye and chronically partially sighted in my right) I am never less than thrilled to see (excuse the pun) anyone with a disability succeed on any level in the world of mainstream media.
The late Australian comic Stella Young can be credited with coining the phrase ‘inspiration porn’. She was referring to the Paralympics and, in particular, the line attributed to the former Olympic skater and cancer survivor Scott Hamilton, who said, ‘the only disability in life is a bad attitude.’
As Stella pointed out, Hamilton’s comments were purloined en masse by the able-bodied, and myriad ‘inspirational’ posters and mugs were sold with this rather nauseating bon mot emblazoned on them.
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Read MoreDespite the high-octane, ‘empowering’ content that broadcasters enjoy screening, the dull truth is that the overwhelming majority of disabled people aren’t Paralympians, aren’t winning TV dance contests and aren’t climbing up the north face of the Eiger for charity in order to prove there are ‘no boundaries’.
Disabled people are not all over-achievers who want to smash down the barricades. And, at the risk of sounding facetious, it really would be nice if there were a few more depictions in the media of people with disabilities behaving in a way that’s a bit more, well, ‘normal’.
This is true- but it doesn’t stop us taking an oft-prurient interest in the highly mundane lives of able bodied people on reality shows, on Instagram and (albeit fictionally) in the storylines of Eastenders or Corrie.
So it’s hardly surprising that when someone non-able bodied does find a camera pointing at them, it’s probably because they’re doing something that is highly unusual. It’s often the only way someone with a disability can get any prime time exposure at all.
So, congratulations Chris. But please can we do something about this ‘inspiration porn’ situation? And let’s try taking more of an interest in disabled people who aren’t any good at the ‘cha cha cha’ and, more pertinently, don’t have any desire to be.
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