From listening to Susan Robinson’s Ted Talk, How I fail at being disabled, I was intrigued to know if her opinion of society’s negative perception towards her and other disabled people was shared within her community. I came across a separate Ted Talk by a woman named Stella young with similar intentions as Robinson towards the false identity placed upon disability, but her argument was held in a context that sparked interesting and differing ideas. Properly titled I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much, she explained just that by stating “I’m not here to inspire you, I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability” the lie being that the term disability is associated with achievement, thus one living with it is automatically considered “exceptional” (Young).
Robinson contradicts this statement by arguing that the term disabled “detonates a mindset of less than, that utterly disregards capacity, ability, potential – instead prioritizing brokenness and lack”. This excerpt from Robinson’s discussion settles on the idea that society, intentionally or not, will negatively perceive a person with altered abilities, while Young’s argument says that society uses disabled people as faces of inspiration for their own benefit.
This argument of Young’s prompted me to find other examples of “the social model of disability” which she explains as being the stigmas that feed into society, disabling people more than the physical limitations of their diagnosis. I thought of the film industry as being guilty of creating this stigma as many successful films regarding disability either associate it with unfortunate circumstance as mentioned by Robinson, or they depict a rhetoric of “triumph over adversity” (Couser 33) showing that all disability leads to a story of success and achievement – corresponding with Young’s argument.
In an article written by David Gale, several films are listed that involve narratives of people with disabilities including those titled, Born on the Forth of July (1989) and the more recent Avatar (2009). Gale’s analysis of these films indicates that they positively depict disability as he suggests that the first film is “a good portrayal of how someone who was able bodied has come to terms with being paralyzed” and that the protagonist in the latter film “overcomes any difficulties as a wheelchair user by spending more time in his Avatar body”.
I agree that these films express disability in a fashion that is inclusive, rather than segregated, however they reject to normalize disabled characters as they’re nearly always achieving their goals or finding meaning in their lives – thus leading to personal success. Although heartwarming, this proves that the film industry contributes to the denormalization of people with disability by broadcasting to the public that every disabled person is an inspiration simply because of their physical disability. As explained by Young, “Disability doesn’t make you exceptional, but questioning what you know about it does” and she voices that in the future “I want to live in a world where disability is not the exception, but the norm”.
Works Cited:
Robinson, Susan. “How I Fail at Being Disabled.” Online video clip. TED Talks. YouTube, Filmed December 2016. Published Aug. 3, 2017.
Young, Stella. “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much.” Online video clip. TED Talks. YouTube, Filmed April 2014. Published June 9, 2014.
Couser, G. T..Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. Project MUSE,
Gale, David. “Disability and the Media: Disability in Films.” Disability Horizons, Disability Horizons, 1 May 2013, disabilityhorizons.com/2012/09/disability-and-the-media-tv-and-film/.
