Theories and ideas for the G322 representation question on disability

1. Representing
disability
We will explore the theories and issues around this
aspect of representation and discuss some example
texts.

3. ‘Disability in TV Dramas’
In 1991, Paul Hunt (disability activist) identified 10
stereotypes that the media use to portray disabled
people:
The disabled person as:
•Pitiable or pathetic
•An object of curiosity or violence
•Sinister or evil
•The super cripple
•As atmosphere
•Laughable
•His/her own worst enemy
•As a burden
•As Non-sexual
•Being unable to participate in daily life

4. Disabled people used as:
•A short-cut in TV Drama (quick audience response)
•Objects of pity/curiosity
•Binary opposition used between ability and disability
•Patronising / False admiration
•Disability used for comedic purposes
Paul Hunt's theory continued:

5. Ash Attalla

7. How disabled people portray
themselves

8. Donna Yates - Eastenders
Donna Yates is a wheelchair-bound character with
dwarfism, a feisty individual who runs a stall on
the market and was introduced to create a binary
opposition (Levi-Strauss) with Kat Moon and
Bianca Butcher.
Producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins describes her
as “flinty, aggressive and difficult.”
Crucially, though, she was not originally
conceived as a disabled character – it was just
that real-life disabled actress Lisa Hammond
impressed the most in the auditions.
To begin with, she was a very unpleasant
character, but has since been involved in more
sympathetic storylines.

9. Within TV Drama
Write down as many other TV drama characters
as you can think of who have a disability

10. Media portrayals

11. Kevin McHale - Glee (2009-2015)

12. Peter Dinklage - Game of Thrones (2011-2015)

13. A limited number of examples. Why is this?
Survey: Less than one disabled actor/character
out of 100 within TV Drama

14. Statistics
•
Number of UK Children under the age of 16
who are disabled?
•
Percentage of UK working-age adults who have
a disability?
770,000 (one in twenty children)
7 Million (18.6% of the population)

15. Discuss
What is it that we find frightening about disability?
Do we know how to react when confronted with
disability?

16. Dogme 95
•
Dogme 95 was a film and video movement that was to rail against aesthetic
considerations and to make films in a uniform fashion; to move beyond tired
formalism and find freedom within a rigid set of self-imposed rules.
•
Two works produced during the initial years of the movement—Lars von Trier's
Idioterne (1998) and Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)—remain
significant for cannily linking the movement's anti-aesthetic aims with a concern
for and/or fascination with representations of mental and physical disability.
•
Both films use that kinship between form and content, representing disabled
identity within the films' narrative and aesthetic approaches to disability
•
These films utilize a ‘disabled aesthetic’. They are formally dis-abled when
judged in the context of professional standards of production and are valuable
for the ways in which they disrupt conventional cultural and filmic depictions of
disability.

17. Dogme Rules
•
Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is
necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
•
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used
unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.)
•
The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
•
The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure
the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.)
•
Optical work and filters are forbidden.
•
The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
•
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here
and now.)
•
Genre movies are not acceptable.
•
The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
•
The director must not be credited.

18. Context
Idioterne (1999) deals with a group
of friends who under the leadership
of Christopher (Stoffer) decide to
take up arms against existing social
norms by pretending to be mentally
handicapped.
The Dogma rules lend the film a
documentary character, but in fact
The Idiots is based on a script
written by the director.
The film features a number of
scenes in which the characters
confront bourgeois normality

19. In the restaurant, Henrik and Stoffer manage to get themselves a free meal by playing on
society's unease around people with severe learning disabilities. The maitre d' is so desperate
to get them away from his customers, who are tolerating them with embarrassed politeness,
and out of the restaurant, that he doesn't even ask them to pay.
The men are using the fact that no one would dare suspect they were frauds because there is
this unspoken rule that disabled people shouldn't be alluded to with anything less than total
reverence, which is unnatural and stifling and further separates the disabled from the rest of
society.
Source: http://www.disabilityworld.org/07-08_01/arts/idiots.shtml

20. Disabled voice - Idioterne (1998) Dir: Lars Von Trier
“The film itself doesn't undermine the disabled at all, but being upset by
the film, does. Thinking it's "wrong" that Stoffer and his gang are
pretending to have disabilities, but it would have been O.K if they'd been
pretending to be from a different country or a different social status to
create a reaction, feeds the alienation of disabled people which society
creates through "special" treatment.”
“Ultimately, the use of disability in the film is to illuminate the hypocrisy of
our social structure and the emotional and spiritual limitations of our
"civilised" way of life. The more we slip into stereotypical social roles and
worship materialism, the more we lose our basic connection with others
and ourselves.”
Lara Masters (2001)
Source: http://www.disabilityworld.org/07-08_01/arts/idiots.shtml

21. Context and Form : Ability and
Disability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLxQlSoPW1c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gl8jVX9WWM
Ask yourself: How is disability and ability
portrayed in these scenes?

22. Meta-theories
In the two clips, which of Stuart Hall’s 3 ‘sides’ of
representation might apply?
Which of the two opposing stereotyping theories
(Dyer and Perkins) applies?
What about the theories about disability?

23. Critical Voice
Many of the changes that viewers and listeners would like to see take
place in broadcasting can be described as ‘respect’ issues: respecting
the diversity of disability and portraying those varied experiences;
respecting the views of disabled people and consulting with them to
provide more authentic and credible portraits; respecting the abilities of
disabled people and actively involving disabled media professionals in
all aspects of programme production across all genres...Crucially,
what disabled audiences want is an acknowledgement of the fact
that disability is a part of daily life and for the media to reflect that
reality, removing the insulting label of ‘disabled’ and making it
ordinary
(Ross, 1997: 676)