Media image of disability

Disability Articles

Copyright © 2010 Cross the Hurdles. All rights reserved.

A protagonist of a Hindi movie, unemployed, frustrated, wearing completely worn out slippers, enters an office and asks for employment saying, “ghar par vidhwa maa aur andhi behen hai, mujhe naukri par rakh lijiye” (I have a widowed mother and a blind sister at home so please give me a job). The words “andhi behen” (blind sister) becomes instantaneously synonymous with pathos, dependence, misery and sympathy and this is often portrayed by the media when it has to represent people with disabilities!

Sometimes bizarre, sometimes sensational and sometimes pathetic….persons with disabilities are depicted with negative perceptions by the media. There is an uninterrupted perpetuation of the belief that disabilities bring illness and sufferings making people scared and depressed. The consequence of all this proves hazardous for the psyche of people facing physical challenges. Separations and segregations then come to forefront, demarcating the differences between abilities and disabilities.

Due to limited mobility, lack of entertainment facilities and easy access, the people with disabilities are heavy consumers of T.V programmes and movies. Newspapers, magazines and internet also easily reach out people with cognitive, physical and sensory impairments. All what is shown and described has a great impact not only on certain individuals but also on the society as a whole since social comparative theories state that individuals always tend to compare themselves with the persons in media.

The stereotypical delineation of the image of differently-abled people make the non disabled feel magnanimous about their acts of charity and extension of their helping hands to those with physically challenges. Story lines of popular fictions show disabled in extreme ways. Either they are overtly dependent or embodiment of goodness and sensitivity, extremely courageous or villainous, evil, sinister or laughing stock. The character of Tiny Tim in Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol is one such example which arouses feelings of sentimentality rather than genuine compassion. Shakespeare has shown Richard III’s with a hunchback in order to symbolize his evil lust. Disability as a metaphor has many times been used by Disney. The villain in “Wild, Wild West,” is a double amputee.

Prejudices against certain types of disabilities are also created by the media. Comic characters are shown obese. Some disabilities are under represented, unrepresented and misrepresented. Mental illness is one of them. In the Academy Award winner Hollywood movie Coming Home (1978), Sally chooses a physically disabled man leaving her mentally ill husband, showing that some disabilities are better than the other. Mental illness is also many times related to violence and crime.

Keeping the gender bias alive a disabled male is presented as a ‘perfect person’ or sometimes a ‘superman’, sitting on a wheelchair or walking with a cane. He is damn handsome with whom even the most beautiful lady madly falls in love. Like Sophia, the care-taker of Ethen Mascarhanas in Guzarish. All such representations create an illusionary dreamland in the mind of a disabled man and making him demand a female, no less than Miss World. He then, is not ready to accept a disabled female as his life partner. On the other side the disabled women are never main characters in movies and televisions shows. The disabled females are presented as dependent, pathetic and totally hopeless. In the Hindi movie Andha Yudh (1987) a killer takes a physically challenged girl as a hostage, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and helplessness.

Even if a disabled female is shown getting married to a ‘normal’ man that is only shown as a ‘social reform ‘movement’ Shyam Saxena (Madhavan) marries Meenu (Vidya Balan) in the movie Guru. He remains her ‘nurse’ and care taker till she dies rather than a husband to her. The list of such examples remains unending.

There is complete absence of role models for those who have disabilities since their childhood. If negative image is shown, the audiences tend to identify with that which reinforces wrong beliefs in their minds. The ideas about their self identity get formed by what is articulated through the media.

People with disabilities are never portrayed as ‘average’ individuals who have normal emotions of happiness and sadness with an identity of their own. They are never shown working in various situations, carrying out the responsibilities like any other person. The social and public perceptions of them become distorted by these kinds of typification. Labeling them either as heroes or victims leads to deviation from reality. How many disabled persons are always nice and goody-goody!

So how many of us remember to have seen or heard a disabled person on electronic media? How many programmes are based on disability? How many advertisements show young attractive people sitting on wheelchairs?

Recently I remember talking to a media person if they would help me in bringing awareness about the needs and challenges, both physical as well emotional, of people physical challenges through their programmes or clippings, I got an answer in their professional language, “We don’t have a peg for such programmes. Our channel owners work for profits and such programmes are not ‘sold well’! Such programmes and inviting people with disabilities as experts in their programmes don’t bring ‘adequate returns’ on their huge investments”.

Abha Khetarpal