The Visibility of Disability: Disabled Representation in Media
Recall the last movie, TV-Show, or book you have read. Were there any characters that had a disability in it? More importantly, did you notice that there was a lack of disabled representation in the media you were consuming? In a society that treats disability as an oddity, it is rare for disabled people to see themselves represented in the media. Oftentimes, writers and TV-producers choose to exclude disabled people in their movies, books, and TV-shows because they are fearful that including a character that does not fit into the mold of a “normal” person would make the audience uncomfortable. On other occasions, a disabled person will be included, except the character is an offensive caricature of a disbaled person. Because good representation of disability in the media is scarce, disabled people feel even more alienated from a society that prefers able-bodied people. Fortunately, there has been an increase in accurate diasbled representation in the past few years. Netflix's hit ...