Big Brother's 'freak show' has produced the first warts-and-all disabled person on TV - when will the soaps follow?
Rebecca Atkinson
Tuesday July 11, 2006
The summer of watching affected puddle-shallow life forms romp around a house full of cameras - hunting nano-particles of fame to reassemble as a Heat magazine spread on their exit - is well under way. It's a formulaic affair, but this year the series has thrown up one surprise. The makers of Big Brother have taken the notion of the freak show back to its roots and added the archetypal "freak" into the mix. At last, in series seven, and not a day too soon, there is a disabled housemate. And as a disabled man on television, Pete Bennett (who has Tourette's) is a novel concept indeed.
The representation of disabled people on television is a disgrace. A head-bowing, bum-tightening sham in fact. We've got black newscasters, gay presenters and women sports reporters, yet television channels are still guilty of the systematic and ongoing exclusion of disabled people. Can you name one disabled newsreader? Or a game-show host? Is there a permanently disabled character (as opposed to someone who had an accident, sits in a wheelchair and then miraculously gets up and walks) played by a disabled actor in Neighbours? EastEnders? Hollyoaks? Have you ever seen a celebrity chef with a limp? No? If television is anything to go by, disabled people are a figment of our imagination; they don't really exist do they? Keep them out of sight, and they'll stay out of mind.
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The Guardian
