Disability Now – Paul Darke

September 1999 TV Review

Television often reveals more about society that it does about its intended subject. A good example of this was The Secret Life of Twins (BBC 1, July 14/21/28) presented by Professor Robert Winston. The series itself said very little about twins but, unintentionally, said much about the dangerous nature of medicine and its disregard for all people as equal human beings. Its obscene pre-transmission advertising use of Siamese twins was crass and tragically typical of the crass medically obsessed shows that Winston and the BBC push upon the public.

Thankfully, better was the ‘arts’ documentary TX: Dancing Inside (BBC2 July 22) about the former dancer, Jane Dudley, and her life now as an elderly person with arthritis. A documentary made with imagination and an engagement with its subject that BBC medical/science programmes could only envy.

The return of Third Rock from the Sun (BBC2, 20 July) – the weekly tales of aliens passing themselves of as human beings - was a welcome relief from the daily toils of watching rubbish television. Its irreverent use of impairment (in a truly disability conscious way) is surprisingly refreshing. It says something when it takes aliens to see the true nature of oppression. If only aliens would take away Esther Rantzen so would not have That’s Esther (ITV, August 8) anymore. A show it which Will Carling insightfully asked a paraolympian of short stature if she was a short or tall ‘dwarf’ – need I say more.

Channel 4 out did itself again with a dyslexic season (1 week): Dyslexic Genius (C4, July 25); Dyslexic Criminals (C4, July 26); Dyslexic Children (C4, July 29); and The Slot: Dyslexic Vision (C4, 27-30 July) – the daily five minute slot after the C4 news. I was disappointed at the lack of context other than that it seemed to be the non-disabled trying to appropriate difference in the same of normalisation. Equally, Channel 4’s view that there are 52 seasons in a year is beginning to wear thin.

The surprise of the month, in content, was TV’s Greatest Hits (BBC1 6 August) presented by the ever succulent Gaby Roslin. It had a item on it which looked at the history of Vision On and how it evolved out of an original children’s arts programme for deaf children (in an oralist tradition) and how it moved on to being inclusive of sign language. It was fascinating and the subject deserved a programme to itself. Unfortunately, it was not advertised as including this item and, as such, I suspect many Deaf people who would have loved to have seen it, will have missed it. The rest of the show was TV-pap of the lowest calibre.

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