Party Political Conferences - Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative- 2004

Disability & the Media The representation of Disability in the media, since Labour came to power, has, sadly, become ënormalisedí: superficially devoid of political significance whilst being covertly part of the increasingly insidious ideology and a social pathology of assimilation: normality. One of the most significant factors in this ënormalisingí imagery is the fact that it indicates that broadcasters in the UK have significantly shifted in their attitude towards disability.

Before Labour came to power there were politicised disability television seriesí ≠ programmes made by disabled people with a belief in their own value as disabled, different, people - on every major UK terrestrial broadcast channel. Since then we have witnessed a significant de-politicisation of disability, and difference per se, in favour of a move towards a dangerous cultural and pathological homogeneity. What we are seeing is a form of cultural assimilation: a dogmatic belief in a human sameness that denies difference. Whilst we all believe in bio-diversity we, as a society, increasingly squash human diversity (bizarre that!).

While politicians wonder why people become increasingly disengaged from politics the BBC and Channel 4 (in particular) increasingly de-politicise the essence of politics: everyday life, all our everyday lives. Such a process is beautifully epitomised in the fatuous practice of ëmainstreamingí disability by broadcasters: the sanitised (dis)placement of disability within the mainstream of programme production and output. Politicians have allowed this to happen with out a whimper. All that mainstreaming has done, or will do in the future - for blacks, gays, the old, the young, or women even, let the disabled ≠ is create further divisions within and between communities by propagating the idea that there is only one right way to be physically, morally, religiously and behaviourally: ënormalí. This is not the delivery of culturally diverse broadcasting but the worst type of social assimilation that will only lead to ever increasing cultural ruptures that are self and socially destructive.

As with race, gender and sexuality, the politicisation of disability that had taken place within society and the media in the last thirty years is being rejected. It is being replaced by the new political correctness of ëmainstreaming': a process that is merely a sanitising, a normalising, of difference (and a misunderstanding of political correctness to boot). As such, mainstreaming is no less destructive and oppressive that what had gone before.

Significantly, one cannot ignore the role disabled people themselves have played in this trend through their own articulation, in the early days of disability politics, in arguing for ëpositive' images or ërole modelsí over what they saw as ënegative' ones. The simplification of the issues, the politics, of disablement has facilitated a retrograde move towards a sanitised imagery of disability being shown: an imagery that is no more or less ërealistic' than that presumed to be ënegative' imagery. Few of us are, or want to be, Paralympians. The danger of such a perspective is that ënormalisedí imagery, mainstreaming, creates the increasingly dominant idea of the ëgood crippleí: one who is normalised and worthy of equality. This is in stark contrast to its increasingly common flip-side: the ëbad crippleí. The ëbad crippleí is one who is only worthy of charity, institutionalisation, abortion or euthanasia (the tragedy model so loved by charity). The media, and politicians, only seem to be able to see these two extremes.

What disabled people, and society at large, are being fed is the image of a certain kind of valued, worthy, disabled person who is physically able, educationally competent and striving to achieve a ënormal' wealthy life(style); or worse, its abject Other. It is a picture that is as true of disabled people as Party Conferences are of politicians. After all, only a fool takes a single bone and tries to create a whole creature from it.

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