Reality television is gimmicky. I get that. It’s entertainment and depicts a distorted, artificial reality that doesn’t exist in the world that you and I inhabit. Still, the gimmickry can be overdone at times. 30 Days is a documentary series that profiles various people in month-long experiments that might have been dreamt up by a slightly daft social studies teacher. Past episodes have featured scenarios like a staunch immigration opponent being sent to live with an undocumented family and a computer programmer whose job was outsourced sent to live with a family in India. Lessons are supposed to be learned and eyes are supposed to be opened.
Last night’s episode featured an ex-NFL player who agreed to use a wheelchair for thirty days. The cameras followed him around as he struggled to maneuver through his palatial but minimally accessible house, competed with a wheelchair rugby team, and met with people in a rehab hospital who had experienced spinal cord injuries. The whole thing seemed silly to me. A television audience isn’t going to learn much about living with a physical disability by watching a wealthy, able-bodied athlete get around in a wheelchair for a few weeks. In fact, the episode came close to portraying the wheelchair as the sum total of the disability experience.
I’m probably expecting too much of a television show, but the episode’s tone left me frustrated and depressed. Its superficial voyeurism did little to give viewers any real insight into the lives of people with disabilities. The producers could have chosen a more interesting route and focused on someone with an actual disability who goes to live with, I don’t know, just about any family in America that’s clueless about disability; it’s not like they’re in short supply. Instead, we get this tripe that probably had most viewers think, “Holy crap, glad I’m not a gimp.”
The text Harriet Mc Bryde Johnson wrote about her “performance” at Princeton university, when she was confronted with the views of the cold intellectual prof. Singer, taught me she was a handicapped person who really enjoyed her life.
I believe the world needs people like her.
She says: we enjoy most things other people enjoy, and then we have our own particular pleasures like zooming by power chair through the streets. Her main argument against Singer is that the presence or absence of a disability doesn’t predict the quality of life.
Man you are a cynical bastard! (don’t take that as a serious insult, I’m smiling while typing). I thought the episode was interesting and I believe some people probably went away with a slightly different view of the disabled. At the least I think Mr. ex-NFL learned something. In the beginning he had a lot of preconceived notions about disabled people and only focused on what he (and the truly disabled) couldn’t do. By the end it seemed to me that he was thinking about what could be done despite physical limitations. That’s a good thing. And the real disabled individuals in the episode were portrayed in a realistic and positive light I thought. It didn’t really seem that voyeuristic to me. I don’t think anyone is going to be like “gee, wouldn’t it be awesome to be disabled!” after watching that episode. I sure as hell don’t like being disabled. Who does? But that episode was about showing the viewer that one can lead a full life despite having a disability. That episode was about dealing with what life hands you and making the best of it. I didn’t see a lot of pity directed at the disabled either. I don’t know, maybe I’m just more optimistic than you are. š Feel free to e-mail me if you want to discuss this some more.