In the Summer of 2001, I took a Fables and Tales class. The professor showed us a film about an African prince who was destined to rule his kingdom. However, he had been born with weak legs, which meant that he had to use a wooden cane to get around. According to the tale, he would not be able to become King if he did not teach himself to walk without his cane. As the movie progresses, by sheer will he makes himself able to walk, and therefore is able to take his rightful place as King. Viewing this film made me feel very angry and upset, particularly because the instructor of the class never once raised the issue that this film could be viewed as discriminatory against a certain group. I was feeling so appalled about this film that I couldn't even formulate a good argument or response as to why this film portrayed a degrading view of disability. After exiting from his class, I took the anger and sadness I was feeling, went to the San Francisco State Library, and checked out at least three books on the portrayal of disability in film. Thus began my awareness that images like what I had seen in this film were not common.
Fast forward to 2002. I enrolled in my second broadcasting class. where my semester-long project was to write a paper on any subject related to media. My first thought was to organize a research paper about the portrayal of disability in television. This topic pulled at my heartstring, because for me it was a continuation of what I had started on when I checked out books on the portrayal of people with disabilities in film.
Now I have created blogs based on one central purpose, which is to assess the continuum of positive to negative characterizations of people with disabilities on television. I hope you enjoy what I've written on the next few pages.
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