Disability in TV Dramas

Disability in TV Dramas

The Inbetweeners features a disabled women in the scene where Will throws a frisbee towards a crowd of girls trying to show off but swiftly backfires when the frisbee hits the disabled women in the face. The disabled women is represented as grumpy when Will apologises to the women and the disabled women for hitting her with the frisbee but she dissent accept his apology and keeps the frisbee. The disabled women in this clip also falls in to the stereotype that she isn't seen as attractive. This is because I believe that when they are playing frisbee, the four boys are all looking at the girls walking by making comments but are oblivious to the disabled women until she gets hit with the frisbee but don't make comments, just apologise for hitting her. Another stereotype is that all disabled people are seen as vulnerable. This is shown when Will tries to reclaim his frisbee from the disabled women but she holds on and then a group of people see what they think, Will taking a frisbee off of a disabled women but don't know that it is actually Will's frisbee. 

Another clip from the Inbetweeners is when the four boys are queuing for nemesis inferno at a Thorpe Park. They have been queueing for over an hour for the front seats on the ride but when it comes to their turn, the front seats have been taken up by 3 disabled men but Will doesn't realise, shouting rude and insulting comments about how inconsiderate they are until he realises who they were he was insulting and quotes "I am the worst human being ever". After insulting the disabled men, he has to sit next to them on the ride which must've been awkward but after the ride, Neil, Simon and Jay all see who he was insulting and give him hate for it. After the clip, we see that the disabled people get revenge by vandalising Simon's car by stealing the wheel. This also could suggest that this is a counter stereotype because the disabled people got revenge and are seen as vulnerable. In addition, they could also be perceived as evil through the actions that were taken place.

There is other disabilities in TV Dramas such as the TV Series, Casualty. Instead of being a mental form of disability, its a physical state. The man in Casualty is in a wheel chair and is very limited to what he can do on his own without the help of others. There are scenes in the series where you feel sympathetic towards the disabled man due to him not being able to do simple actions which we take for granted such as going to the toilet without the assistance of a carer.