By Simon Stevens
Did you see you the programme last week on the man with two heads? Or the woman with three livers? No? If you did it would be very odd as I made them up but I would not be surprised if such programmes were being produced.
We pride ourselves on our 21st century civilised values on disablism in believing we have gone beyond the dark ages where disabled people earned a living from freak shows... so can someone then please explain to me Channel 5?
This channel seems to be the hub of what it terms a "biodoc" or what I am calling Freak TV. The main difference between this so-called factual entertainment and old-fashioned freak shows is that the participants get paid a lot less and do not have ownership of how they are portrayed. They have been demoted from professional artists to funny members of the public.
Disability rights
How the hell can we take disability rights and inclusion seriously when we still regard people as freaks and call it light entertainment? Is the spin off of Britian's got Talent going to be Britain's got Freaks? If so, I may have a go myself.
Newcastle-based academic Tom Shakespeare wrote a good article which helps explain our fascination with disabled people and so-called "freaks" which goes deep into the human psyche. He explains how people unconsciously use disabled people as a kind of emotional dustbin in terms of handling their fears of death, sickness, impairment and vulnerability.
Defining normalitiy
By this I mean disabled people and freaks are deemed as "other" to the general population and therefore as a collection represent these negative things so the normal population can be rid of them. We can only define normality by defining abnormality, good by evil, sanity by insanity and so on.
Prisons are not about controlling criminals but rather controlling people not in prison. Terrorists provide another example as we slowly hand over our rights so we are deemed, well, whatever the opposite of terrorist is.
Freak TV is a lazy but easy format to do and it reinforces the medical model of disability without any remorse. I have been involved with television and it is a very cruel place where easy formats mean easy money.
Ah, "the man who writes too much" has just come on...
Simon Stevens is an independent disability trainer and consultant
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