‘Freaks’, Lies and Videotape

In the entertainment industry, the face has to fit. If the face doesn’t fit, if it’s sagging around the edges, or the nose is out of proportion, or there’s one wrinkle too many, that face won’t make it in front of the camera. So what hope is there, in that case, for the girl in the wheelchair, or the man with an amputated arm, or the woman who’ll need to bring her Seeing Eye dog along on set? Just under seven million people living in the UK today are disabled, and yet their representation on our screens is almost nil.

Cerrie Burnell is a British actress and presenter who was born without the lower part of her right arm. Within a month of beginning her presenting job on children’s television channel CBeebie, Burnell hit the headlines when the BBC was inundated with complaints from parents claiming she was frightening their children. Almost overnight Burnell found herself in the centre of a media storm, with angry parents calling for her resignation, and disabled rights groups jumping to her defence, claiming it was the parents who were guilty of projecting their own prejudices onto their children. Burnell kept her job, and continues to work for CBeebies, but speaking to her it was evident that the incident resonated deeply. “The media denotes that being young, slim, able-bodied, symmetrical and predominantly white is to be beautiful,” she told me. “But beauty is not something you should chase, it’s something you should own. It was only when I started accepting my body that I felt beautiful.”

Angela*, 24, is an aspiring television presenter who, while studying for a GNVQ at her local college, was hit by a drunk driver, and received brain damage that left her blind in both eyes. Before the accident, Angela had landed a handful of presenting jobs on shopping channels, and was optimistic about things to come when she had finished studying. Once she was registered blind, however, that all dried up. “It was as if, not only could I no longer see, but no one could see me,” she told me. “I’d sit in audition waiting rooms with my guide dog and I’d be put right to the back of the queue.” Even getting an audition turned into a challenge for Angela, “sometimes casting directors don’t have time to see everyone who shows up. It’s usually first-some-first-serve, but after the accident I was always early, and often they would mysteriously ‘not have time’ to see me.

“It was heart breaking,” Angela explains. “I could almost feel my career slipping away. I stopped bothering at college; what was the point in working for a qualification I’ll probably never use?” In a fluke encounter, while waiting for an audition, Angela was spotted by another production company working in the same building, and was asked to co-host a series of short online programmes about entertainment for the blind. She now hopes this will develop into a successful career in disability programming, but it’s not the dream she grew up with. “My plans have had to change pretty drastically. The accident, being blind, it’s basically ruled out the chances of me being in front of a national audience. People don’t want to watch ‘cripples’ on their screens. It’s devastating, sometimes when I get another rejection call I just want to scream down the phone, ‘Why won’t you look at me?!’ But I know where that self-pity road leads, and it’s not nice, so I try to stay positive. It’s all I can do.”

A recent Economic and Labour Market Review estimated that 19% of the working population have a DDA-recognised disability, while Skillset (the Sector Skills Council for Creative Media) have estimated that disabled people make up just 2.3% of the entertainment industry. It would seem, despite this, that it is not the viewing public that is reluctant to tune in to representative programming. According to Independent Television Commission research, 79% of viewers would not mind watching a disabled person reading the news, and 60% say that disabled people should appear in a wider variety of roles.

The problem, it seems, is higher up the chain. Writers and producers are reluctant to hire disabled performers, for fear that it will isolate viewers or lead to logistical complications on set. The issue is not isolated to presenting; discrimination is rife in the acting world too. In an interview in 2003, the executive producer of Eastenders responded to criticism that the show had never employed a disabled actor, saying “you’ve got a point, but we don’t want to make it into a freak show.” His use of the word ‘freak’ to describe disabled people received little public criticism at the time.

This is not to say that things aren’t improving; in 2009 Eastenders cast David Proud, born with spina bifida, in the role of Adam Best. Proud was the first visibly disabled character to ever be cast on the soap, and I was keen to speak to him about the reach he feels this breakthrough achieved. “I think it had an effect on public perception,” he told me, “especially because Adam was not a nice character, and it showed that people now felt comfortable being able to say that, without worrying over the fact that he was disabled.”

The tendency to portray disabled characters on television as objects of pity, or courageous heroes is one that has been prevalent in all forms of broadcast media for some time. Proud didn’t encounter the problems producers consider go alongside hiring disabled actors, “the cast and crew were all mostly curious about [my disability] more than anything else… Almost all of them had a go in my wheelchair!” It’s not all good news though, and Proud agrees that disabled representation is severely lacking; “able-bodied actors playing disabled character is hugely damaging to the talented disabled people out there who are working hard for parts.” But Proud doesn’t just want to see disabled actors playing disabled character, but also being considered for other roles. He speaks movingly on a vision he has of the day he can sit in an audition waiting room next to able-bodied actors and be considered on equal terms for a part, his disability an irrelevance. “There are thousands of parts someone with a disability could physically play, but unless it’s written as a disabled role we aren’t even offered an audition.”

Of course, it doesn’t help the cause when one of the most high-profile and successful television shows of recent years casts an able-bodied actor is a disabled role. Kevin McHale was cast in the role of Artie in American hit show ‘Glee’ by producer Brad Flachuk. In an interview, Flachuk stated that he understands the concern and frustration expressed at the casting choice by the disabled community, but says that McHale’s acting and singing skills secured him the role, stating “it’s hard to say ‘no’ to someone that talented.” McHale’s abilities are not in question in this debate, but his ability to bring authenticity to the role is questionable. Moreover, as we supposed to believe, in that case, that there were no disabled actors who could have played the role just as well? I watched, like others, with discomfort at the episode in which Artie rises from his wheelchair in a fantasy sequence and dances with the rest of the cast. Was this a cheap attempt to justify the casting choice? It was certainly an offensive portrayal of the idea that the disabled person’s ultimate desire is to overcome their disability, and live ‘normally’.

It seems, then, that out counterparts across the Atlantic are faring no better; about one fifth of adult Americans have a mental of physical disability, but according to a study of the Screen Actors Guild conducted by the researchers at the University of California, fewer than 2% of televised characters reflect that reality.
Proud was critical of McHale’s casting. “It makes no sense to me,” he commented, “the authenticity a disabled actor can bring to a role can be of huge benefit to the production. Matt Lucas came into bad press for blacking up in ‘Come Fly With Me’, why doesn’t Glee receive the same reaction? It’s wrong, it’s degrading and it shouldn’t happen anymore.”

Paul Darke, like David Proud, lives with spina bifida (a developmental congenital disorder affecting the spine which can confine the sufferer to a wheelchair), and is a leading academic in the field of disability studies. I had difficult questions to ask about the place disabled actors and presenters might occupy in the industry and Darke would be able to provide me with a useful outside perspective. Presenting is a tough industry to break into, saturated with new talent, is there room for inclusion of the disabled? “If you seek to represent your viewers,” Darke told me,” you make room. The industry might be saturated, but it is so with white middle class men. So make room by removing some of them.” Disabled presenters ought not, he went on, be pigeon-holed to niche programmes about disability either; “people should present what they know, of course, but that’s a stepping stone. That is where we develop new talent, and from where disabled presenters break into mainstream media.” Disabled presenters confined to shows about the Paralympics, or a lack of facilities for the blind, Darke says, is indicative of discrimination. I ask him if he thinks, at the very least, that the industry is moving in the right direction, but he isn’t optimistic. “It’s not moving in any direction. The things that are ‘being done’ are the same things that have been being done for twenty years. Collecting data, running equality courses…it’s not working.” What should be done instead? “The entire nature of the industry is at fault; it is dominated by white middle class men who think that everyone wants to be with them, that they are the ultimate aspiration. Until they realise that that is far from the case, nothing will change.”
If actors ‘playing disabled’ is the twenty-first century’s ‘blacking up’, then perhaps the future is not as bleak as Darke believes. Overcoming discrimination is, sadly, a gradual process. Employers across the public and private sectors are beginning to stand up and take responsibility for fairer employment, and it is to be expected that the entertainment industry moves slower than anyone else. Whether or not Proud’s vision of an egalitarian casting room will be realised during his career is impossible to predict. What is for sure, though, is that people with disabilities watch the news, yet they’re never reading it. They follow the soaps, but rarely star in them. They vote in reality shows, but hardly ever compete. There is an authenticity lacking in our broadcast media, and until it is restored, it will be a lesser place without it.

*name changed for confidentiality