Picture the following scene: deep inside Channel 4’s Programme Commissioning Headquarters, there are two hats filled with notes. Hat one is labelled: ‘Disability’; the second hat is labelled ‘Occupations’. Lazily, the Head of Documentaries takes notes out of hats one and two: ‘OCD + Cleaners’, it reads. Again, they pluck notes from their hats: ‘Autistic + Gardener’, it says. With a happy sigh, the Head of Documentaries leans back in their chair, knowing their job is done.
Of course that’s not how TV programmes are made, but some laziness in this vein must have inspired Channel 4’s recently relaunched documentary series, ‘The Undateables’, in which disabled people apply to a specialist dating agency in search for love. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the premise of the show in itself, but there is something desperately wrong with the way the show represents disabled people. Firstly, let’s take the name, The Undateables. By implication, what makes the people on the show undateable is their disability. The show is narrated almost like an Attenborough nature documentary, offering helpful advice to the viewers on how disabled people can best find a suitable mate. And it suffers from gross paternalism too, parading the parents of disabled daters before the camera to comment on their offspring’s love-life.
The reactions of some viewers towards the show are also deeply unsettling. Searching The Undateables hashtag on Twitter shows a host of people mocking those on the show, professing amazement that someone could act in a certain way on a date. The second type of reaction, which is more subtle and therefore infinitely more annoying, are those who virtue signal, declaring from the rooftops that they would date individuals on the show, even if they are disabled. Neither of these reactions see disabled people as people first and foremost, but elevates their disability to the focus of their attention.
There are, to be sure, things of value in The Undateables, and in similar shows that Channel 4 have aired. If the show can help somebody find true love, that should be celebrated, and if it can educate about disability, then it should be watched. Some people who have appeared on the show themselves have even praised it as life-changing. But that doesn’t dissolve the show’s one-dimensional portrayal of disability, and viewers should be aware of that when watching it.
Channel 4 isn’t the only broadcaster guilty of this, and it’s not just non-fiction that suffers from this representation problem. If a character in fiction is disabled, then it’s normally a symbol of evilness – think of how many villains there are who use a wheelchair, for instance, compared to heroes. Heroic disabled characters are normally confined to a blind, wise mystic, making up for their loss of physical sight with an elevated sense of foresight. Very rarely does the media show a disabled character whose disability is incidental to the plot line; instead it relies on a series of stereotypes that are not accurate to disabled people’s experiences.
The deeper problem lies in the way society at large still thinks about disability. Disability is uniquely pathologised, seen as something wrong with somebody’s senses. Ultimately, however, what makes a disability ‘disabling’ is society’s failure to accommodate someone’s needs. Deafness, for example, is only disabling if you expect somebody to function at a full level of hearing. If both broadcasters and viewers realised that nuance, then documentaries like The Undateables might fulfill the purpose they set out to achieve – to inform viewers about the nature of disability – rather than serving for some viewers as a voyeuristic form of entertainment.