First off, congratulations to Sid for being selected as a TEDx speaker for Virginia Tech’s TEDx event this November 10th. As noted on the TEDx site, this year’s theme is “Spark”: the moment of “inspiration” that sets one on course to research a certain topic, question a set norm, create or perform a piece of art, or start a journey. TED stands for technology, entertainment, and design.
Next, I’d like to make a quick comment on the theme of “inspiration” and why it automatically sets off specific sparks in my brain. As those of you who have read a few of my other posts, I try to bring Disability into most of my work. In light of my own personal focus, “inspiration” has a very specific meaning, and it is not rosy and positive.
Stella Young, a disability rights activist, was also a TEDx speaker. Instead of inserting the video (mainly due to formatting issues), I am just including the link; this gives access to a wide variety of language for captions, as well as a transcription at the official TED site. Her entire position revolves around the idea that disabled people are not objects of inspiration. She has an entirely quotable delivery, but one of the most striking is the moment when she describe and then names inspiration porn:
You may have seen images like this one: “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Or this one: “Your excuse is invalid.” Indeed. Or this one: “Before you quit, try!” These are just a couple of examples, but there are a lot of these images out there. You know, you might have seen the one, the little girl with no hands drawing a picture with a pencil held in her mouth. You might have seen a child running on carbon fiber prosthetic legs. And these images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration porn. (Laughter) And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we’re objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, “Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.”
The objectification of Disability within the media is problematic because this is so often the only vision of what Disability (both as an identity and as disability, whatever physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities) can mean.
I truly hope that none of this November’s TEDx talks present Disability in this light, or as something that by default is something that needs to be fixed. But, given the overwhelming narratives, I’m not optimistic.
References
- Young, S. (2014). I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much. TED Talk presented at the TEDxSydney, Sydney, Australia.