This word pops up everywhere, and its context always seems to alter. What is a disabled person? What do they look like?
Apparently, as an article in an issue of the Guardian's g2 said a week or so ago, Pete from Big Brother is disabled. Sounds terrible doesn't it. Poor Pete.
If you have never seen this years Big Brother and have no idea who Pete is, when an article describes him as disabled, you would be forgiven for thinking he was blind, or wheelchair-bound, or afflicted with a terrible mental condition. These are the things the word disability conjures up for your average joe. If you thought, having never seen Pete, that he may be affected by the latter disability, you would in fact be correct, as he has Tourette's syndrome.
"So he swear's all the time, alienating those around him, to be doomed to life a solitary cursing?" I hear you enquire.
Well no, not exactly.
Pete is warm and lovable, with his only cursing tick being a mild "Wankers!" or "Wank!". His other ticks just seem very endearing; whistles, pops, meaows, dances, wild Jim Carrey-esque facial expressions. You can't help but like him. Sometimes you may even feel you wouldn't mind having that kind of energy, that kind of "disability".
When the article described Pete as disabled, being an on-off watcher of BB, and a fan of Pete's, I was inclined to disagree with the use of this adjective. This was because, due to my extensive and specialist medical training <wink>, I knew a little about disability. Let us look at the World Health Organisation's three-fold distinction between impairment, disability and handicap:
"An impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function; a disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being; a handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfilment of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual."
The article celebrated the fact that reality TV could help society come to terms with how to cope with disability. I would argue however that this is not quite what should be celebrated. This reality TV show, has, in some respects, assisted with society's ability to cope with impairment. I do not believe Pete would describe himself as disabled, and according to the WHO's definition, he probably isn't. His impairment gives him a great energy to be himself - he has no difficulty performing "an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being". Moreover, I do not believe it is society's place to determine who is and who isn't disabled. It can find the medical reasons for impairment and take that as it is, but it is up to the affected individual to decide whether that impairment is a disabling feature of themselves or not. They are the one's who get to say if they have a disability.
The article should celebrate the fact that society has been shown a very positive way of coping with an impairment, to such a degree that Pete will probably never need to ask himself the question "Am I disabled?".
I must also assert that Big Brother will not have cracked the proverbial disability egg, until they get someone in one of the future houses who has a real handicap. I am talking a blind, deaf or mute housemate, or a housemate with no legs, or a one with extensive cognitive impairment (but obviously someone who it would be safe to put on the show) . If this programme could do this, without creating a freak show, perhaps it will not have been such a vacuous decade of reality TV after all and society might wholly benefit from an education in what is to be human.
It is certainly a pipe-dream, but BB has done everything else; homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, erm... wait, maybe it hasn't done everything else, but a real handicap (and a non-sexual one at that, please), if done correctly, couldn't be a bad thing.
Pete to win.
Shoot the rest.
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