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Page 1 of 5 ROLL UP, ROLL UP!From biblical representations to the growth of eugenics, My Left Foot and modern-day ‘freak shows’, perceptions of disability are changing all the time – or are they? Melissa Holmes investigates.
It’s little more than three years since Marc Quinn’s statue of a naked, pregnant and proud Alison Lapper was unveiled in Trafalgar Square. The piece has since been removed, but it certainly stimulated debate. Meantime, disability arts festivals seem to be flourishing (DaDafest, Liberty and the like); disabled people are continuing to fight, ever more successfully, for their civil rights; and even Aunty Beeb provided a fair amount of coverage of the Beijing Paralympic Games this summer – all of which must surely be having some kind of impact on non-disabled society’s perception of disabled people.
Of course, it’s not all about art and media representations; the fact that disabled people are being “mainstreamed” more and more into everyday society seems to be doing something to impact upon the way non-disabled society views disabled people.
There will always be those with deeply entrenched negative views about what disabled people can and can’t achieve in life. Part of this is a learned attitude – disabled people being seen as needy and pitiful – and it’s also to do with fear – fear of what we don’t know or understand. So it comes as little surprise that, after literally thousands of years of prejudice and misunderstanding, it’s still taking time for non-disabled society to come to terms with disabled people.
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