Disability Becomes the New Fashion Black on the BBC
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Posted by Patricia Jerido July 2nd, 2008 |
Britain’s Missing Top Model began last night on the BBC network. This new reality show has eight women with disabilities competing to become a top-model. As you can imagine this show can offer some real insights for people without disabilities to better understand those who live with disabilities. Also for people living with disabilities a show like this may offer needed relief from the near invisibility of people with disabilities in the media. And yet, it’s a reality show. With women competing against each other. Not a good sign for positive images of women. And so far on the BBC website, there’s every sign that they are going to exploit and promote “cattiness” among the contestants.
On GoLeft where we look at pop culture as a tool for progressive activists we had to develop a pro/con list because the idea of this show is so groundbreaking.
Here you go:
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Pros
Increases visibility of women with disabilities.
Expands the definition of beauty.
Winner will be the first disabled woman on the cover of British magazine Marie Claire.
The show includes women with visible and non-visible disabilities
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Cons
Only one of the four judges is disabled.
One of the able-bodied judges states he “sees no disability; people are people.”
All the contestants are thin and white.
The oldest model (27) is the first one eliminated.
The show includes women with visible and non-visible disabilities.
What are your pros and cons about this show?
July 7th, 2008 12:18
[…] Missing Top Model and She’s Got the Look endeavor to get more women to join in the ‘fun’ of defining themselves via their looks. The title of Missing… in and of itself is offensive. It constructs disabled women as not fully human with its use of the word ‘missing.’ (For a good analysis of this shows many wrongs, see this post at WIMN’s Voices.) […]