The ABC’s framing of tragedies featuring ‘inspirational’ disabled people is, in fact, perpetuating discrimination against people with disabilities, writes Melissa Marsden.
A STORY ABOUT a young man with cerebral palsy and blindness who passed away during the Los Angeles fires published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation tells a disabling narrative.
The article tells of mother Shelley Sykes’ ‘desperate efforts’ to save her 32-year-old son, Rory.
Sykes said:
“No mum can leave their baby when there’s a fire raging round about.”
This sentiment would be expected of any mother and her courage to do so is admirable.
However, the broadcaster’s decision to frame the mother’s actions as extraordinary raises some questions. If Rory did not have a disability, would Ms Sykes’s actions have been framed as inspirational?
The broadcaster’s framing of the events reinforces disabling tropes of “inspiration porn”.
Late advocate Stella Young called out inspiration porn as:
“An image of a person with a disability, often a kid, doing something completely ordinary – like playing, or talking, or running, or drawing a picture, or hitting a tennis ball – carrying a caption like ‘your excuse is invalid’ or ‘before you quit, try’.”
Ms Sykes described Rory as a “compassionate” man who raised money for charities and gave motivational speeches. However, the broadcaster’s framing of Rory’s life as tragic and inspirational is problematic.
Ms Sykes tells how Rory was born blind and doctors told her he would never see or walk. Ms Sykes also encouraged others to be inspired by her son’s courage
The tragedy model of disability can perpetuate stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities by framing their lives as tragic or burdensome. This perspective can lead to pity, low expectations and stereotypes about people with disabilities.
It fails to recognise the role of societal and environmental factors in marginalising people with disabilities.
There is little doubt that Rory displayed courage by encouraging his mother to leave him to save herself. And I do not doubt Ms Sykes meant well in encouraging others to be inspired.
Ms Sykes said:
“We need to let everybody know and inspire them that Rory was courageous and was a beautiful soul.”
However, by placing this kind of emphasis on Rory’s actions, of which it appears he and his mother had little choice in deciding, the broadcaster perpetuates the narrative that people with disabilities must be inspirational to be recognised.
These narratives perpetuate the belief that people with disabilities who do not live up to the inspirational qualities demonstrated by people like Rory are neither worthy of media attention nor of being validated by society.
Rory and Ms Sykes’ story was accompanied by that of father and son Anthony and Justin Mitchell, who lost their lives.
The article states that the father, Anthony, was an amputee and wheelchair user who ‘refused to leave Justin, who had cerebral palsy’.
The framing of these events as a heroic choice reinforces disabling narratives of inspiration porn, designed to suggest Anthony was inspirational because he supported his son.
An alternative framing would have been the obvious critique of the structural issues that left Anthony and Justin unable to escape the deadly crisis.
Like inspiration porn, the broadcaster used these stories of people with disabilities and their families to project to disabled and non-disabled audiences alike that people with disabilities are overwhelmingly victims and that the ordinary courtesy of non-disabled people is inspirational.
According to Patrick Corrigan, the Pity Narrative has a specific power in news media discourses in the “if it bleeds, it leads” premise.
News media discourses on disability may invoke emotions of pity that frame people with disabilities as victims. The news media creates narratives of pity not because it ascribes to the belief that people with disabilities deserve it but because its level of newsworthiness increases its influence.
The events that unfolded are no doubt a tragedy. However, emphasising these individuals’ disabilities as part of constructing narratives of tragedy is problematic.
The media oversimplifies the social and structural issues that make these stories so crucial by framing these individuals, who had little choice in the events that unfolded, as inspirational.
The lives of people with disabilities lost in the fires are an indictment of how society values people with disabilities compared to their non-disabled peers.
However, by restricting their stories to prisms of inspiration and pity, their struggles and their strength are equally minimised.
Melissa Marsden is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate at Curtin University. You can follow Melissa on Twitter @MelMarsden96, on Bluesky @melissamarsdenphd or via Melissa’s website, Framing the Narrative.
Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.
Related Articles
