ITV Telethon

It seems programme makers can't do a thing without being cricitised whichever way they turn.

Dear Sir

As Chief Executive of a pan London organisation, GLAD, I am writing to complain about Channel 4's series of extremely offensive programmes relating to disabled people.

The first was Blind Man's Buff last year which drew a load of complaints from disabled people. The second programme shown by Channel 4 this week and completely abhorrent was Crocks and Robbers showing some unscrupulous disabled people using their impairments as an advantage for criminal acts. We would ask the question. Would they run a programme on how Black people commit crimes because they are Black? There appears to be a total lack of understanding by these programme heads at Channel 4 and even worse, choosing to target the most discriminated people in society.

The third this week, was Wheelchair Challenge and despite complaints to Martin Head, Series Editor, and despite disabled people they called in as advisors saying they should not go ahead with this programme, they decided it was a good programme and went ahead. The programme was supposedly to highlight the problems some wheelchair users have. They used three non wheelchair using C list "celebrities" to do this who pretended to be disabled people. It was a complete nonsense. Why didn't they simply follow a disabled person as they went about their daily life - this would have been authentic and had the same impact as these "celebrities" who have turned disability discrimination into entertainment. They trivialised disabled people's lives. For example, the Irish celebrity on entering a newspaper shop said "I can't reach the porn". Disabled people are more interested in how they can reach the essential food item in a supermarket! They were also accompanied by a TV crew who were on hand to extract them from any barriers they were unable to overcome. Unfortunately disabled people do not have this luxury.

The celebrities also allowed themselves to be carried up and down steps and even carried into a non accessible toilet - extremely poor examples to portray. The majority of disabled people would never allow this. It is dangerous and demeaning.


These programmes will not enlighten the pubic nor change attitudes but are instead being done at disabled people's expense. They are cheap, offensive and patronising programmes with absolutely no value other than to sensationalise disability in a very negative way. It is unacceptable and seen as offensive for people to "black up" so they can see what is is like to be a black person, so why is it acceptable for non disabled people to pretend to be disabled?

Wheelchair users have been around for a long time - is this programme really going to make a difference to attitudes as these celebrities were hinting. Surely in 2002 (and given that 2003 is the European Year of Disabled People) these programmes show an extraordinary lack of judgement. What disabled people need are comprehensive and enforceable rights and removing barriers to their inclusion in society.

Yours sincerely

Katherine, I did not once mention Wheelchair Challenge, Blind Man's Buff or Crocks and Robbers, did I?

By the 1992 Telethon, the whole operation was so commerical driven that it was more of a turn off for me. Everything was sponsored, this was in the new age of programmes being sponsored before and after the programme.

Images, the way forward

These are recommendations to better the portrayal of people with disabilities:

* Shun one-dimensional characterizations and portray disabled people as having complex personalities capable of a full range of emotions.

* Avoid depicting them as always receiving; show them as equals giving as well as receiving.

* Avoid presenting physical and mental characteristics as determining personality.

* Refrain from depicting them as objects of curiosity. Make them ordinary.

* Their impairments should not be ridiculed or made the butt of jokes.

* Avoid sensationalizing them especially as victims or perpetrators of violence.

* Avoid showing disabled people as non-sexual. Show them in loving relationships and expressing the same range of sexual needs and desires as non-disabled people.

* Show them as an ordinary part of life in all forms of representation, factual and fictional.

* Show people living their own independent life, in 'normal' relationships.

* Efforts must be made to adequately define psychical disturbances and/or disabilities and thus create a 'place' and change in the self-image.

* Pay attention to those kind of disabilities that are not externally recognizable - Dyspraxia, Asperger's syndrome etc....

* Most importantly cast them, train and write them into scripts, programmes and publications.

* Help people to (re)create a positive self-image.

Yeah Katherine, but now tell me which of those criterion telethons neglect to address.

Well, properly I don't think they address any of them. Disabled people are still being taken out of a box once a year for this purpose and then put back in the box and shoved in the cupboard over the stairs for the rest of the year. Only a few are let out for token representation in the interim.

Statistically, one in eight people have a disability of some type. This proportion is not being reflected on television on any show. A start would be to perhaps have a deaf couple signing to each other as extras in the Queen Vic or Rovers Return.