Influence of Main Stream Media on Culture and Disability

Influence of Main Stream Media on Culture and Disability.
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Influence of Main Stream Media on Culture and Disability
Culture has proved to be the one thing that has a direct impact on our values, beliefs and interactions with each other on a daily basis. It is differently unique to societies and the influence it has on an individual’s values, attitude and ideas within a community especially in our interaction with the people termed to be “others” in society; the disabled or those who are “differently able”. Main stream media has had a tremendous influence on the cultural perspective and moral obligation of how to treat people with disabilities. The representation of disability has in most parts been prejudiced and myopic and with parts majorly played with “able-bodied” actors. This paper focuses majorly on Ryan Murphy’s representation of Down Syndrome through Becky Jackson on the people with how Glee and how he tries to beat the Norm and culture of portraying the people living with disabilities and medical conditions as being dependant and social outcasts who have to go through cases of bullying that they cannot stop unless helped.
The first time I watched glee and encountered the character Becky Jackson played by Lauren Potter, I immediately thought of my best friend, Cathy. Cathy and I met when we were six in dance class. She was beautiful and adorable with her green almond shaped eyes, a face that was a little flatter especially her nose and her tongue slightly sticking out of her mouth. She was the a little slower than the rest of us in class majorly because she was distracted most of the time but a natural when it came to dancing. Our dance teacher however never understood Cathy and on more than one occasion, she would throw about ignorant comments on how Cathy would never make it in dancing or how it never ends well with kids like Cathy, and every time she said something mean, the other kids would find it funny and it annoyed me to no end. It is however how Cathy chose to deal with this comments and bullying that made me think of her whenever Lauren potter played the Becky character and the fact that Lauren Potter has actually ...