Analysis of Disability by Nancy Mairs

In Nancy Mairs’ article for The New York Times, “Disability”, published in 1987, she expresses her distaste with the media's representation of handicapped people. Mairs, who struggled with multiple sclerosis herself, clearly and sharply conveys this disgust by stating, “I’m not, for instance, Ms. MS, a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease.” (Mairs 13), and that she is actually, “the advertisers’ dream: Ms. Great American Consumer. And yet the advertisers, who determine nowadays who will get represented publicly and who will not, deny the existence of me and my kind absolutely”(Mairs 14). Mairs is greatly upset that disabled people are defined by their disabilities and, therefore, are underrepresented in public media. This might lead to one asking themselves, but why are they? And the answer, according to Mairs, is quite simple, “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of daily life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anybody’s life”(Mairs 14). Mairs concludes by pointing out how this effacement could have dangerous consequences for both disabled people and, as she called everyone else, TAPs (Temporarily Abled Persons) alike. Treating disabilities as an abnormal characteristic (as opposed to viewing them “as a normal characteristic, one that complicates but does not ruin human existence” (Mairs 15)) can cause one of these repercussions, as it makes the

Author of disability Nancy Mairs who’s a feminist and a cripple, has accomplished a lot in writing and teaching. Her remarkable personality shows in many of her essays especially in Disability which was first published in 1987 in the New York Times. In this essay, Nancy Mairs shows how disabled people are constantly excluded, especially from the media. By giving out facts and including her personal experiences, Mairs aims for making some changes regarding the relationship between the media and people with disabilities. Mairs thesis is shown implicitly in the first

Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson is an article about her experience visiting Princeton University to exchange views and challenge Peter Singer, a professor who strongly believes that all disabled people, like herself, are “better off” not been born at all. The article provides an insight into Johnson’s life as a disabled person. She takes the readers on a journey that explores both sides of her own and Singer’s contrasting beliefs. She protests the prevalent stigma and prejudice of disabled people and gives voice to this marginalized community. Johnson challenges stereotypes of disability, uses her a personal experience to better understand the world and help others, and attempts to directly address oppression by arguing against Professor Singer’s theory and assemble a group of diverse and like-minded people for social change.

Having the disease multiple sclerosis can affect ones' life tremendously. In the essay "On Being A Cripple" the author Nancy Mairs suffers from the disease and has a love/hate relationship with it. Socially, it appears that although Mairs has the disease she accepts it and does normal things like go on vacations with her family; personally, it's hard for her at times and she gets into a depressed state and wishes she didn't have the disease when she has a falling or an incident.

In the essay “Disability,” the author Nancy Mairs argues that the media portrays disabled people in an unjust manner. Mairs supports her claim by first appealing to the reader’s emotions, second by proving her credibility as a disabled person, and lastly by appealing to the reader’s sense of logic. Mair’s purpose is to prove that disabled people are just as normal as anyone else in order to persuade advertisers to represent the disabled on television, newspapers, commercials, advertisements, etc. Based on Mair’s informal tone and diction, she is writing for the common, intellectual audience who has the ability to make a difference in changing the views of the media and non-disabled people towards the disabled. Nancy Mairs introduces her essay

In Nancy Mairs' essay, “Disability” she emphasizes that able-bodied advertisers do not want disabled people to advertise their product. The advertisers claim they do not want to cause confusion as to whom the product is for. But Nancy Mairs believes that it is to protect able-bodied people from the thought of being

In the essay “Disability” the author Nanny Mairs, asserts that the media depicts disabled people in a negative limelight. She's supports her claim by first, appealing to the sympathies of the reader, second, demonstrating her credibility, and third, appealing to the audience's logic. Mairs’ purpose is to change the way the media portrays disabled people in the media in order to persuade advertisers to represent the disabled in a positive perception in advertising. Based on her diction Mairs is writing to the wise consumer and advertiser, especially those in a powerful position to change the views of disabled people in newspapers, television, and other sources of media.

The modern media and article have significantly improved in ensuring paralyzed people are portrayed as equal to people without disabilities, and the movie The Intouchables have shown paralyzed people to be strong and able just like people without disabilities live a normal life.

Mass Media plays a complex and dual role in both perpetuating and altering public perceptions of disability. Avenues in which we see public portrayals of intellectual, emotional, linguistic, age and physical impairments include television, radio, film, literature and various social media platforms. The utilization of media can either reinforce or challenge stereotypes that are widely accepted in western society. The layers of social strata within disability can be intersectional with gender, race, age and social class issues. This paper will examine attitudes about disability as a whole within the framework of North American society and media, as well as the meanings attached to the experience of being disabled.

With this in mind, my focus will now shift to some examples of how the media represents persons with disabilities. PWD will be categorized as high warmth, low competence on the stereotyped content model. This model deals with two ideas: warmth and competence. An individual who is in this group of high warmth and low competence is said to have the emotion pity directed at them by various sources like television, movies and in real-time interactions. The first major example is the PWD seen as a victim. One way of showcasing disabled people is through fundraisers with most people usually Hollywood starts pleading for money or donation of goods. In short, these features display a person who is non-productive to society and never one who has accomplishments and goals in life. The next one is the disabled individual is not capable of adjusting to their situation. They don’t fully understand their disability and therefore are filled with anger and self-pity. For example “on the television show Night Court a young man is asked by a lady with no legs. When he naturally turns her down on the premise of being busy, but then goes on to explain that her problem is her attitude not her legs. After all that little talk, she feels more confident in herself” (In text citation).

The mass media serves many purposes in today’s society. It is very informative, persuasive and entertaining, but it also helps to create stereotypes about a group of people. The media plays a big part on how people view and treat people with disabilities. We as a society do not understand people with disabilities concerns, wants and needs, so instead of understanding them we ignored them. What the media does, is distinguish people with disabilities with limited abilities and knowledge through different characters. People with disabilities are portrayed as heroes for doing something inspirational or achieving greatness because of their physical impairment. The majority of time they are being honored for basically being disable, not for genuinely

Yes this essay is still relevant in 2017 because we rarely witness any disabled people in television shows or movies. The most recent I remember seeing a disabled person on media is never as I can’t even ever recall if I

The short film, “Minority Effect”, explores what it would mean if able-bodiedness was not the norm, but instead if communities were populated with wheelchair users. Compared to popular media, this film used a non-disabled body to contrast to disabled bodies. Usually, disability is mobilized as a plot point to highlight the qualities of able-bodied people. They are never the protagonist and used as a means to reach a lesson. But what is the effect of minoritizing a majority group? Does it achieve awareness or does it just perpetuate the discrimination and oppression of marginalized groups? In “Minority Effect”, the reversal of roles is problematic in that it is counterproductive in that it still subscribes to common misrepresented

Discrimination towards disabled individuals is prevalent society today. In this paper I will be discussing various forms of representation of disability in the media. I did my research on the examples by locating an organization known as Stop Ableism, which gave links and sources to various tokenistic and ablist representations in the media. I made the decisions on which section the examples would go into first by deciding if they were ablist and tokenistic or not, then figuring out how severe the discrimination toward the disabled people the examples were. If they were ablist and tokenistic, but with an attempt at being respectful to the disabled community, then I would categorize that as The Bad. If the example was very tokenistic or discriminatory toward disabled people without regard towards the feelings or rights a disabled individual, then I would categorize the example in The Ugly section.

Stereotypes constantly accompany different groups of people. This is true of mentally handicapped people as well. Labels such as “slow”, “stupid”, “ignorant”, and even “dangerous” are some stereotypical values that are disrespectfully bestowed on mentally challenged people. (Lewis, 2006) The public is now able to view mentally handicapped conditions through the media. Ideas gained from viewing various forms of media coverage of handicapped persons can prove to be both positive and negative.