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Disabled Identity EssayThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate how, from a historical perspective, media representation has impacted on the lives of mountain with disabilities, with a focus on seventh cranial nerve spot. A comparison mingled with the hurt impairment and disenable will clearly secern a struggle surrounded by the concepts in terms of the medical exam and loving models of check. The paper will continue by analysing how damaging media imagery has served to diminish the lives of the great unwashed with facial disfigurement and ultimately been responsible for creating a disenable identity. Furthermore, the paper will highlight the shift from the medical model to a social model of baulk, while taking into account the views and perceptions of groups of people with disabilities. It is important to consider the difference between the terms impairment and disabled. Mason (2000) describes impairment as a characteristic, feature or attribute within an indivi dual which is long term and may affect an individuals appearance or affect the functioning of that individuals mind or body, because of, or regardless of partnership.Mason further suggests that disabled people argon those with impairments who atomic number 18 disabled by barriers in society. This includes people with animal(prenominal) impairments, people with visual impairments, people with learning difficulties and those who have experienced mental nausea. The two terms impairment and disabled signal a difference between the concepts, in terms of the medical and social models of disability. According to Clough and Corbett (2000) the medical model points to practices which call on pathology.The model focuses on sickness, rather than health and reactive measures instead of preventative measures. Hence, under the medical model, disabled people atomic number 18 defined by their impairment, illness or medical condition. Open University (2006) suggest that the medical model promote s the view of a disabled person as dependent, needing to be cured or c bed for. It justifies the direction in which disabled people ar excluded from society. Brainhe (2010) suggests that the social model is a concept which recognises that some individuals have impairments which tidy sum affect their ability to function in society.However, it is society that causes the individual to wrench disabled. According to Shakespear (1996) Identity is viewed by the medical model cast outly as the focus in relation to disability is in general based on adjusting, mourning and coming to terms with loss. Furthermore, identity is about belonging, what you have in common with others and how you differ from others. Conversely, the social model focuses on conquering within society and calls for change, empowering and promoting a different self-understanding.According to Changing Faces (2008) The word disfigurement is utilise to describe the aesthetic effects of a hybridization, rash, scar or skin graft on a persons skin or an asymmetry or paralysis to their face or body. Furthermore, disfigurement send word affect anyone in peasanthood or adulthood, from any ethnic group, whether it is the result of an accident, trauma, violent attack, caused by a disease such as cancer or the by and bymath of a surgical procedure. Moreover, 112,000 young people in the United Kingdom have a significant facial disfigurement.Safran (1998) suggests that as a gloss of mass media consumers, messages from newspapers and television impact on public attitudes towards individuals with disabilities and help shape social attitudes, by the provision of information about the nature of exceptionalities. Furthermore, encouraging social attitudes and acceptance are critical to inclusion for successful community and educational integration. Research by Bogdan (1988) indicated that during the nineteenth and twentieth century, media representation reflected the medical model of disability.Furthermore , people with disabilities have been used for entertainment and profit as human oddities and freaks for hundreds of years. Bogdan (1988) refers to two different styles of representation. The exotic mode presented the performer in a style that would good luck charm to the spectators interest in the culturally strange, the primitive, the exotic. Whereas in the Aggrandized mode of presentation, the emphasis was that despite condition, the performer was an upstanding, high status person.At the tip over of the nineteenth century, audiences turned away from Freak shows, for reasons of exploitation. This resulted in isolation for the performer from society and the economy. Consequently, most performers spent the rest of their lives in institutions. Bogdan (1988, pg. 65) concluded Freak shows disappeared because the performers had become curiosities of pathology and the scientific world. stigmatizing performers with a link to deviance. This stigma was such that visibility produced fear a nd repulsion and led to segregation and invisibility.According to Safran (1998) early film portrayal used disabilities to heighten the effect of slapstick comedies and melodramas, and frequently presented stereotypes of individual as victim or villain. Since 1904, wheelchairs presented a wide range of images including humor, mephistophelean, helplessness and confinement. After 1929, screenplays depicted physical disabilities. The horror film Frankenstein adapted various disabling characteristics, including motor difficulties facial disfigurement to provoke fear (Longmore,1985).The portrayal of physical disabilities during the late 1940s was handled with greater sensitivity, spearheaded by images of returning veterans overcoming obstacles. Films such as The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946 and The Men (1950) focused appropriately on the shock of becoming disabled and accurately portrayed the rehabilitation process. During the civil rights era in the 1960s, people with physical impair ments appeared in the mainstream, facing obstacles to live independently and by the late 1980s, more naturalistic portrayals evolved e. g.Born on the Fourth of July (1989) highlighting the trauma of coping with paralysis. In more recent years, representation of disability has been portrayed using positive images in films including My Left Foot and Gaby A True Story (1987). However, negative themes of villainous disability continued e. g. The Fugitive (1993) which included Captain Hook imagery. According to Byrd (1989) between 1986 and 1988, sixty seven people with disabilities were portrayed in 53 of 302 films (17. 5%). More than half were victimised and less than one in five were heroes.Zola (1985) set forth the media as metaphorical, representing disabled people as a menace to society and victims. Bogdan et al in Safran (1998) examined the symbolism of disabilities in horror films and emphasized that portrayal of scarred, misshapen and physically handicapped monsters in film, le ad to a fear of people with disabilities. Furthermore, this could manifest as prejudice and unintentional social isolation. Films such as The hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and Peter Pan (1953) exploit disabilities to create fear in the viewers as a consequence of negative imagery.Longmore (1985) examined a variety of negative themes and images across a range of films and concluded that villainous and evil characteristics are reflected in three different stereotypes disabilities as punishment for evil, persons with disabilities as embittered by their fate, and persons with disabilities resenting able individuals whom they wish to destroy. According to Whittington-Walsh (2002) in 1932, Tod Br bearing made a film called Freaks which demonstrated a visual display of normalcy of the characters, showcased by actors who were physically or mentally disabled.The film attempted to project the real oppression they experienced from socially created attitudes an d stigmas. However, it was a box office disaster and banned in England for 40 years. Critics argued that it perpetuated the stereotypical image of people with disabilities as psychotic killers, seeking revenge for their disempowerment. Whittington-Walsh (2002) suggested that what truly offends and shocks audiences is not only the visibility of the actors with disabilities, but the fact that the actors had no shame in showcasing their diversity.Furthermore, it is within the criticism of Freaks where institutional rejection of human diversity is found, not in the images Brown showcased. Whittington-Walsh (2002) refers to the term idiot savant which has been linked with disability and success. This image is used by the film industry as the norm for disability representation. Charlton (1998) in Whittington-Walsh (2002) argues that if a person with a disability is successful, they are seen to be brave or special. Films including Forest Gump, My Left Foot and Rain Man portray characters w ith disabilities as savants.It is argued by Charlton (1998) in Whittington-Walsh that a constant portrayal of characters as savants serves to diminish the abilities and lives of people with disabilities. Furthermore, the films discussed also include themes of isolation and pathology, which relates to the idea of a cure, as evident through a medical model way of thinking, which ultimately links disability with illness. Wardle et al (no date) presented findings which showed that broadcasters often fall into stereotypical portrayals of disfigurement, for example as reclusive, devious or villainous characters.Factual coverage can also often be overly medicalised with documentaries presenting them as quirks of nature, abnormal or in need of surgery. Furthermore, people with facial disfigurement are rarely presumption a voice and are often positioned as the object of a voyeuristic gaze. Schroeder (1998) notes, to gaze implies more than to look at it signifies a psychological relationshi p of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze (Schroeder, 1998).Wardle et al(no date) suggests that issues such as stigma are generally neglected for the sake of programmes which focus on unusual or extraordinary disfigurements, in order to attract high viewing figures. Goffman (1968) describes stigma as a physical or social attribute or mark that devalues a persons social identity which consequently disqualifies them from complete social acceptance. Furthermore, stigmatized groups include ethnic minorities, the physically handicapped and the facially disfigured.Moreover, although there are face to face differences between the groups, there is a common thread relating to obstacles, prejudice and discrimination. It is evident through research conducted by Wardle et al (no date) that recent understandings of disability have shifted to the social model largely due to disability rights movement. This movement was the start of developmental changes within society a nd to further support disabled people to gain equal social status and to eliminate oppression and discrimination.In addition, The Disability Discrimination Act emerged. Disability activists acknowledge difference but identify the problem as societies who are unable to adapt in order to accommodate difference, rather than the individual who has the disability. The research concluded that both audiences with and without disfigurement precious more every day, informed and balanced coverage. In interview, Margaret, 58, revealed that she had been disfigured for 54 years, but had never seen or read anything which portrays a positive image of a disfigured woman. Wardle, et al,no date) Norden et al (2007) suggests that in television and film there is evidence that representation is gradually undergoing a process of change which reflects social change.However, according to Wardle et al (no date) while the traditional side show context largely died out in the nineteenth century, the impulse t o look/curiosity and fascination and the spectacle of disabled bodies are still evident in modern media coverage. Cumberbatch and Negrine (1992). carried out a study which highlighted that real programming did represent disabled people and 16% of all factual programmes included disabled people.Lucas (2003) who was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called Cherubism discusses her appearance on a television programme called What Are You Staring At? This is a BBC documentary on the subject of facial disfigurement. She reflects on her personal decision not to have plastic surgery and why she felt it important that society should consider prejudice towards people with disfigurement, rather than just concentrating on trying to fix or cure disfigured faces. To put it simply, my attitude was Yeah, lets look at the medical options and if people want surgery, thats fine.But lets also look at building up their self-esteem. Wouldnt it be nice if we also worked at devising a more tolerant society too? Lucas (2003) Lucas (2003) suggested that it is not her face that is the problem, but peoples prejudices. Furthermore she feels that we live in a society that says physical difference is bad and beauty is good. But this has resulted in disfigured and disabled people being treated like second class citizens because their bodies are different and they are seen as less than human.Moreover, societal ideals that cause us to question self image are nothing more than learned traditions and customs passed down through generations. According to Erin (2005) in KASA( 2012) who suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome typical stereotypes that characters in the media fulfill and have been fulfilling for decades on end, disabled innocence (Tiny Tim), disabled inspiration (Helen Keller), and disabled evil (Captain Hook). Furthermore, unfortunately still today, few movies seem to contain the element of disability at the end.The movie usually concludes with the character with being cured or dying, principal the viewer to the assumption that life with a disability can in no way be rewarding or fulfilling. Moreover, most media representation in unrealistic in relation to portrayal of life with a disability. Falsehoods regarding disabilities are spoon fed to society today, only to be regurgitated as ridiculous pressures on individuals with disabilities to conform to a misleading societal standard of beauty So just how has over a century of media lies and scattered truths affected us as disabled individuals?Is our self perception warped and self esteem damaged as a result of false images and stereotypes? (Erin, 2005 in KASA, 2012) McEachran (2012) who has a facial disfigurement (non malignant growth on one side of his face) reflects on a recent episode of Top Gear, where TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson compared the size of a Nipponese car to people with growths on their faces mimicking Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man) in the process You know sometimes you meet someone a nd they have a growth on their face and it is big than their face one of those really ugly things.McEachran (2012) strongly believes that the crass remarks from Clarkson has reignited the stereotypes and phenotypes that have been socially and culturally constructed around the fallacy that there is a difference between a figured face (whatever that means) and a disfigured face. Furthermore, TV and film are partly responsible for making disfigurements be seen as something unreached and not aesthetic to look at. Pearson (2012) was born with Neurofibromatosis. A rare condition that caused benign growths to grow on his head and face). He recently took part in the channel 4 programme Beauty and the Beast Ugly Face of Prejudice, in order to convince people to see beyond the outside(prenominal) and judge others by their characters rather than their appearance. This paper has highlighted that representations of disfigurement in the media have changed dramatically over the past three centur ies and consequently, has been responsible for some change in relation to societal attitudes.Television has been responsible for making the invisible, visible, as evidenced through more recent programmes, where people with facial disfigurements have been given the prospect to give an insight into their lives and ultimately portray a more positive identity, while attempting to break down negative, stereotypical perceptions. Reflection In my early childhood, I remember becoming friends with a girl, Emma, whose face and body was predominately covered with red/purple marking. She walked with a visible limb and had a curled and deformed hand.I innocently asked why she had these differences and she told me that they were just birth marks and that I couldnt catch them by being her friend. Our friendship continued for many years and after that point, I never thought about her as different and accepted her for who she was, my lovely friend. I now realise that this perception was through a c hilds eyes because as a young woman my attitude changed. I began to experience a deep sense of pity for people with disabilities, specially in relation to facial disfigurement and this was prevalent prior to completing the module.I feel that this pity may be a result of my own insecurities, and lack of confidence, as well as the realization that I dont believe I would have the coping strategies to deal with a facial disfigurement. Furthermore, I have been drawn in by media portrayal of what beauty looks like. Throughout the module, my perceptions have completely changed after listening to the experiences of people with facial disfigurement. I now consider that beauty comes from within and having a facial disfigurement should not have negative implications.I agree with Lucas (2003) that learned traditions and customs are passed down through generations. Consequently, educating children from a young age about impairments could have a profound impact on the way people with impairments are perceived in the future. I believe that with knowledge and understanding comes power, resulting in a more positive approach to disability, achievable through education and as a result passed on to other generations, ultimately challenging the term disabled identity.