How People with Disabilities are Treated
If you look into society, you will notice that people treat those with mental and physical disabilities differently. They either treat them with kindness like everyone else and look beyond their disability, or they can be cruel and make fun of people with disabilities because they don’t act or look like everyone else, which is wrong. People with disabilities deserve to be treated like everyone else.
Need for Awareness
It is important to highlight people with disabilities to spread awareness. It will cause us to think about how they are different so that we can really understand what they are going through and be aware of how we treat them. The popular musical comedy-drama television show Glee that came out on May 19th, 2009 contains two actors, one with down syndrome and one who is physically disabled.
Becky Jackson’s Condition
The first actor named, Lauren Potter, plays Becky Jackson in the show. Lauren Potter has down syndrome in real life. Down syndrome is a condition where a person has an extra chromosome. In result this causes them to have an intellectual disability that can affect their learning, language, and problem-solving skills. This can also cause them to have a change in physical features such as a flattened facial structure, almond shaped eyes that slants up, and they tend to be shorter due to their muscle tone. Lastly, they tend to develop at a slightly slower pace than others.
Kindness Shown Toward Becky Jackson: Glee
In the show, Becky is a friend of Sue Sylvester in the show who is first a cheer coach then turns into the principal of Mikinley High School, which is where these kids go to school. Becky Jackson is a cheerleader, and she is shown as a powerful woman that is capable of so many things. She is super energetic and funny and very lovable when she wants to be. All the other students are extremely nice to her, and she is accepted for who she is. Becky voices her condition to her boyfriend in season 6 and he accepts her for her which is amazing because her boyfriend does not have a disability. I think this is super enlightening because it shows other people with disabilities that you can have anything in life and to not be defined by your disabilities.
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Troubles Gone Through by Artie Abrams: Glee
The second actor on the show named Kevin McHale plays Artie Abrams in the show. Artie got into a car accident when he was 8 years old and was forced to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life due to a spinal cord injury that made him paralyzed from the waist down. In the show Artie struggles with his disability a lot. Students at the school made fun of him and would call him names. They would push him around and make him feel like he was different then everyone else. Students would throw a slushie in his face in the hallways. The only kids that accepted him at the school were his friends in glee club.
He has trouble getting around the school and asks to put a ramp on campus so he can easily get around without having assistance. I find his story to have a sad start because of how is treated especially going through high school while figuring out who he is as a person. No one understands what he must go through. People don’t consider how hard people have to work to get around in a wheelchair. Everyone brushes it off like it is nothing.
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Artie endured other troubles being in a wheelchair like in the 5th season he moves to New York with some friends after high school. Being in New York and not having a personal driver Artie had to take the subway around the City. Being in a wheelchair alone in a big city can be dangerous and scary. During one of the scenes a man comes by in the subway station and steals his backpack. His backpack had his wallet and computer in it. Obviously, there was nothing he could do because of his disability. It really makes me feel sympathetic towards people with physical disabilities because being paralyzed puts them at risk for so many reasons. The fact that someone would do such a cruel thing to someone with a disability is wrong.
Wrongfully Treating People with Disabilities
These examples show both the right and wrong way to treat people with disabilities. It is important to represent both because they go through both kinds of experiences. People that don’t treat them with respect usually treat them this way for multiple reasons. One reason could be that they just are scared because they don’t understand them. They use it as a guard because they want to cover up the real reason why they bully them. It is their lack knowledge that makes them act this way. Another reason is they could just be bullies and don’t want to see them the same as everyone else.
Importance of Representation in Television
Having people with disabilities in television shows will cause awareness for people with their conditions and make sure they have equal representation as everyone else. Being able to understand what they are going through will hopefully open opportunities for them in the society. They will have more accessibility to better education and learning experiences. They will have more opportunities in the work force and building a future for themselves. It will also get us thinking more about how to help them with making a safer and more loving environment for them to live their lives to the fullest. Hopefully by seeing more shows with people with disabilities people will treat everyone with disabilities how people treat Becky Jackson in Glee and not like Artie Abrams. Source used: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome.html