A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

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...one thing I do remember, when I was very, very small was that the RNIB made a
video with Peter White and a young kid… it was an awareness-raising film about …
you know … about “This is what blind people are like and look, they can go to
mainstream schools and they can do …” …but, at that time, to me it was mind-
blowing and I remember my family watching this a lot and showing this video to
different people and showing it to particularly my grandparents and other people
who perhaps had issues with me, as a way of kind of justifying my existence and
saying “Look you know, this is … this is living proof that visually-impaired people
can be normal…” (l.2:168ff.)
Roshni‟s second statement is about a TV programme she had watched shortly before our
second interview:
I think the worst one I‟ve seen, to date, was actually on very recently… erm … and
it was made about … erm … this college down south…and it was showing the
young … erm … young visually-impaired… students there … erm … and how, you
know... “Isn‟t it amazing that young blind people can also get drunk and have
boyfriends and girlfriends and … have sex and, you wouldn‟t think so but, hey …
they do…” …erm … and I thought it was really, really sad to see that … that was
last year … to see that in 2007 when, you know, we all think that we‟ve made these
great strides forward and, you know, the radio‟s improved, to a certain degree and
when you see things like that, I just think… you know… you realize how much is
left undone … erm … and how little understanding still exists in some spheres …
erm … (l.2:779ff.)
I find the likelihood interesting that this recent programme would have been regarded by
many viewers as a positive depiction of young blind people. Roshni, however, does not
consider it this way, for she regards it as just a re-heated version of the eighties video. It is
the same narrative and the same story. The location of the blind students within the
segregated setting of a residential college would have been taken as unproblematic. Roshni‟s
point is that if progress has really been made, why is there the need still to point out the
normality of blind people? If disabled people were really included in everyday life and
within the media then their normality would not have to continually be drawn attention to in
TV programmes. Directing TV cameras towards disabled people in order to educate and
inform about their normality serves only to confirm their abnormality.