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

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...it seems to me that documentary making has moved more towards an
individualistic focus and away from an issue focus… and obviously, from the point
of view of disability rights it‟s a lot harder to talk about these issues on an
individualistic basis… but if you‟re focussing on an issue then you‟ll interview
various people and get a number of different viewpoints… but you‟re getting that
less and less… you‟re not getting documentaries where they juxtapose different
perspectives, are you… you‟re just getting one person saying this is my life… this is
what I do… (l.2:637ff.)
While it is possible to regard any increasing media representation of disabled people as
signifying progress and an increasingly inclusive society, my own argument is that this can
be rather seen as part of a shifting focus of governance, one which aims to hold individuals
more accountable by making them increasingly responsible for their own behaviour.
Programmes directing the public gaze at people with impairments are part of a myriad of
new formats depicting „the irregularities and incivilities of everyday life to enable us to pass
judgement on fellow citizens‟ (Palmer, 2003:14). They need to be considered alongside
programmes about dodgy builders, recalcitrant drivers, unpleasant airline travellers; or about
the interpersonal conflicts between residents ensconced together in a house or celebrities
stuck in a jungle for several weeks. Seeing squabbling disabled people on Reality TV
programmes such as Beyond Boundaries and Britain‟s Missing Model seems less to do with
valuing diversity than with a combination of sentimentality with what Richard Hoggart calls
„Ooh-ah‟ appeal: „a mixture of fear, cruelty and collective self-righteousness‟ (Hoggart,
2005:55).
Reality TV
Quicksands, predatory big game, unforgiving desert, oppressive heat, swamps and
the extreme white waters of the African wilderness – as well as the usual poisonous
snakes and insects - will be faced by an intrepid team of disabled people in the
second series of Beyond Boundaries... (BBC, 2005: unpaged).
Speaking as someone selected for interviews to be a member of the team of disabled people
for the second series of the BBC2 reality documentary Beyond Boundaries, Sarah says:
I think it‟s really good „cos its allowing people insight into some of the issues... but
then, other people say I find it really patronising... so it goes back to the bit about,
you‟re never gonna please everyone... cos it depends on how you ... like ... how