Part of stereotyping is the attitude that all members of a particular group are the same, or else fall into a very small number of types. This is particularly true in the few cases where persons with a disability appear in media. disabled “individuals are viewed as the objects of pity and depicted as having the same attributes and characteristics no matter what the disability may be.” “disabled people, when they feature at all, continue to be all too often portrayed as either remarkable and heroic, or dependent victims.” Not only are people with disabilities stereotyped, the full range of disabilities is not reflected in media portrayals. Lynne Roper of Stirling Media Research Institute, in her article “Disability in Media,” notes that “wheelchairs tend to predominate… since they are an iconic sign of disability. Most actors playing disabled characters are, however, not disabled. The wheelchair allows the character to be obviously disabled, whilst still looking ‘normal’, and does not therefore present any major challenges for audience identification.”
http://media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/persons_with_disabilities/disabilities_portrayals.cfm
Disability is often represented in one of the following stereotypical ways; as a victim, as a hero, or as a 'normal' person.
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