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2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

14. Disability and the Para-TV Communities of Reality Television

Author : Anita Biressi

Published in: Documentary and Disability

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Abstract

This chapter begins by reviewing the early marginalisation of disabled people in formats such as Big Brother and their subsequent visibility in shows such as Born This Way and The Dream House. In doing so, it offers new insights into the relationship between reality TV communities and what Biressi terms ‘para-TV communities’. In addition, focusing on the docusoap The Specials, it explores the political problems and possibilities inherent in reality TV communities that feature young people with intellectual disabilities. Here the author asks: ‘In what ways might reality TV be viewed as establishing ideal communities and how might these intersect with the community experiences of disabled people?’ Overall, this chapter develops the argument that critical readings of these formats should be worked through in the context of the political, economic and social realities, which constrain or enable disabled people in their everyday lives.

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previous chapter Interface Productions and Disability Programming for Channel 4: 1984–1986

next chapter Singing Altogether Now: Unsettling Images of Disability and Experimental Filmic Practices

In fact, in the most recent BB (2015), only two contestants were over the age of 30. See http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s149/big-brother/news/a646537/meet-the-big-brother-contestants–from-a-calvin-klein-model-to-glamorous-socialite-twins.html#~ppjNBeqX4ZJiDX(accessed 27 March 2017).

In 2009 the TV drama Castoffs (C4) nicely satirised both reality TV and the politics of casting via a six-part ‘mockumentary’ drama featuring disabled actors (see Klein 2011).

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See, for example, the Mandeville sisters, who address the growth of their ‘YouTube community’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYqsrfoTCro (accessed 27 March 2017). For a concise discussion of the concept of community in relation to digital social worlds, see Pink et al. (2016, pp. 105–107).

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Intellectual disability connotes both a diagnostic (medical) and social category (i.e. that disability is constructed and socially produced; Rapley 2004). The Specials participant Lewis is diagnosed with Williams Syndrome.

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Title: Disability and the Para-TV Communities of Reality Television
Author: Anita Biressi
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Book: Documentary and Disability
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59893-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-59894-3

Copyright Year: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59894-3_14