"The history of the portrayal of disabled people is the history of oppressive and negative representation. This has meant that disabled people have been presented as socially flawed able-bodied people, not as disabled people with their own identities". (David Hevey, March 25, 1992)

Disabling stereotypes which medicalise, patronise, and dehumanise disabled persons and which are found in popular culture form the bedrock on which the attitudes towards, assumptions about and expectations of disabled people are based.

The aim may be good and it has to be said that a number of presenters of local programmes have tried to portray disabled persons in a more positive way. Also, as a disabled person, I can say from personal experience that local journalists are usually courteous and kind.

However, one has to understand that we need to provide the kind of information and imagery that facilitates the meaningful inclusion of all disabled persons into the mainstream economic and social life of the community. Failure to adopt such an approach has important implications for both disabled people and society as a whole.

While the media alone cannot be held responsible for this situation, the media's impact on social perceptions cannot be underestimated. The misrepresentation of disability in charity advertising, especially at this time of year, is of particular concern. This is because many images used by charity advertisers are derived mainly from representations of disabled persons in other cultural forms, and the negative impact of charity advertising can only be fully appreciated when viewed alongside these depictions.

Commonly recurring stereotype portrayals of disabled persons can be found in different media and include the disabled person as pitiable and pathetic, as a super cripple or as a burden. For example, the latter is connected with the view that disabled persons are helpless and must be 'cared' for by non-disabled people.

This repetition of the medical approach to impairment also helps to divert public attention from the social factors that cause disability. Furthermore the messages conveyed by the fear generated by the inaccurate suggestion that living with impairment is a life-shattering experience can effectively rob disabled individuals of the self-confidence needed to overcome discrimination.

By playing on the public's ignorance of disability these portrayals also perpetuate the notion that disabled people have something 'wrong' with them and so maintain the social barriers between disabled and non-disabled persons. In short, rather than alleviate disabled people's dependence these depictions help to maintain it.

What we want to see are positive images of disabled people living their lives like other people: in the mainstream and with an appropriate level of support.

What we don't want to see are:

* black and white footage of us (our lives are not colourless and dull);

* slow-motion effects (we live our lives at the same pace as everyone else, indeed some of us are more active than some so-called 'non-disabled' people);

* no heart-breaking music, like plaintive violins, and music scores from films like Schindler's List and The Piano (our lives are not one endless tragedy)

* no more talks of miracles and cures (we're not living every day in the hope of becoming 'normal'... it would be nice, but we have the strength and determination to live our lives as we are... and to be happy);

* no more single-minded focus on disabled people's problems... other groups have problems too, so let the media portray others and not just disabled people, especially disabled children.

After all, one has to realise that charity based on pity can disappear from one day to the next. It makes you dependent on the whims of the person dispensing it. The issue of rights and equality is more lasting.

Charity campaigns frequently focus on short-term goals to the detriment of long-term benefits. People may dig deeply into their pockets because they are moved by images of children in wheelchairs, tearful parents and so on, but in the long term the image of helplessness sticks in the public's mind and today's disabled child grows into tomorrow's young disabled adult who is denied job opportunities because they are perceived as helpless basket cases. Irresponsible charitable campaigns have too often robbed us, of our dignity and our independence.

In Malta, awareness about equal rights for disabled persons has increased and we hope will intensify concern over cultural misrepresentations of disability among disabled persons, organisations for disabled persons and also among all of society.

Anti-discrimination legislation in civilised countries, including Malta, creates a level playing field not based on privileges, but on human rights. Such legislation recognises the need for positive and meaningful change - pushing away from the care, cure and charity models of assistance, to a model of empowerment, dignity, self-respect and self-determination.

The Maltese public is justly proud of its reputation for big-heartedness. Year after year, we see increasing amounts of money being given for deserving causes, especially over the Christmas season. We insist that fund-raising can, and should be, linked to a respect for our human dignity and aspirations. No matter what some may contend, the ends do not justify the means.

We don't want to seem ungrateful and we don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. In fact, we encourage the Maltese to be as generous as they have always been - if possible, more so. I am certain that all of us Maltese disabled people and our families join the public in pledging our solidarity to all fund-raising campaigns which do more than merely profess good intentions, but put the same good intentions into practice by portraying us as we really are: proud, ordinary people living under extraordinary circumstances.

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