Disability Representation
Chanel 4's 'Meet the Superhumans' advert for the 2012 paralympics challenges old stereotypes about disabilities. Whereas before, stereotypes of disabilities included disabled people being self pitiers who are a burden on society, this advert shows them as being people who have overcome their disabilities and done great things; even referring to them as 'superhumans'. This advert shows how the representation of disabilities are evolving.
The hypodermic needle theory states that whatever message encoded by the producers is decoded in the preferred way by the audience. The message encoded in this advert is one where the producers are trying to show people who have disabilities are being just as capable as people who don't have disabilities. However, the primary goal for the advert is to encourage people to watch the Paralympics and not to just change media's representation of disabilities, but they have to do this by challenging the current representation. The theory says that people the audience's ideology about disabilities will change because audience wholly accepts anything the media says and they are directly influenced to the media. This theory suggests that every individual is a clean slate and the media ‘injects’ information into the individual by encoding messages in media texts. This the interns builds a person’s character and their individual’s ideology.
The advert shows some of the ways disabilities can be acquired, whether through trauma, or just being born with it. The shot showing that disabilities can be caused by war is particulary effective as it should create an emotional response from the audience as by the majority of people, going to war and fighting for your country is seen as noble. Furthermore, on a sidenote, this shot is also relatively important as it relates to the history of the Paralympics; the Paralymipics started in 1948 when Ludwig Guttmann planned and set up a sports competition involving two World War two veterans who obtained spinal injuries.
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