Inspiration Porn 101

By: Rebecca Monteleone

Something has been needling the back of my  brain pretty consistently the last few days. Recently, I came across several articles about McDonald’s 2015 Super Bowl ad (which can be seen here). The campaign features dozens of unsuspecting customers who, when attempting to pay for their purchases, are instead directed to do something entirely uncomfortable, like call their mother or hug their child (DANCE, PUPPET!). I have watched the ad, which is as rife with awkward embraces as one might expect, and was not overly impressed. The reason that it kept popping up on my radar, however, is that it is being continually featured in the disability publications I frequent. One of the customers included (and I use that term very loosely, as she has less than 2 seconds of screen time), is a young girl with Down Syndrome. If the articles I've seen are any indication, this image holds a lot of weight. This girl, who is only featured for a moment (as in, blink and you’ll miss it) is “front and center," and is helping people "truly see the personality and spirit of people with Down syndrome…and realize their intrinsic beauty” (Source and source).  

Screenshot found HERE

Wait, what?

Forgetting the incredibly overreaching generalization of people with Down Syndrome in that last statement, the child is not an actress. She, as far as I've been able to ascertain, has not been compensated for her appearance.  A spokesperson for McDonald’s has been quoted as saying that the customers were not informed they were being filmed, and were chosen at random. She is a child. Who went to McDonald’s.

And that is the entire story.

Her brother, also featured in the commercial, has not been lauded in handfuls of clickbait articles for ordering a Happy Meal or hugging his father. The other participants in the commercial have not been addressed by full name nor have their homes been contacted by national media outlets. So what is the difference? (Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you).

This is a phenomenon known colloquially to disability advocates as “inspiration porn.” More academically, it might fall under what Rosemarie Garland-Thomson refers to as “The Politics of Staring.” Inspiration porn, or I.P. as those of us who don’t want to type full words are now referring to it, is essentially the use of a disabled body as a vessel to send a message to individuals without disabilities. My language is very deliberate here. Inspiration porn has nothing to do with the person featured, and everything to do with the audience.

The basic construction of an I.P. story is as follows:

1. Here's a person, doing a thing.
2. They're different from you!
3. FEELINGS!

These are the types of stories and images that tend to catch fire on the internet. I see at least half a dozen a week, on UpWorthy, on Facebook, shared with me in emails from well-meaning friends. I’d like to share some examples with you now.

This story, which I found through the National Down Syndrome Society’s social media page, features a young high schooler playing basketball. The article very pointedly states that the player’s four points scored wouldn't “garner so much as a second look” in most sports articles. And yet, the story exists, and is garnering national attention. Note how “Emily Kendall isn't most players.

[DRAMATIC PARAGRAPH BREAK] 

Emily, a 19-year-old senior, has Down Syndrome.”

*GASP! AND SHE PLAYS HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS?! UNBELIEVABLE!*

Please excuse my heavy sarcasm, but this story is about a high schooler who plays basketball. Full stop. She is doing an activity that, if done by a neurotypical individual, would not achieve local attention, let alone viral status. And therein lies the problem.

The fact that she “doesn'tlet Down Syndrome dictate life” implies that others do, according to this author, and the results are less than “inspirational”. What does that sentence even mean, though? It suggests that Down Syndrome (and disability in general)  is this big, scary baddie living inside of otherwise “normal” people who've just got to keep fighting so they can do inspirational things like…play high school basketball. That phrase reinforces the paradigm that disability is this nasty, insidious thing that some people have to constantly struggle with. And thank goodness Emily’s fighting the good fight against Down Syndrome, amirite? By intrinsically separating disability from personhood, I.P. is invalidating the disabled identity. More on that later!

Another example: 

This picture does not even include a story, which reaffirms the point that the subject of the inspiration porn is not the significant component of the subject-audience interaction. Here, a man with a very visual physical disability (the visual element being vital, as no context is given as to who he is or what he does), is depicted in a familiar before-after series of photos. He is rather unkempt in the first photo, with a sheet crookedly hanging behind him. The second photo—bam! Dude is ripped! It is clearly a professional photo, likely one from a body-building expo or competition. The tagline? “Excuses. Let’s hear yours again.”

“Yeah, able-bodied people! Get off your asses and become a body-builder! This guy, whose name, opinions, and training methods have been completely scrubbed off of  the internet, did it! And he’s clearly worse off than you. HE ONLY HAS ONE LEG. Obviously life is harder for him than it’ll ever be for you, you two-legged couch potato!”

-subtext (presumably). 

As Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg so eloquently states, “the disabled body has become a vehicle for inspiring others—nothing more.”

This last one is my absolute favourite (she says, literally being crushed under the weight of her own sarcasm):

The photo, a painfully overworked stock photo of a wheelchair user with her arms flung wide in front of the aquamarine sea. The text? “Never ignore somebody with a disability, you don’t realize how much they can inspire you! Share if you agree!”

Alright, so what you’re saying, Anonymous Internet Photo Creator, is that I should not ignore people with disabilities because…wait, because I’m going to get something out of it? Not because they’re human beings? Not because systematically ignoring an entire population of people for no discernible reason is a f**ked up thing to do? But because I might get a mighty heaping pile of the Feel-Goods if I acknowledge another human being? I’m sold!   

“The pathetic, the impotent, and the suffering confirmed Victorian bourgeoisie by arousing their finest sentiments,” Rosemarie Garland-Thomson writes about the politics of staring, and this overly sentimental attitude has long out-lived the Victorian era. It is alive and well on the results page of a Google Image search, that is assured. 

Eeeeech.

 People with disabilities are doing amazing, ground-breaking, (dare I say it?) inspirational work daily, but that is not the fodder of inspiration porn. “Girl goes to McDonald’s” is not a news story until you qualify the girl. “Teen plays basketball” would lose a young journalist their job without the detail of disability. The addition of that detail, however, often eliminates any space for personhood.

“For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We are not real people. We are there to inspire.” (Stella Young).

The rhetoric of these types of stories and images relegate individuals who identify as disabled to mere spectacle. The message being sent with I.P. is that people with disabilities exist to make you feel something.

Slow your roll, champ, this ain’t about you.

Representation in popular culture is an essential piece of the disability rights movement, and I certainly don’t want to downplay its importance, but the difference between representation and spectacle is the intended audience. Inspiration has become an extremely problematic word in disability rights, and while it may seem like I am arguing semantics (which, I suppose I am), the words we use define our lives. The social construction of identity—both our own and others—irrevocably impacts how we encounter the world. Rhetoric matters, and the rhetoric that surrounds inspiration porn is one that will continue to invalidate the experience and identity of its subjects.

One more Stella Young quote to close (last one, I promise): "I've been approached by strangers wanting to tell me that they think I’m brave or inspirational, and this was long before my work had any kind of public profile, They were just congratulating me for managing to get up in the morning and remember my own name. And that’s objectifying.”

*A note on this blog: This is the first post of what I am hoping to be a semi-regular blog regarding all things disability.  I am pleased to meet you. I am a sociologist and a disability advocate who likes complaining about things and hyperbole. So, ya know, look out for that.