Visibility, empathy and derision: Popular television representations of disability

Abstract

This article is concerned to bring together the traditions of the textual and institutional study of television and disability studies in order to investigate the intersections of discourses of disability and television comedy. It will consider the specific qualities of the representations of impaired and disabled characters within the popular British sketch show Little Britain. The focus will be on the polysemic, ambiguous and contradictory character of the textual representations of disability and impairment. Particular attention will be paid to the programmes celebration of the abject qualities of the visual iconography which is at times contradicted by the potential to empathise with the characters through narrative and comedic point of view. This analysis will be contextualised within a brief consideration of recent theorisations of ‘disgust’ as an ideological force. These theories will be used to examine the ways in which it may be argued disgust can work to diffuse or reinforce the critical potential of representations of disability.