So! Let’s talk disability representation and this GoogleDoodle. Like why are there animals, not people? Why do we sanitize the disability experience, making it cute (because yes horse in a curling sled is cute) instead of giving realistic drawings of, you know, the actual disabled athletes we will be seeing over the next week at the Winter Paralympics? SO much to unpack about how, regardless of what is proclaimed, disabled bodies are still minimized, still hidden in favor of cute animals.
It’s like this morning during the opening ceremony, when the International Paralympic Committee president spoke passionately about “not being defined by disability, but it being part of you” – how are you not defined by a seminal chance, thing, genetic fluke? And why is being defined by something that has every right to define you a bad thing? When we speak of things such as representation, this is what we have to unpack.
As you can see, disability sports and the representation of disabled athletes interests me greatly, as a writer and amateur disabled athlete. Such opportunity for change, and also for disability representation pitfalls.
Natalie Abbott 