Inspirational Porn

By Tiffany Santiago 

 What is inspiration porn you are probably asking yourself? Well, I can almost guarantee that you’ve seen some form of it. Inspiration porn is the use of disabled people to make abled-bodied people feel inspired or as Stella Young mentioned in her Ted talk it is “the objectification of disabled people for the benefit of non-disabled people.”(Stella Young).

Two non-disabled people. Non-disabled taller person with smaller person facing a disabled person in a wheelchair. Non-disabled taller person saying "I'm happy that my life isn't as bad as theirs " and "see barrier isn't a thing. You can't have excuse"

 

Morgan Leahy gives a great example of this in her chapter “Stop Sharing those feel-good cochlear implant videos”(Lennard 65). During this chapter, the author describes a video where a cute baby is lying in his mother’s arms and the doctor turns the baby’s cochlear implant on, the mother says the baby’s name, and the baby smiles so wide that his pacifier falls out of his mouth. As you can imagine the comments are gleaming with comments such as “science be praised”, and “I cry every time I watch this” which comes off as ableist and tasteless, and here is why.

picture of Stella Young during her TED talk

 

These “feel good” videos are inspiration porn and they do not accurately portray the reality of cochlear implants. Cochlear implants require years of hard work and therapy. It is not as easy as the flip of a button. In addition, new sounds from a cochlear impact can be and often are difficult to comprehend and overwhelming. Therefore, reactions are not always as happy as these videos make them seem but of course, they won’t show negative reactions. Morgan Leahy goes on to quote a comment that stated, “this is a miracle cure!” but, cochlear implants are far from miracles they cost a minimum of $30,000. In addition, this comment is wrong as it is viewing this video as someone with a disability being “cured”which amounts to saying “your existence is impaired and diminished and needs to be fixed for you to have a full life”(Lennard 66)

Stella Young was a disability rights activist among many things. In her TED talk, Stella Young talked about a personal experience she had with one of her students who asked her when she will start her speech. Confused she asked what speech and the student replied “you know, like, your motivational speaking. You know, when people in wheelchairs come to school, they usually say like inspirational stuff?” she then realized that the student viewed disabled people as inspiration not, as real people. He could not wrap his head around Young being his teacher and not a disabled person there to inspire able–bodied people. These examples show how able-bodied people view disabled people. As Stella Young states in her ted talk the world should not view disabilities as the exception but the norm and the world needs to stop having such low expectations of disabled people . Instead the world should value genuine achievement for disabled people.

Work Cited

https://www.ted.com/speakers/stella_young

Davis,Lennard.Beginning with disability : a primer.Routledge, New York, NY,2018

https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much?language=se