Stella’s ‘disability porn’ makes its way to Netflix 

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It’s happened to every disabled person. You’re going about your normal day and then BAM someone pulls the ‘i’ word on you… inspiration.  

You’re at the supermarket, trying to find the frozen berries and BAM! the elderly lady next to you can’t contain herself, to her, you’re an inspiration.  

This would all be very confusing, except here in Australia, disabled people are lucky enough to have the wisdom of Stella Young all around us, to guide us and explain these weird phenomenons.  

Stella was a comedian, writer, disability activist and self-described “crip”. 

She also coined the phrase “inspiration porn”, saying that disabled people and images of us are often used to “inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, well, no matter how bad my life is it could be worse – I could be that person.” 

“And I use the term porn deliberately because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people.

“In this case, we’re objectifying disabled people for the benefit of non-disabled people,” Stella famously remarked in her much-loved TedX talk.  

I knew Stella’s words were far reaching, but even I was shocked when I stumbled upon them in a US Netflix show about a bunch of alcoholics trying, and failing, to get their lives back on track.  

In fact, a whole episode of Season 3 of LouderMilk is dedicated to Stella Young. So of course, I had to watch. If for no other reason than to make sure they had gotten Stella’s message right.  

The episode centres around Rodger, a middle-aged member of the AA group who plays guitar and just so happens to have short arms. Rodger is taken aback when fellow member Claire invites him to her university class, as she drew a painting of him and her professor would now like to give him an award. 

An award? He is shocked. Why does he deserve an award?  

To Claire and the audience, it’s pretty clear why he’s getting an award… they’ve taken pity on him. But when directly asked why, Claire – and in my experience most people in real life – suddenly can’t say the true bit out loud. So, Claire lies and says the award is for his guitar skills.  

As things eventuate, it’s pretty clear Rodger isn’t there for his guitar skills, given no one knows he even plays guitar, but as he speaks, even more people find him inspiring.  

Now he’s up for a bravery award. But this time, he’s in on the real reason he’s being celebrated. 

An internal conflict, one disabled people have all had before, starts to churn. Do you just accept the praise and thank people for being nice or do you call it out? 
 

Well, the episode wouldn’t be dedicated to Stella if Rodger didn’t call it out.  

As Stella so clearly articulated-

“I want to live in a world where we don’t have such low expectations of disabled people that we are congratulated for getting out of bed and remembering our own names in the morning. I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people.” 

So Rodger doesn’t get his award, but he does do something way more, dare I say, inspiring, he asks the audience to challenge how they view disabled people in the world and he demands more of himself.  

As Stella said, “disability doesn’t make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.”