Top Ten TV Shows with a Disabled Character

This show has been getting a lot of negative attention for its casting of a non-disabled actor to play paraplegic Artie. This is, of course, nothing new, though it would be nice if we were actually making progress towards hiring actors who have the disabilities portrayed. In defending the show, the actor has said that it is the same as a straight actor playing a gay role. I don't think that's accurate at all. A much better analogy is it is a white actor playing a black role by painting his face. Pretty offensive, right?

I don't think it's the show's fault. They just drew all the fire that was ready to explode. There's a frustrating catch-22 because the casting directors claim that they can't find disabled actors who can also sing and do the rest of the part. If more people who had disabilities were hired, it wouldn't be so difficult to find them! (And this is why I believe that disabled characters should be hired to play traditionally non-disabled roles, so that it will go both ways).

A lot of the portrayal of Artie has been very poor. Even the episodes focusing on him (of which there are far, far fewer than most of the other characters) are full of negative stereotypes and show little research.

Here are some of the criticisms:
No Glee for Disabled People
Glee-ful appropriation
Roundtable: disability in pop culture
If This Keeps Up

However, the show still makes the list.

One episode featured Zach Weinstein, a quadriplegic actor (would have been nice to see more of him!). Also, the whole show is far from realistic and believable. It's over the top and a bit weird and Artie's character is a part of that. I wish he were played by an actor with a disability, but this show is not the only one responsible for this problem.

This U.K. TV show is about an American who has just moved to Scotland and tries to make friends by starting a book club. One of the new members, Kenny, is a paraplegic. The first episode is a little iffy about his abilities, but the show quickly moves past that and turns out a very realistic portrayal.

Kerry MacGregor is also on the show for a few episodes as a love interest of Kenny's. She is a real life paraplegic and a runner up on The X-Factor show for her singing a few years ago.

I have not seen this show, but I've been hearing very good things. Apparently one character is a young boy who is paralyzed, but the real interest is a character who is a little person. The actor, Peter Dinklage, just won an Emmy. Peter Dinklage Thrown by Emmy Win

Tiffany Carlson's blog at New Mobility magazine has some wonderful things to say about this new show: "If you're not watching Game of Thrones yet, you are missing out on one of the best TV shows currently on-air. The really exciting thing about this show is that it touches on disability like no other show yet." http://www.newmobility.com/browse_thread.cfm?id=254&blogID=19

More praise here: Quixotic Autistic http://quixoticautistic.blogspot.com/2011/05/cripples-bastards-and-broken-things.html

Once I actually watch this show, it may well climb in the rankings!

I've only seen a few episodes of this show, but from what I could see they were well done. It's a story about football in a Texas town, but in the first episode the star player breaks his neck and becomes a quadriplegic. The show is a lot more about the unprepared boy who takes his place, it seems, yet he continues to be part of the show. I dropped in on an episode a few seasons in where Jason was still a big part of the show and his story was very realistically portrayed.

I'm personally not that fond of this show. The premise is a high school chemistry teacher finds out he has cancer and can't get treatment covered by insurance, so he tracks down an old student of his and they start making and selling meth. Very strong premise, for sure. My problem was that it was 1) extremely dark, 2) I didn't feel much connection with the main character, but mostly 3) the main character didn't seem to have any spark with his own family. I couldn't buy that his wife was his wife and he seemed to care a lot more about the delinquent student than show any interest in his son. However, lots of people love this show!

His son is the reason the show is on this list. The character has cerebral palsy. From the handful of episodes I watched, it seemed to be very well handled. As in, pretty much in the background. He's a regular teenager. The actor who plays him also has CP and that has been big excitement in the media, however the actor has much, much milder CP than the character and some of the statements the actor has made have been rather sickening from a disability rights perspective:

Q: Last year you took up ballroom dancing classes in your spare time. Did you continue them this season?

A: Not as much. I actually went to a homecoming with a friend while I was out there, so the ballroom dancing paid off. That was a wise choice. I also like to go running in the mountains, which is a big difference from Walter Jr. I feel bad for people in wheelchairs and people who have to use crutches. I hate being immobile. That's one of my biggest fears, to be paralyzed. RJ Mitte Interview

A strange one for the list. The main characters are not disabled, but there are several recurring characters who are. Marlee Matlin guest stars at one point as a Deaf lawyer. Tracy Ashton is in several episodes as a single leg amputee whom Earl stole a car from. Her triple amputee boyfriend also shows up, played by Cameron Clapp . There is an episode about Quad rugby featuring real wheelchair users, such as Katy Sullivan, a double amputee actress AND my newest celebrity crush Christopher Thornton

It's a wacky, zany show and I can appreciate how characters who have disabilities are equally a part of the craziness.

Another show doing something similar is The Office

They have a couple of episodes with real-life paraplegic Marcus York where Steve Carell's character makes ridiculous and ignorant remarks.

This was a great cartoon show in the 90s. The premise is that a middle aged Egon is teaching classes at a college in NYC when ghosts reappear and his class of four misfits become the new ghost busting team. The episodes were well written for a kid's TV show and the character of Garrett was particularly well handled.

He was the adrenaline junkie, sports guy and he was a paraplegic. An accident in his childhood is mentioned in passing in one episode, but no details are ever given. Garrett is completely confident and sure of himself as he is. His disability very rarely comes in to play, though he does occasionally use it to trick a bad guy.

Though I loved the Gremlins episode, my very favorite was "The True Face of a Monster." In that episode there is a rash of vandalism of Jewish temples and the Rabbi's assistant calls on a stone gollum to defend it. Garrett runs into some old friends who are kind-of low-life thugs and petty criminals. He starts hanging out with them again, scamming people in basketball and jumping off buildings with a parachute. Then his new/old friends let him in on their real interest: vandalizing the temple. He is horrified and tries to stop them. In the end, he is the one who takes the biggest risk and is able to stop the gollum and the thugs.

The portrayal of the disabled character was so well done that the creators were interviewed for Ability Magazine

This would have been number one, but the character who uses a wheelchair is not in enough episodes. During the third season of this web-based show, the Guild goes up against their evil counterpart and one of those players is a tough-as-nails paraplegic woman played by Teal Sherer (of whom I am a big fan).

She's currently working on putting together her own show called My Gimpy Life, which I can hardly wait for. My Gimpy Life Trailer

A show on in the 90s, there are two seasons available. It is the story of Max, a genetically engineered female solider who escaped from her creators as a child and has been living in hiding, making a living as a cat burglar after a "pulse" wiped out computer systems in future-Seattle. In the first episode she meets Logan, a reporter who wants to make the world a better place. He gets Max to team up with him to do vigilante work. In that episode, Logan is shot and paralyzed and spends the rest of the series as a wheelchair user.

My favorite episode is called Haven. It gets Logan out of his apartment, which is rare! He and Max travel to a small town looking for an informant. The locals are dangerous and mean. In a nice reversal, Max is unable to fight the bad guys and Logan takes over. He beats the hec out of some bad guys from his wheelchair. Best line: "The great thing about the wheelchair is, it builds upper body strength."

Unfortunately, at some point Logan receives a gift of some DOD bionic legs and his disability is effectively removed.

This was a touching and fascinating show about a teenage girl who starts talking to God. God appears to her in different people, always looking and sounding different and guiding her towards things that will help her grow. Rather than preachy, it was beautifully honest about the challenges of faith and finding meaning in life.

Joan's older brother, Kevin, had been paralyzed in a car accident two years earlier. (Played by Jason Ritter, not actually disabled). Kevin is still in a bitter state, not willing to move on with his life. Over the course of the first season his world begins to expand. By the second season he is out of the house with a job and different love interests. As he becomes fully adjusted to being disabled, a law suit comes up that forces him to deal with emotions left over from the car accident.

It's a well done plot line. Believable except for one moment where he tells his girlfriend he can't live on his own because he needs help. All the paraplegics I know live on their own without help. Having seen his abilities over the course of two seasons, I am unable to believe that he couldn't live on his own.