Back in the early 1990’s disability awareness training was the in-thing. The trick was to make participants feel like they were disabled. Trainers carried with them an assortment of tools. Blindfolds, earplugs and goggles that stimulated a variety of vision and loss conditions.
Participants of the training were required to negotiate their way around buildings in a wheelchair, with the goggles, with ear muffs or in a blindfold. They put in earplugs, then covered their ears with earmuffs and carried out conversations with each other. They then debriefed.
Responses were fascinating. Some participants would be moved to tears. “Sob Sob… Sniff sniff .. I had no idea that not being able to see was so hard…. Sob Sob” Others would exclaim, ” …It’s so inspiring that people can get around in a wheelchair through these little gaps, they are so cleeeeeevvver..” If you were a disabled person helping with the training you would get any number of compliments ..”.. its amazing what you can do.” …” … it must be sooooo hard to lipread like that all daaaaaay!!!”
I was reminded of this training after watching Dancing With the Stars last night. There is a blind man dancing. Granted, its very hard for him to dance given dance requires the person have good spatial awareness and be able to see how they move. I have no idea when the man, Gerrard, lost his sight. At a guess I would say it was fairly early in his life given his lack of awareness of his posture and space. He danced very badly, yet the audience rose as one to applaud him.
His attempts at a Michael Jackson move were, quite frankly, comical and gruesome to watch. Yet, still the audience rose as one. He did danced a solo, which took some guts, but at the end of the day, as judge Todd said, he couldn’t dance. Good on Todd for having the sense to not patronise him and just say it as it is.
Of course the judgement could not pass without the customary “INSPIRING” comments. bottom line … Gerrard cant dance. Although he is an excellent mountain climber, having climbed Everest. Gerrard, to his credit, acknowledges that he cant really dance and makes fun of himself. In reality, I bet he inwardly cringes at some of the comments and the over-reaction of the audience.
More people should be like the legendary Andrew Denton. Denton knows how to present disability issues. He does it in a forthright way and is unafraid to see the funny side of disability. Denton was responsible for the fabulous Money for the Gun. One of its shows was called Year of the Patronising Bastard.
I vividly recall being in hysterics with one skit that took the mickey out of the type of disability training that I described in the opening paragraph. In the skit there are three participants. The participants are wearing blindfolds, they have earmuffs, white canes and their mouths are taped. Denton accosts the participants as they are attempting to negotiate the stairs. The three are stumbling along banging into each other. He asks them questions .. Whats it like to be blind? .. Of course they can’t hear him … They mutter through their taped over their mouths, bang into each other a few more times and continue on their way.
Denton is left bemused with his microphone as they continue to negotiate the stairs totally unaware of his presence. In this one skit Denton hit the nail on the head, namely that such disability awareness training is less useful than it is patronising.
In the same show Denton interviews a man who had little more than a head and a body. Denton interviewed the man about his interests and hobbies and things that made his life worthwhile. The man spoke of his love of bike riding. Apparently, he loved to ride. His friends would place him in a backpack, head showing and ride with him on their back. The man told an hilarious tale of shocked motorists, seeing this head sticking out of the back of a cyclist backpack and swerving in shock. It was a fabulous way to portray people with a disability and reminded us that disability is a life to be lived and not a tragic and lesser way of living.
Gerrard survived the cut last night. This is despite clearly being the worst dancer there. He is a great bloke with a dry wit. However, if we are honest, he is surviving solely on the sympathy vote. Sure it takes some skill to catch his partner as she spins and jumps. It speaks volumes for his skill of judging space and his tactile awareness. It also speaks volumes for his partner who puts so much trust in him to catch her.
But truth be known Gerrard cant dance, he is like a board and just does the steps by rote. Yes, that’s partly cos he is blind, but by giving him the sympathy vote we are arguably putting the disability movement back ten years. Thankfully, Gerrard is a realist and helps us along with his sense of humour. Says Gerrard, “.. If I start smelling popcorn I will know I am in the audience.” And that is how I like it. I only wish others around him would be a little more realistic about his dancing ability. Because Gerrard seems to be the only one who can see the funny side of things.
The Rebuttal 
I agree with you Gary. I saw the first episode, simply to see the Blind Guy….. everything you say is true, however, the biggest point being missed, is the opportunity for two different perspectives: sight and non-sight, to actually work.
In other words, the dancing is conducted solely from the seeing point of view. No attempt is made to mine Gerrard for his experience of space, movement etc as a blind person.
Further more, Gerrard’s sense of hearing would be more acute, and the way sound works for him, would help him map out space.
A blind person experiences spatial awareness, but it is different to the way sighted people experience it. A real teacher/ artist would explore that different perspective and work out how to incorporate that perspective with the sighted perspective.
Only then can you truly judge.
So for all the challenge that Gerrard takes on, it is on seeing terms. Not equal partnership terms. Which is the point of a team on that show.
Todd, while he doesn’t patronise Gerrard, still talks out of his arse, because he sees it purely as a disability, and not as a different way of seeing.
So for all their rising to the feet, to applaud his attempts, the audiences and judges are really pointing out that he is not like them, because he has a deficiency. That point was made from the very first episode.
And the applause is really a patronising and condescending emphasis of Gerrard who is not like them.
Thank you Gary for having the gumption to tell it how it is.
I have been watching “Dancing With The Stars” and have been cringing at the manner in which Gerard is treated and portrayed.
I am particularly disturbed at how the producers tend to use his blindness as a marketing gimmick in order to attract viewers. For example, before Gerard’s performance in the first episode, the host introduced him by calling for all the lights to be switched off to seemingly give viewers a first-hand sense of Gerard’s existence and the barriers which he must overcome in order to compete. This reeks of the patronising disability awareness techniques which you have referred to in your article; the reality is that there are differing degrees of legal blindness – cases where the blind person cannot even differentiate between light and dark do occur, but are rare.
Secondly, in the promotion for last night’s episode a judge was heard to comment “How is Gerard going to cope?” when it was discovered that the contestants would be required to dance solo. How patronising!!!
The point that I’m trying to make is that I find Gerard’s presentation so hypocritical – at the conclusion of his opening performance in the first episode the judges and even Gerard himself made strong points about the fact that he would expect no favours – he wanted to be assessed on his abilities as a dancer first and foremost rather than have allowances made for him due to his blindness.
When all is said and done, both Gary and Todd are correct – Gerard simply can’t dance. For audience members to state otherwise based on the fact that he is blind suggests that we are the ones who are truly blind, not Gerard.
I concur with Adam. We need to be reminded that Todd’s role is to judge the dancing not the disability. He has a close affinity with the Deaf community and a certain Deaf woman to know true well the issue in regards to ‘patronising’ unlike the other judges.
In any case Gerrard is wanting to prove himself (as he has done in climbing mountains and in athletics) and I get the sense there is a bit of deliberate bickering in order to stir the audience and viewers up which would please producers no doubt.
I noticed how last week Gerrard had the lowest score but manage avoid elimination. He seems to have quite a high viewers backing so I suspect we may see more of these twist and turns in the coming weeks.