I'm Spazticus Page 2

Quote: Loopey @ August 21 2012, 9:53 AM BST

They had a choice about appearing in it; that doesn't smack of exploitation to me.

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Good point. I've not seen this yet but from what I've read they seem to be people more with physical disabilities. Unfortunetly some people still seem to think that becuase your legs, arms, ears etc don't work like everyone elses, neither does your brain.
Of course if those taking part did have intellectual disabilities then there might need to be a few things in place to make sure they weren't been exploited but even then it would need to judged on case by case basis.

Quote: Loopey @ August 21 2012, 10:18 AM BST

On Jon Snow's Paralympic Show last night I was dismayed by how he cut off the guests, talked over them and didn't seem to actually listen or respond to what they said. It left me wondering why it's called his show. Why not The Paralympic Show with Jon Snow, or presented by Jon Snow.

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Because he's the can-do-no-wrong darling of Channel 4.

“The huge difference is our ettiquette to the disabled is being strongly challenged and we cannot react as we would to the able bodied. When we are being played with in public view by a disabled prankster it puts us in a difficult social position, to put it mildly.”

So if someone saw a person in a wheelchair attached to a parachute stuck in a tree and then discovered it was a joke, they couldn’t react as they would to someone able bodied?

It’s a prank show, people react to pranks. The prankers have set themselves up for a reaction, good, bad or indifferent. People are ‘played with’ in any prank show. If this one causes them to feel they have been put in a difficult social position that says more about them than the prankster.

“When social protocol has it that we treat disabled people with respect and dignity, and then they play a cheap prank on us, with their disability as the centrepiece of the practical joke, then this social protocol is severely compromised or even subverted. To me, this isn't a very nice idea. The bits I saw, the victims or onlookers looked very uncomfortable with it but still showed dignity to the pranksters.”

What does social protocol tell us about how we should treat non-disabled people? With respect and dignity? When they play a cheap prank on someone, with the centrepiece being their particular brand of humour, talent, strengths, weaknesses - isn’t social protocol severely compromised or even subverted? To me, this isn’t a very nice idea. Victims and onlookers often look uncomfortable with it all, but still show dignity to the pranksters – assuming dignity means going along with it, laughing, not showing anger or distress.

Respect and dignity are not generically exclusive.

“But what happens when they prank some lesser person who treats them with disgust and revulsion and tells them what they think of them? Will they screen any like that??? I doubt it, but at the core of the idea, it seems this is what the show is attempting to provoke.”

It seems to me that at the core, the programme is attempting to prank people and provoke a reaction, just like other prank shows.
If all prank shows were to screen all pranks and reactions, some of which no doubt are not favourable towards the pranksters, this would give the viewer an accurate picture of how the public perceives pranksters of any ability. Those who are pranked could be disgusted and repulsed by any prankster.

Ok, the Blind Corner gag was funny.

Quote: Aaron @ August 21 2012, 12:59 PM BST

Because he's the can-do-no-wrong darling of Channel 4.

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Hopefully this shambles will change their minds.

An interesting interview with one of the Spazticus cast.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-08-19/peter-mitchell-im-spazticus-will-shock-but-were-just-having-fun

I found it very odd. I can't really work out what they were trying to do - as a hidden-camera prank show it wasn't very good because the pranks weren't really very funny and didn't produce funny reactions. As a show designed to highlight public attitudes to physical disability the only thing it really showed was that people often tend to use gestures when talking to blind people. I don't think the physical disabilities of the performers really had much to do with the reactions of the public - people seemed to behave exactly as they would if they encountered an able-bodied person behaving in the same way.

I'm not really sure they're trying to do anything much? Just say 'hey, disabled people are just that - people - and can laugh at themselves', I think? Not really prove any major point or highlight differences in attitude.

I can't imagine they'd have been upset if weird, massive differences in attitudes ended up being exhibited though!

(And just give a job to some disabled actors, I suppose.)

Quote: Aaron @ August 22 2012, 6:09 PM BST

I'm not really sure they're trying to do anything much? Just say 'hey, disabled people are just that - people - and can laugh at themselves', I think? Not really prove any major point or highlight differences in attitude.

I can't imagine they'd have been upset if weird, massive differences in attitudes ended up being exhibited though!

(And just give a job to some disabled actors, I suppose.)

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Agree. Now why didn't I just say that instead of all that waffle

But it seemed like they were making a massive deal out of the fact that the performers were disabled. It didn't feel like watching a comedy show where the performers just happened to be disabled. The bit in the first ep (I have, admittedly, only seen the first episode) where they had a girl rate the disabilities in order of preference seemed to suggest "How awful to view human beings that way" but they asked her to do it! The same with the poor guy who was asked to pretend he had cerebral palsy - what were we supposed to get from that? He did what he was told, he didn't seem to relish it, he didn't seem mortified either. And with the talking to the guide-dog bit - it's not like she actually thought she was talking to a specially-trained dog, she will have assumed she was talking to someone on a radio receiver. Neither funny, nor pre-conception challenging.

Quote: Harridan @ August 22 2012, 6:25 PM BST

But it seemed like they were making a massive deal out of the fact that the performers were disabled.

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I think that's just Channel 4 trying to talk up and make a big point of the show, because they're covering the Paralympics.

Quote: Harridan @ August 22 2012, 6:25 PM BST

It didn't feel like watching a comedy show where the performers just happened to be disabled. The bit in the first ep (I have, admittedly, only seen the first episode) where they had a girl rate the disabilities in order of preference seemed to suggest "How awful to view human beings that way" but they asked her to do it! The same with the poor guy who was asked to pretend he had cerebral palsy - what were we supposed to get from that? He did what he was told, he didn't seem to relish it, he didn't seem mortified either.

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Again, I don't think we're supposed to 'get' any message more than that disabled people can laugh at themselves, and at how they're viewed by others; that they may not be able to see, that they may have only half a limb, but their brains work just fine. And to see the gullibility of the general public to agree to 'rate' disabilities, as if they're really comparable in such a manner.

Quote: Harridan @ August 22 2012, 6:25 PM BST

And with the talking to the guide-dog bit - it's not like she actually thought she was talking to a specially-trained dog, she will have assumed she was talking to someone on a radio receiver. Neither funny, nor pre-conception challenging.

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I would guess, if there's any 'point' to that at all, then it's about seeing how far people can be pushed - just like in any prank show, I suppose. If any normal member of the public out walking his dog asked you to talk to the animal, you'd probably tell him to f**k off. At very least you'd give him a very strange look and walk away. Yet this was a blind man with his guide dog, and so despite not actually believing that it was a talking dog, they carried on and did as the guy asked. Is that maybe an interesting example of the extra leeway and tolerance that most of the general public pay to people with disabilities?

I was just amused by the dog's responses, but then I'm simple like that.

Quote: sootyj @ August 21 2012, 10:19 AM BST

I watched about half of it. Cheap, lazy and not very funny.

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Ditto

Most prank shows rely on surprise and shock or at the very least surrealist pranking.

So Beadles ABout went all out to carefully convince a poor sap. That they genuinely had pushed their van into a river etc.

Or Trigger Happy TV would have the surrealist idea of a man with an impossibly huge phone shouting into it.

Thats where the humour came in. Wheres the humour here?

There's minimal surprise and no real surrealism. Its just theres a disabled person, they're a bit diferent? Thats funny isn't it?

And as for it being a place for disabled actors.

In the 70s there were always jobs for black actors; as pimps and prison rapists.

Actors always sell their principles.

Quote: sootyj @ August 22 2012, 9:06 PM BST

Most prank shows rely on surprise and shock or at the very least surrealist pranking.

So Beadles ABout went all out to carefully convince a poor sap. That they genuinely had pushed their van into a river etc.

Or Trigger Happy TV would have the surrealist idea of a man with an impossibly huge phone shouting into it.

Thats where the humour came in. Wheres the humour here?

There's minimal surprise and no real surrealism. Its just theres a disabled person, they're a bit diferent? Thats funny isn't it?

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I think that's what I meant. Everything seems to be relying on the fact that they are disabled, but they haven't done anything with that. They haven't really expanded that into comedy, they've just sort of said "We're disabled! Now react to us!"

Quote: Aaron @ August 22 2012, 8:50 PM BST

I would guess, if there's any 'point' to that at all, then it's about seeing how far people can be pushed - just like in any prank show, I suppose. If any normal member of the public out walking his dog asked you to talk to the animal, you'd probably tell him to f**k off. At very least you'd give him a very strange look and walk away. Yet this was a blind man with his guide dog, and so despite not actually believing that it was a talking dog, they carried on and did as the guy asked. Is that maybe an interesting example of the extra leeway and tolerance that most of the general public pay to people with disabilities?

I was just amused by the dog's responses, but then I'm simple like that.

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I think if a blind person asked me to give directions to their dog I'd think they were taking the piss, but if that dog then started 'talking' I'd assume that there was a sort of live satnav setup. ie. you were giving instructions to the guy in the office talking through the receiver. It would obviously seem odd, but not entirely outrageous. It just seems like if you're going to play on the fact that people are more willing to help disabled people you have to do more with it than what they did. As Sooty said, there has to be something outrageous. If they'd managed to get that woman to give directions to the dog without the voice coming from its collar that might have been funny. If they'd really laid it on thick with the stuffed dog to get the delivery guy to lie about what he'd received. It felt like an experiment in how people talk to disabled people in slightly odd situations more than a prank show.

OK, yeah, I see what you mean there. Can't really disagree with those points.