Wednesday 28 April 2010

One man's humour...

...is another man's (or woman's) offence... My friend wrote as his Facebook status the other day: "saw a rather offensive car window sticker on the drive home tonight". As my mate's got a dry sense of humour, I expected it to be something either insulting to his beloved footy team, or something salacious. Not a bit. The sticker read: "Men are like parking spaces. The good ones are all taken, the only ones left are handicapped or too small". I'd seen this "joke" before, and it upset me then, and nothing's changed since. It's simply not acceptable to parade around this disablist (not to mention sexist) humour. You try driving around with a racist sticker on your car, and see how far you get. We are sick to the back teeth of being the butt of people's jokes, and this is by no means an isolated incident (see my previous post). Meanwhile, the only disabled character in EastEnders has been axed. I know there are other characters who are disabled in soaps, but surely the more we are seen, the more "normal" we become, and therefore less likely to be seen as figures of fun? Discuss.

2 comments:

Fran said...

Honestly, I don't like racism or xenophobia, so I find those stickers rather upsetting... We're all equals. That's my belief.

(I have replied to your comments in my blog)

Fran xx

Helen said...

Hello Fran! I'm sorry, I must've missed your reply.


Yes, we're all "created equal" as it says in the Declaration of Independence - but that doesn't always work out.

Thanks!

Helen xx

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