In 1824, German musician and composer Ludwig van Beethoven composed his “Symphony No. 9” while being completely deaf in both ears; in 1889, while spending time in a psychiatric hospital, French painter Vincent Van Gogh painted “The Starry Night;” and in the 1960s, American singer-songwriter and pianist Ray Charles pioneered the development of soul music while being blind. Neurodivergent people and those with physical disabilities have always been involved in the creation of art. Yet, there are those who are still shocked at the notion of someone with a disability being capable of creating artwork or engaging in performing arts. Many people who see those with disabilities creating art choose to use this common reality as a sense of inspiration for themselves. The late comedian and disability activist Stella Young defined this as “inspiration porn” in her 2014 Ted Talk entitled, “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much.”
In her Ted Talk, Young talks about how being in a wheelchair made those around her treat her as if she were an inspiration for simply being alive and existing as a disabled person. She opens her discussion by telling a story of a member of her community trying to nominate her for a community achievement award when she was fifteen, only because she was living her life with a disability. Young says, “I wasn’t doing anything that was out of the ordinary at all. I wasn’t doing anything that could be considered an achievement if you took disability out of the equation.” Many disabled people go through similar experiences of being praised for being “brave” or “inspiring,” and although these comments may be well-intentioned, they create a harmful view of disabled people as existing only for the inspiration and betterment of those without disabilities.
As Stella Young said in her Ted Talk while speaking about how some people use disabled people doing everyday tasks as inspiration, “Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.” Young highly criticizes the idea that disabled people only exist to be an inspiration for non-disabled people and emphasizes the fact that disabled people have identities of their own outside of the fact that they are disabled. In addition to this, Young discusses the idea that what truly disables someone is not their physical body but the society around them that treats them differently because of their physical body. She says, “Life as a disabled person is actually somewhat difficult. We do overcome some things. But the things that we’re overcoming are not the things that you think they are. They are not things to do with our bodies. I use the term “disabled people” quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what’s called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.”
Stella Young advocated for the truth that disabled people are so much more than their disabilities. Despite being disabled herself, she was also a writer, a comedian, and an activist who was not merely defined by her body or her disability. Stella Young concluded her TedTalk by saying, “Disability doesn’t make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.” We should all strive to reflect and consider the way that we view and think about people with disabilities and help to create a world where, in the words of Stella Young, “disability is not the exception, but the norm.”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.