Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Boycotting House

The story last night on "House" was about a teacher for children with special needs. Right before the teacher fell over in the classrrom vomiting blood a female student in a wheelchair was shown to pee in her pants. Nice characterization of special needs kids......on top of that, the wheelchair they had her in was the generic type you find parked in kmarts and walmarts for patrons with ambulatory problems. Having a special needs daughter with cp who has been in a wc for 16+ years, kids in wheelchairs that are clearly not their own and ones the must soil their underwear while in them are a pet peeve of mine. Later on House refers to brain damage the teacher may incur if not soon diagnosed and says she will need her own special ed class.

1 comment:

Allison said...

Oh, but it gets so much worse. The girl is not visibly disabled beyond her wheelchair and she's in a special ed classroom playing with glitter, which is not to say that I really wanted to see a child actor "acting" disabled, but just left a bad taste in my mouth. The idea that these high functioning maybe ten year olds were sequestered in a room being given hugs and playing with glitter and peeing. The activity and interactions were so meaningless and the character was heralded as so wonderful. Then later, her explaining how she is able to break through walls and teach people to conquer their physical disabilities. Ugg.