Inspiration porn
From 2021.
People who follow a lot of disability advocates on social media, whether you’re disabled or not yourself, have likely heard this term. If you haven’t, though: it is a term coined by the disability rights activist Stella Young, and it refers to when able-bodied people treat disabled people as inspirational for existing. It’s the stories about disabled people "overcoming" their disability that are exploited by non-disabled people as a way for them to gain “inspiration” and other positive emotions. In inspiration porn, which could be a movie or social media post or news article, you will often hear a non-disabled person saying things like "this disabled person overcame their disability" or "they didn’t let their disability stop them." Disabled people can also be used as inspiration porn for doing basic, everyday tasks that most non-disabled people wouldn’t expect them to still be able to do. Inspiration porn is viewed as extremely offensive to most disabled people, and something you should avoid at all costs. You can find a lot that other disabled people have said about it online, but I’m going to expand a bit with my own thoughts.
I believe the general agreement is that inspiration porn is a form of ableism rooted in the belief that disabled lives are only worth living if the person "overcomes" the disability, or at least seems to have overcome it in the eyes of non-disabled people. The stories also benefit the non-disabled people because they make them feel good, even though the stories of disabled people should be viewed as valuable even if they don't benefit non-disabled people in any way, or if they don't make them feel anything positive. It's also just plain condescending - we are treated as inspirational simply for existing, and doing things everyone else does, because our ableist society teaches people that we are incapable of doing anything. But it isn't rare for disabled people to find ways to keep living and enjoying our lives in our own ways. Disability is only a tragedy in the eyes of non-disabled people. We may feel sorry for ourselves sometimes, but we're not wallowing in self-pity and hating ourselves 24/7. We find ways to get by, however "getting by" may look for us - and sometimes we may even thrive.
I saw on some news show (a common place you may find inspiration porn) a segment that I felt was inspiration porn. A woman who was diagnosed as a teenager was telling her story of "not letting Cancer stop her from living her life and achieving her goals." It seemed to me that it left out a lot of aspects of disability and Cancer. What negative emotions did she experience? Why didn't they talk about her fear, her grief for the loss of her life before diagnosis? Did she ever feel anger or even self-pity - very human emotions that a disabled person, especially a Cancer patient, may go through? Was part of her drive to accomplish her goals stemming from her feelings that her life would be shortened, as the doctors had predicted? It didn't even focus much on positive emotions, such as relief when the Cancer did not progress - it mostly focused on her desire to keep doing things and "achieving her dreams." This provides the viewers with such a limited, one-dimensional view of disability that only appeals to a non-disabled person with a capitalist mindset. It's damaging for the disabled viewer who may want to know the more complicated truth about disability. And it robs the non-disabled viewer who wants to be an ally of a more realistic view of disability in all its complexities.
Inspiration porn is also damaging to disabled people who genuinely feel they cannot "overcome" their disability in the way the subjects of inspiration porn are deceptively portrayed to have "overcome" theirs. The truth is, there is no overcoming it - there is figuring out how to adapt based on the amount of treatment, resources, support, and accessibility that is available to you at that time. But someone who had to stop working, stop going to school, or give up on some of their dreams or hobbies will end up feeling like a failure if they are exposed to a lot of inspiration porn. They will feel like they didn't try hard enough, or its their fault that they're not living up to these standards set by non-disabled people who exploit inspiration porn stories.
Do disabled people ever perpetuate inspiration porn or internalize the ideas from it? Absolutely, for multiple reasons. Internalized ableism is widespread and impossible to avoid completely. Sometimes the disabled person simply isn't aware of how harmful it is, and other times they actually unfortunately buy into it and feel superior to other disabled people who haven't "achieved" as much as they have. Other times, the disabled person is the subject of inspiration porn because they are being blatantly exploited by the non-disabled person.
Another aspect of our society that fuels ableism as well as inspiration porn is capitalism. Capitalism says your worth is defined by how much paid labor you produce and how much you have achieved. These achievements, as defined by capitalism, are often related to employment or educational achievements. If you have achieved these things while disabled, you are more likely to be a subject of inspiration porn. Disabled people who haven't worked or graduated college are considered less valuable under capitalism. This means in order to be considered "valuable" in our capitalist society, you have to do these things even if they are not accessible to you or would affect your health, pain levels, or overall well-being. In some cases in America, a disabled person raising money for their own healthcare expenses is used as inspiration porn - instead of as a sad statement about our healthcare system.
Inspiration porn should be avoided at all costs if non-disabled people want to be allies to disabled people instead of perpetuating ableism. If a disabled person wants to share how they coped with disability or managed other responsibilities, that's okay and generally very different from inspiration porn narratives. Showing the positive AND the negative - even if that "negative" isn't what non-disabled people want to see - is not the same as "look at this person who overcame their disability" inspiration porn. Non-disabled people should remember that a disabled person's story is their own, and will be shared mostly to help other disabled people, not just to make non-disabled people feel good.