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Research dear, research

Linda Bellos:

But it is reasonable to expect our television programmes to be more representative of British society. Where, for instance, is the disabled community on our screens – either as drivers or presenters? When have we had the feature on Top Gear about cars and motoring for disabled drivers?

And from the comments:

6 thoughts on “Research dear, research”

  1. If Linda Bellos really wants to fight the stereotyping of angry lesbians she could go a long way by not conforming to the popular prejudice of what one constitutes in every, single particular.

    As for people with life-challenging disabilities driving cars: a person very, very close to my heart has struggled against enormous odds to be a thoroughly capable driver of a wide range of motor vehicles, and withal utterly unaware of a Linda Bellos and, dare I say, comprehensively innocent of the necessity of a world with her in it.

  2. The BBC Security correspondent is in a wheelchair (Gardner?) and is regularly onscreen. But of course, he’s not representing a so-called “community” so that doesn’t count.

  3. Top Gear also did a feature on the fastest disabled drivers. And Kiff (I think) the one-armed soundman got a drive in competition against German Top Gear.

    I watch a lot of Dave.

  4. And they should drive only slow cars as so many car drivers do not drive fast one.
    Have they ever raced a nissan micra?
    we need more equality and all that stuff. That’s what we need.
    ( though who wants to copy british society as it is now)

  5. Well now hold on just a mo there. Even taking the highest figure of the UK population that would count as “Disabled” according to the UK Disability Discrimination Act, it only amounts to a total of 15% of the population.

    Even if we accept that one single program (and why this particular one I have no idea) should indeed be representative, we must then accept it actually is.

    DDA definitions include people with learning difficulties or brain injuries. Hammond makes up 33.3% of the presenting team. Therefore according the legal definition Top Gear is more than representative.

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