Reality TV puts disabled women in beauty show

It is a beauty contest complete with a swimsuit round. But all the contestants in the latest reality format to sweep ratings-hungry broadcasters have a disability.

Contestants must display a “handicap visible to the eye” in Miss Ability, a Dutch show that became the surprise hit of 2006 in the Netherlands.



Twelve women, including amputees and wheelchair-bound contestants, parade in nightgowns and bathing suits.

They star in short films demonstrating how they have overcome severe disabilities before submitting to a viewer vote.

The Netherlands was the breeding ground for Big Brother. Now the rights to remake Miss Ability have been snapped up in Britain, France, Germany and the US.

Absolutely Independent, the Dutch producers, insist that the show does not patronise disabled people. But the prospectus does not suggest sensitivity. It reads: “Ever whistled at a woman in a wheelchair? Checked out the boobs of a blind babe? If the answer’s ‘no’, this barrier-breaking show will put an end to that.”

DLT Entertainment, the company behind My Family, the hit BBC One comedy, is making the show in Britain. The producers are promising that contestants will be empowered. Heather Mills, the estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney, is being approached to be the presenter.

British broadcasters will bid for the show in the new year. But there are fears that the trend for extreme reality shows could produce tasteless television. A recent Disney format invited patients needing brain or spinal tumour treatment and other life-threatening diseases to become guinea-pigs for pioneering surgery.


Outrageous! Simply outrageous! What is wrong with people??? Is America so starved for entertainment that contemptible producers of the atrocious just can’t devise new freak shows fast enough to fill the void? I don’t know who is more at fault, the people who produce this disgraceful drivel, the freaks who need attention so badly that they’re willing to sign away their self-respect for a few minutes in front of the camera, or the audience who just can’t seem to get enough. After all, if there were no audience, then the first two groups of offenders would be non-existent.

In order to shame us all, I was going to make a list of reality shows, at least the ones I could remember (which was only about six). I decided to do an Internet search because I knew there were many I'd forgotten. What I got was a list so long that I am now ashamed to even own a television. The list is far too vast to reproduce here.

This is the list.

Now I will admit, reluctantly, that I’ve watched the first and last season of American Idol. This happens when I tune in to see all the hilariously bad singers. Somehow I get sucked in. But even this show is repugnant. American Idol will never produce a Stevie Wonder, a Stevie Ray Vaughan, or a Steven Tyler. What this show DOES produce is a huge bank account for the producers. I read that more people voted in the finale of American Idol this year than voted for president in the last election. And these people are taking up space on our planet…

What Americans (and people of other countries) don’t seem to realize is, these call-in reality shows are simply a brilliant, moneymaking commercial that last for weeks. American Idol is one big commercial for Chevy, Ford, Pepsi, and whatever phone company is raking in the dough by taking your votes.

And while we’re on the subject of your votes, does it strike anybody as odd that Americans now think their opinions are so important that they will actually PAY to voice them? What an excellent racket! In essence, you are willing to give your hard-earned money so that someone else can become rich. You happily become poorer so that someone else can become richer, all so that your tiny voice may be heard.

A fool and his money really ARE soon parted…

I am truly sorry that women in wheelchairs are not getting catcalls and whistles, because those of us not in wheelchairs really LOVE that sort of attention. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve given my phone number and the invitation to father my children to some schmuck who yelled crude comments in my direction. We love having our self-worth measured by the size of our body parts. Truly we do. And now, thanks to reality TV, handicapped women will have the same opportunity.

Way to go, America!