September 14, 2014 - 17:04
I came across this article last December. Someone must have posted it on Facebook. It's about a Swiss charity that created mannequins based on seven people with disabilities. The goal was to raise awareness that there's no such thing as a perfect body.
In addition to the series of photographs of the mannequins the charity created, there's a video of the process and several reactions to the mannequins being placed in the windows of storefronts.
Like many videos and articles we read about charity and disability and poverty and natural disasters and a whole host of other things, it's important to think about who the audience is and what the goal of putting this content out into the world is. Bouncing off of what Bridget's said about "slacktivism," I think this video and videos like it evoke some of the same feelings. As a temporarily able-bodied person, watching this video made me feel good. We like to see a happy ending. We like to think that there's change being made, no matter how small. Of course we agree that there's no such thing as a perfect body, and we like to feel that we're supporting a good cause.
But what is this video really doing? It feels to me that it's letting us off the hook of taking real action, by patting ourselves on the back and saying we "feel" the right way about disabled people and that as individuals we are accepting of all people.