At a recent event, one woman asked me what I think of advertisements that include people with Down syndrome and other visible disabilities. Another man asked me what I think of television shows with disabled characters. They both wondered whether the ads/shows seemed either exploitative or self-congratulatory to the companies producing them.

I was so grateful for these questions because they highlight some important tensions in how disability is portrayed in our culture. I gave a few thoughts in response.

• One, we can see these ads/shows as “too little too late” or as “better late than never.” I tend to take the latter view.
• Two, while these are certainly glorified representations of disabled lives—whether that’s the ability to verbalize words clearly with characters in Down for Love or the airbrushed images of babies on the walls of Target—so are all the images we see in advertisements and comparable television shows. The images we encounter on a daily basis on billboards and online ads and tv shows communicate who belongs in our everyday lives. I’m glad images of people with disabilities are a part of our collective imagination.
• And finally, in the past 20 years it isn’t only advertisements that have portrayed disabled characters. Increasingly we’ve seen these characters in children’s books, novels, movies, and shows. I have to wonder whether a documentary like Crip Camp or a film like CODA or books like A Storm of Strawberries and The Long Call would exist without these advertisements and shows.

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