Getting your kit off on TV

Emma Bowler explores the merits of Channel 4’s wish to screen disabled people who’ll bare all

Some people will do anything to get on television. They’ll reveal their darkest secrets, take part in Jerry Springeresque slanging matches and in How to Look Good Naked (HTLGN) they’ll strip off.

As a disabled person with various disability-related body hang-ups, I couldn’t think of anything worse, but word has it that the hunt is on for disabled contributors for the next series.

Alison Walsh, editorial manager, Disability Channel 4 says, “It’s simply inclusion at work. The aim of the series is for the person to feel comfortable in their own skin and disabled people might have as much of a problem with that as anyone.”

It’s possible that the inclusion of a nude photo shoot in Britain’s Missing Top Model inspired the HTLGN production team since, as Walsh admits, they were “quite envious of the publicity Britain’s Missing Top Model (BMTM) had”.

BMTM runner-up Sophie Morgan can’t wait to see disabled contributors on HTLGN. “I think it’s a brilliant idea!” she says. “Disability and nudity are not often juxtaposed and I think they should be. The feeling of freedom from inhibition when I posed nude was fantastic. I felt the experience was very rewarding, as I think it encouraged women – disabled or not – to feel more comfortable with themselves.”

But Dr Paul Darke, artist and writer, says: “Channel 4 call it mainstreaming but that doesn’t work on its own if they’re trying to give viewers an accurate picture of our lives. To do that we need our own programmes as well.”

Dr Darke predicts: “They’ll go for more attractive disabled people.” Indeed that would be less of a challenge for Gok Wan, the fashion stylist who has come to fame through HTLGN, than picking someone with a real physical disfigurement because the show tends to highlight the fact that most people’s hang-ups are in their head rather than their bodies. A more interesting programme would be to see how they’d get someone to love a tangible disfigure­ment, even at risk of the inevitable gawping.

An even greater feat would be to incorporate that element of the show where the people they accost on the street say positive things about that person.

The bottom line (so to speak) is that not all disabled people are hung up about the way they look. If Wan can get that message across, help a few disabled individuals gain some confidence, give the rest of a us a few tips and the general public some inspiring insight then that would be great. But it’s a tall order.

Meanwhile I’ll be keeping my clothes firmly on and leaving the naked test to some other poor sod!