Model meets role model

Is it good television having disabled people fighting it out for a magazine photo spread? Emma Bowler has been watching the TV series that sought to match disability with the fashion trade

BBC Three’s Britain’s Missing Top Model [BMTM] seems to have hit the mark.

For starters it’s so rare to see disabled people on TV that just having disabled women on the screen is enormously refreshing – let alone the fact that they are openly discussing disability, being catty, wooing judges and looking beautiful.

The fact that the series involves well-known names in the world of fashion also gives it credibility.

There’s industry expert Jonathan Phang, who helped launch the careers of Jodie Kidd and Naomi Campbell; Wayne Hemingway, co-founder of fashion label Red or Dead and Hemingway Design; Marie O’Riordan, editor of Marie Claire magazine; Mark Summers, casting director; and Lara Masters, disabled actor, presenter and writer.

Beauty is very much the name of the BMTM game, as contestant Jessica says. “I wanted to be on this show because I want people to go, ‘Wow, you can be disabled and do that, you can be disabled and pretty.’”

Lara Masters adds: “I’m sure there will be a backlash from disabled people com­plaining about the show being elitist but the industry is elitist and disability has no role at present. We were trying to change that.”

It affected Jonathan Phang, the contestants’ mentor. “I’m embarrassed at what I used to think. What I thought was the epitome of beauty is ludicrous really. Who was I to judge and why shouldn’t I have considered disabled girls to be beautiful?”

Will BMTM give us the result we want? Wayne Hemingway says: “I thought the girl that won had guts but there was another whom I preferred. I think she would have probably done more towards highlighting attitudes towards disability. But it’s like football. I always want the underdog to win!”

The winner may have been chosen more for her looks than for her ability to be a disabled role model too. That’s disappointing but when you are dealing with an industry that, as Hemingway puts it, is “morally bankrupt”, it’s going to take more than a six-part series to change all that. At least the series has the potential to change the opinions of viewers, which could be a winning result in itself.